Category Archives: human rights

Anthony Weiner’s actions have nothing to do with Hillary Clinton | Lucia Graves | Opinion | The Guardian

Blame Weiner for all this, mock him, or feel sorry for him, but don’t blame Huma Abedin. She did nothing wrong, and any attempts to blame her here and insinuate Hillary Clinton into the equation are worse than purely political: they are blatantly sexist.A man who cheats on his wife does not reflect a shortcoming in his spouse – or in the woman who would hire her. If anything, the fact that these women have been able to withstand so much personal hardship in the face of unyielding political attacks is a testament to their character. We should respect them more for what they’ve been able to endure despite the sexually dysfunctional men in their lives, and despite whether they ultimately chose to stay with their husband, or not.

Source: Anthony Weiner’s actions have nothing to do with Hillary Clinton | Lucia Graves | Opinion | The Guardian

Vivas o Muertas: How Immigrant Women Inside Berks are Fighting for Liberation

In an open letter addressed to Jeh Johnson, the women wrote that many of their children have contemplated suicide and all lack proper care within Berks. Faced with few options, the mothers have resorted to organizing as their only way out. They said they plan to leave the Pennsylvania family detention center either “vivas o muertas”—alive or dead.While organizing puts the families at risk for backlash, risk taking is not new for these women. These are 22 mothers who came from Central America escaping violence, corruption, the impacts of climate change, and United States intervention and occupation. Twenty-two mothers who put their bodies on the line more than once: providing for their families in Central America, immigrating to the United States, surviving each day in detention, and finally having no other choice but to refuse to eat. Twenty-two mothers who wanted what was best for their families. Twenty-two mothers who have been retraumatized each day by the country they hoped would protect them.  Twenty-two mothers who are fighters reminding us they have power despite being detained.The 22 women on hunger strike are putting everything on the line for the safety of their families. As they enter their third week, the women are rapidly losing weight. We have a duty to these families. We have a duty to share their stories, to take action, to show up in genuine ways, and take action to end all deportations.

Source: Vivas o Muertas: How Immigrant Women Inside Berks are Fighting for Liberation

Monday Open Thread | The Protests At Standing Rock | 3CHICSPOLITICO

 

Lawrence O’Donnell: From the start of colonial intrusion, the free and original peoples of this hemisphere “have been treated as enemies and dealt with more harshly than any other enemy in any other war.”While this in itself is not news, the source of this statement is. This quote comes not from an activist, a historian or a researcher squirreled away in an obscure academic corner, but from a high-profile commentator speaking on MSNBC.“After all our other wars we signed treaties and lived by those treaties,” noted Lawrence O’Donnell at the segment at the end of the August 25 edition of his nightly news show The Last Word. “After World War 2 we then did everything we possibly could to help rebuild Germany.”In other words, “no Native American tribe has ever been treated as well as we treated Germans after World War 2.”

Source: Monday Open Thread | The Protests At Standing Rock | 3CHICSPOLITICO

Humans of New York

My best friend in the Marines was a guy named Ronnie Winchester. He was the nicest guy you can imagine. My 22nd birthday was during our officer training course. None of us had slept. We were all starving. We were only getting one ration per day. But Ronnie wanted to give me a memorable birthday. So he put a candle in his brownie and gave it to me. That’s how nice of a guy he was. Ronnie ended up getting killed in Iraq. And if a guy like Ronnie got killed, you can’t help but wonder why you deserve to be alive. Ronnie was 25 years old when he died. He is always going to be 25 years old. I have a wife and kids now. I get to grow old. But Ronnie Winchester is always going to be 25.”

Source: Humans of New York

Erdogan vows to ″destroy terrorists″ as force step up offensive against IS and Syrian Kurds | News | DW.COM | 29.08.2016 aka: Kurdish Genocide is still his only aim!

After months of deadly attacks across the country, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to “destroy terrorists.” In Syria, Turkish forces have ramped up their offensive against “IS” and Kurdish-led forces.

Source: Erdogan vows to ″destroy terrorists″ as force step up offensive against IS and Syrian Kurds | News | DW.COM | 29.08.2016

Pellet Guns Used in Kashmir Protests Cause ‘Dead Eyes’ Epidemic – The New York Times

The patient’s eyelids have been stretched back with a metal clamp, so his eyeball bulges out of glistening pink tissue. The surgeon sits with his back very straight, cutting with tiny movements of his fingers. Every now and then, a thread of blood appears in the patient’s eye socket. The patient is 8 years old.“Very bad,” murmurs the surgeon, Dr. S. Natarajan. But then, all 13 cases he will see today will be very bad.

Since mid-July, when the current wave of protests against the Indian military presence started, more than 570 patients have reported to Srinagar’s main government hospital, with eyes ruptured by lead pellets, sometimes known as birdshot, fired by security forces armed with pump-action shotguns to disperse crowds.

The patients have mutilated retinas, severed optic nerves, irises seeping out like puddles of ink. “Dead eyes,” the ophthalmology department’s chief calls them.Every season of popular revolt in Kashmir has its marker.

This summer’s protests in the part of Kashmir controlled by India, the most sustained and violent since 2010, caught the authorities in New Delhi unaware. The stone-throwing crowds have no political leaders, put forward no specific demands and metastasized with alarming speed. Around 60 civilians and two members of the security forces have been killed; on each side, thousands have been wounded.But 2016 will almost certainly be remembered as the year of dead eyes. The eye injuries have become such a focus of public anger that last week, in a conciliatory gesture, India’s home minister, Rajnath Singh, promised that the pellet guns, as they are known here, would be replaced by another type of nonlethal weapon in the coming days.

Source: Pellet Guns Used in Kashmir Protests Cause ‘Dead Eyes’ Epidemic – The New York Times

Amir-Moazami: ′France does not have a homogeneous mainstream culture′ | Europe | DW.COM | 28.08.2016

Schirin Amir-MoazamiIn France, the notion of a homogeneous mainstream society has not existed for centuries. This has a lot to do with the colonial past and more recently, with the country’s immigration policy. That is why it is difficult to speak of specifically “French” values, especially if we have to determine this in the matter of how much of a body is allowed to be visible in public. These values have always been linked to contexts outside of France. So it is regrettable that France has never analyzed this past in a critical manner – for example, by asking about its consequences and impact on life today. What is certain is that one can no longer speak of original “French” values.Nonetheless, the debate has been raging in France. The philosopher and bestselling author Alan Finkielkraut points out the fact that many French people complain they no longer feel at home in their own country.This statement seems problematic to me. What does “at home” mean with regard to a past in which France took its “home” to other parts of the world? Finkielkraut himself comes from a Jewish background that he has analyzed journalistically. Unfortunately, he does not apply his question to the present. He does not ask how it is for minorities today that are also stigmatized and reproduced as minorities. It is quite obvious that Maghreb Muslims did not come to Islamize France. Instead, it is a case of postcolonial immigration.Do you see opportunities that could turn the tense situation into a successful integration story?So much has gone wrong in France in particular, so it is really hard to offer reasonable guidance. Society has become so polarized – and Germany is showing a similar tendency – that the findings are relatively serious. The recent decision of the [French court] to suspend the burkini ban is a step in the right direction. It is right not to allow the problem to heat up even more and to polarize society even more. But it would also be sensible to not to let the burkini represent an Islamist or terrorist threat. It would also be wrong to conduct this debate at the expense of women. Instead, people should look at matters of social justice, for in France, as in Germany, Muslims represent a certain social class in which a certain culture has emerged and then been marginalized.

Source: Amir-Moazami: ′France does not have a homogeneous mainstream culture′ | Europe | DW.COM | 28.08.2016

Bolivia charges three miners over minister′s death | News | DW.COM | 28.08.2016 – Evo has let his ego rule and thus everyone is his enemy?

Illanes, a long time ally of the country’s left-wing president, Evo Morales, was only appointed to the deputy minister position in March.

Commenting on his death, Morales said the miners’ protest was a “political conspiracy” to topple his administration, with the opposition backing the strike.”

Now we are getting information and finding documents that say this is to take down the government,” he told a news conference.

The opposition denied the accusations and said the protests were sparked by the economical crisis in the country.”

Morales would do well to be critical of himself and set aside false conspiracy theories blaming the right wing and the media,” former President Jorge Quiroga said.

Source: Bolivia charges three miners over minister′s death | News | DW.COM | 28.08.2016

Localised Community Spread Of Zika Virus Infection With More Cases Confirmed | Ministry of Health

The Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed 41 cases of locally transmitted Zika virus infection in Singapore. Of these cases, 36 were identified through active testing of potentially infected persons.Aljunied Crescent/ Sims Drive Cluster2.    All the cases are residents or workers in the Aljunied Crescent/ Sims Drive area.  They are not known to have travelled to Zika-affected areas recently, and are thus likely to have been infected in Singapore. This confirms that local transmission of Zika virus infection has taken place.  At this point, the community transmission appears to be localised within the Aljunied Crescent/ Sims Drive cluster.

Source: Localised Community Spread Of Zika Virus Infection With More Cases Confirmed | Ministry of Health

‘No Vacancies’ for Blacks: How Donald Trump Got His Start, and Was First Accused of Bias – The New York Times

Looking back, Mr. Trump’s response to the lawsuit can be seen as presaging his handling of subsequent challenges, in business and in politics. Rather than quietly trying to settle — as another New York developer had done a couple of years earlier — he turned the lawsuit into a protracted battle, complete with angry denials, character assassination, charges that the government was trying to force him to rent to “welfare recipients” and a $100 million countersuit accusing the Justice Department of defamation.When it was over, Mr. Trump declared victory, emphasizing that the consent decree he ultimately signed did not include an admission of guilt.But an investigation by The New York Times — drawing on decades-old files from the New York City Commission on Human Rights, internal Justice Department records, court documents and interviews with tenants, civil rights activists and prosecutors — uncovered a long history of racial bias at his family’s properties, in New York and beyond.That history has taken on fresh relevance with Mr. Trump arguing that black voters should support him over Hillary Clinton, whom he has called a bigot.While there is no evidence that Mr. Trump personally set the rental policies at his father’s properties, he was on hand while they were in place, working out of a cubicle in Trump Management’s Brooklyn offices as early as the summer of 1968.Then and now, Mr. Trump has steadfastly denied any awareness of any discrimination at Trump properties. While Mr. Trump declined to be interviewed for this article, his general counsel, Alan Garten, said in a statement that there was “no merit to the allegations.” And there has been no suggestion of racial bias toward prospective residents in the luxury housing that Mr. Trump focused on as his career took off in Manhattan in the 1980s.In the past, Mr. Trump has treated the case as a footnote in the narrative of his career. In his memoir “The Art of the Deal,” he dispensed with it in five paragraphs. And while stumping in Ohio, he even singled out his work at one of his father’s properties in Cincinnati, omitting that, at the time, the development was the subject of a separate discrimination lawsuit — one that included claims of racial slurs uttered by a manager whom Mr. Trump had personally praised.

Source: ‘No Vacancies’ for Blacks: How Donald Trump Got His Start, and Was First Accused of Bias – The New York Times