Category Archives: human rights

Israel to coordinate with Google, YouTube, to censor Palestinian videos of conflict | PNN

The Israeli move comes amidst escalating tension in occupied Palestine, and a large number of videos, including those showing Israeli soldiers and officers killing Palestinians execution-style after injuring them, and many videos that in general highlight the suffering of the Palestinian people, living under the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine.The Israeli coordination with Google and YouTube has very serious implications, and many journalists have spoken out in opposition, saying it is a direct assault on the Freedom of the Press, as reported by IMEMC.All foreign journalists who report in the Occupied Territories are required to register with the Israeli military, and any footage that they film is required to go through the Israeli Military Censor’s office before it can be released.With the recent advances in technology, many Palestinians and other civilians have been able to post videos uncensored online.According to IMEMC, The Israeli government has frequently voiced its discontent with this development, and have worked to find ways to continue to censor videos coming out of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Source: Israel to coordinate with Google, YouTube, to censor Palestinian videos of conflict | PNN

The British Labour Party announced they are no longer going to be using G4S for their conference security | PNN

The British Labour announced they are no longer going to be using G4S for their security. This decision by the Labour Party, which now represents 330,000 members and many more supporters, sends a clear message: our political parties can stand up and act ethically and responsibly, and this can be at the centre of how politics works.It tells G4S loud and clear that we won’t stand for their involvement in the ongoing occupation of Palestine, their connection to global violence, or their involvement in other dodgy deals in the UK, in South Africa and around the world. This is a step in the direction of truly respecting human rights in all that we do politically. This decision is a challenge not just to G4S, but to all businesses. If you turn a blind eye to violations of human rights purely to make a profit, you will lose business.

Source: The British Labour Party announced they are no longer going to be using G4S for their conference security | PNN

Behind migrant protests, children live in limbo at Macedonia′s border | Europe | DW.COM | 27.11.2015

“The things some of these kids draw, they’re awful,” said Iro Kofokotsios, 18. “People with guns, war, torture.” Kofkotsios had come with a group of volunteers from the YMCA to the Greek border with Macedonia “We couldn’t bring them shelter or food,” she continued, “but we thought maybe we could bring them smiles.”Here at the refugee camp near the town of Idomeni, Greece, smiles are hard to come by. After the Macedonian government announced last week that it would only allow migrants from Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq to cross its border, thousands here have been left behind. It’s led to daily protests, with the border at times being closed altogether. On Monday, a group of Iranian men sewed their lips together in desperation.But behind the crowds of angry, screaming men confronting the Greek riot police, in the camp set up by aid agencies, there are an estimated 70 children who are also stranded in this dusty no man’s land. Most are Iranian or Pakistani, with some from Morocco, Somalia, Sudan, Bangladesh and other countries. Many have come with their parents, others have come alone. But with the border now closed to these nationalities, all of them are stuck in refugee limbo.

Source: Behind migrant protests, children live in limbo at Macedonia′s border | Europe | DW.COM | 27.11.2015

Once in Guantánamo, Afghan Now Leads War Against Taliban and ISIS – The New York Times

At 54, Mr. Ghalib’s face is creased, and his eyes are both exhausted and watchful, as though all they really expect to see is the next bad turn that will befall his life. There have been many, including the death of both wives, his daughters, a sister and a grandchild at the hands of the Taliban.“I don’t have good memories of life, to be honest,” Mr. Ghalib said.In a recent interview in Kabul, he cataloged the enemies he has fought during a life of struggle — first the Soviets, during the jihad of the 1980s; then the Taliban over the next three decades; and now the Islamic State.More slowly, he recounted the long list of relatives he lost over these decades of calamity, from a brother who died in the war against the Soviets in the 1980s to his 70-year-old brother-in-law, who was beheaded this month. The Taliban killed more than 19 relatives in all.“Everything has been fighting and killing,” he lamented.Now, his latest fight has even pitted him against a man he once considered a close friend: a poet named Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost, whom he lived alongside in Guantánamo.

Source: Once in Guantánamo, Afghan Now Leads War Against Taliban and ISIS – The New York Times

Top European court upholds France′s headscarf ban | News | DW.COM | 26.11.2015

he Strasbourg-based international court’s ruling upholds a ban on employees in the public sector wearing headscarves and other religious symbols. In 2000, Muslim social worker Christiane Ebrahimian, who worked in the psychiatric department of a hospital in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre.When she learned that her contract would not be renewed because she refused to take off her headscarf despite complaints from patients and colleagues, she decided to sue the hospital, taking her case all the way to the European Court of Justice.The Strasbourg judges argued that the ban did not violate freedom of religion in a country where secularism and strict religious neutrality is enshrined in the constitution.Religious freedom, they stressed, did not mean a right to express their religious views in the workplace.

Source: Top European court upholds France′s headscarf ban | News | DW.COM | 26.11.2015

A silent coup in Poland? | News | DW.COM | 26.11.2015

The media’s ‘national duty’Now the PiS has set its eyes on the media.Shortly before a Breslau theater was set to premier its staging of Austrian playwright Elfriede Jelinek’s “Der Tod und Das Mädchen,” newly installed Culture Minister Piotr Glinski urged the performance to be called off amid talk that pornographic scenes would occur on stage. “Government money for culture will not be spent on pornography,” he said.When a television moderator from the channel TVP asked about the legal basis of his threat, Glinski dodged the question before offering threatening TVP in turn: “This program is propaganda, just like the propaganda and manipulation that your channel has been pushing for years,” he said. “That will end soon. Public television is not allowed to function like that.”The journalist was pulled as the program’s moderator and the culture minister soon announced that reform for rules governing the media were already in their “final phase.” It is so far known that state television and radio channels, as well as the Polish press agency PAP, will be cast as “national cultural institutions.” Their current boards will be swiftly replaced with people who in turn could be dismissed at any time.

Source: A silent coup in Poland? | News | DW.COM | 26.11.2015

From Indonesia, a Muslim Challenge to the Ideology of the Islamic State – The New York Times

“The spread of a shallow understanding of Islam renders this situation critical, as highly vocal elements within the Muslim population at large — extremist groups — justify their harsh and often savage behavior by claiming to act in accord with God’s commands, although they are grievously mistaken,” said A. Mustofa Bisri, the spiritual leader of the group, Nahdlatul Ulama, an Indonesian Muslim organization that claims more than 50 million members.“According to the Sunni view of Islam,” he said, “every aspect and expression of religion should be imbued with love and compassion, and foster the perfection of human nature.”This message of tolerance is at the heart of the group’s campaign against jihadism, which will be carried out online, and in hotel conference rooms and convention centers from North America to Europe to Asia. The film was released Thursday at the start of a three-day congress by the organization’s youth wing in the Central Java city of Yogyakarta.

Source: From Indonesia, a Muslim Challenge to the Ideology of the Islamic State – The New York Times

Study shows European hospitals miss every other HIV infection | Vaccine News

“Hospitals would be able to diagnose almost twice as many people with HIV if they all adhered to the European guidelines on which people should be offered an HIV test,” Professor Jens Lundgren from the Department of Infectious Diseases at Rigshospitalet and Copenhagen University, said. “This is very unfortunate. When we fail to diagnose those living with HIV in time, they suffer more complications, their life expectancy is shortened and there is a greater risk that they may have transmitted the virus to others. This is why it’s important to diagnose as many people as possible, early on.”

Source: Study shows European hospitals miss every other HIV infection | Vaccine News

Godfather of terror: Saudi Arabia and ′IS′ | World | DW.COM | 25.11.2015

Saudi Arabia exports its version of Sunni Islam with the utmost consequence. In the last 25 years a former US ambassador estimated in a published study in 2007 that the kingdom had invested at least 87 billion dollars in religious propaganda worldwide. This sum, he thinks, may even have increased further due to the high price of oil over an extended period. The funds went towards the construction of mosques, Madrassa Koran schools and religious institutions, and helped finance the training of Imams, publishing houses and Wahhabi text books.A large part of the funds go to economically weak, but populous Islamic countries in south and southeast Asia, such as Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, or Malaysia. Proselytizing for Wahhabism is also done in parts of Africa. For many people in these parts of the world it is the only possibility of getting a school education. There they learn how to read and write and are also given access to the Wahhabi teachings. But there are also Saudi Arabian financed institutions in the West.

Source: Godfather of terror: Saudi Arabia and ′IS′ | World | DW.COM | 25.11.2015