Category Archives: human rights

Humans of New York

“I came from Malaysia as part of a work-study program where I worked as an au pair. The company assigns you to an American family, and you take care of the children and do ‘light housework’ in exchange for a place to live and $195 per week. My first year was with a family in Connecticut. They were very nice to me. But when they moved away I was assigned to a family outside of Boston. It was a very difficult year for me. I had no car, no friends, and no activities. I was supposed to have free time while the kids were at school, but the mother would always cut it short so I could do laundry or start cooking meals. She criticized everything I did. One time she asked me to wash winter coats during my free time, and then got mad when I didn’t do it right away—even though it was during the summer. She treated me like an employee, but then gave me extra chores because I was ‘part of the family.’ I even had to take care of the pets. I felt trapped because the company made it extremely difficult to get reassigned. My only other choice was to go back home. But I was lucky, I guess. A lot of my friends in the program had it worse.”

Source: Humans of New York

The Refugees of Roanoke – The New York Times

More than a decade later, none of that has come to pass. Today, Roanoke’s biggest festival is a celebration of diversity called Local Colors. Pearl Fu, the Chinese immigrant who spearheaded its creation, is known for greeting every foreign-born stranger she sees at the grocery store with, “Hi, where you from?” Roanoke is now a place where you can hear a dozen languages spoken at the bus stop at the end of my street.You can also hear a lot of sad stories. Most of the Somalis spent years in camps awaiting U.S.R.P. approval. A Somali Bantu eighth grader I met in 2005 spent the first 12 years of his life in one of those camps, in Kenya. His mother was a widow; his father had been killed when the civil war came to his village in 1992. “Some day a soldier came and said, ‘Give me your money,’ and he did not have no money. So they killed him,” he told me. Here in the United States, he got in a fight at school after an African-American teen chided him for being “too black.” Because he spoke English, he did all his family’s grocery shopping and was responsible for writing their rent and utility checks.

Source: The Refugees of Roanoke – The New York Times

“Death to Arabs” sprayed on Palestinian houses by israeli settlers. | PNN

Overnight this last Thursday, Israeli settlers raided the Palestinian village of al-Mazraa al-Qabalia northwest of Ramallah area and vandalized two Palestinian houses.The israeli settlers sprayed racist graffiti saying “Death to Arabs”in Hebrew on the houses walls and broke several windows, according to the israeli news website The Times of Israel. Israeli police have said that they are investigating the attack.According to the israeli media, “the vandalism may have been part of a series of so-called price tag hate-crime attacks, usually arson and graffiti, which are used by Jewish extremists to target non-Jews — including homes, churches and mosques — as revenge for actions by Israeli officials and for Palestinian terror attacks”.

Source: “Death to Arabs” sprayed on Palestinian houses by israeli settlers. | PNN

‘There is a massive paranoia’: UK Muslims on life after Paris | World news | The Guardian

Omar Raza was walking near his home in Glasgow’s south side when he was confronted by three men hurling racist abuse, calling him a “fucking Paki” and accusing him of funding Islamic State.“It was three against one, so I tried to defuse the situation and walk past them. But I was suddenly attacked from behind and put in a head lock.” Raza was kicked to the ground and the bag he was carrying upturned and its contents strewn across the pavement, before his attackers ran off.“It all happened so quickly,” he told the Guardian on Thursday ahead of Friday prayers at Glasgow Central mosque. “Of course I’ve been the victim of hate speech before, but never a physical assault. You hear a lot of stories from down south but the south side of Glasgow is supposed to be a diverse community. It’s obvious that what’s going on [in Paris] is seeping into society and a lot of people are acting on half-truths.”

Source: ‘There is a massive paranoia’: UK Muslims on life after Paris | World news | The Guardian

‘Americans saved my life’: former refugees from Iraq perplexed by US fears | World news | The Guardian

As one of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Kurds displaced by the Persian Gulf war, Sindi knows firsthand the plight of refugees fleeing conflict and recalls as though it were yesterday the sense of desperation looming over temporary resettlement camps.Sindi remembers the daily uncertainty confronted by his family when placed at a refugee camp lacking the most basic of resources. The image of food and supplies airdropped by American planes under Operation Provide Comfort stays with him to this day – it was what motivated Sindi to accept two deployments training and advising US troops after the country’s invasion of Iraq in 2003.“Americans saved my life,” Sindi told the Guardian. “And so I worked with them and returned the favor.”After gaining US citizenship in 2006, he went on to spend four years in Iraq, from 2009 to 2012. There, Sindi served as an interpreter for the US military and in the security detail for vice-president Joe Biden and senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham during their trips to Erbil.To Sindi, his story is about more than goodwill toward the country he has now called home for two decades. It’s about the trust placed in him, a native of Zakho, Iraq, by the US government.“I was a refugee, I came from nowhere, and I reached the point where I could be in a convoy with the vice-president of America in Iraq,” Sindi said.

Source: ‘Americans saved my life’: former refugees from Iraq perplexed by US fears | World news | The Guardian

transgender murders up

Death by death, the details are horrific. Kiesha Jenkins was beaten and shot dead by a cluster of assailants in Philadelphia. Tamara Dominguez was run over multiple times and left to die on a Kansas City street. Police said the most recent victim, Zella Ziona, was shot dead in Gaithersburg, Maryland, last month by a boyfriend embarrassed that Ziona showed up in the presence of some of his other friends.There’s no question that anti-transgender hatred fueled many of the killings, yet activists and social-service professionals say there are multiple factors that make transgender women of color vulnerable. They have documented that numerous victims were killed by intimate partners and many while engaging in prostitution.

Source: News from The Associated Press

Syrian Family Diverted From Indiana Feels ‘Welcomed’ in Connecticut – The New York Times

“He actually made me concerned,” F. said. She added that she thought that in America, “people are accepted regardless of their backgrounds or what their ideologies are.”Still, in a relaxed hourlong interview in a sunny children’s classroom on the second floor of the immigrant resettlement agency, with their son playing with wooden blocks at their feet, the couple said they wanted to disprove the misconceptions people might have of refugees.“You have to imagine that people are in Syria, the bombs are falling on them, they can’t live in their homes, they leave, they live in Jordan, and it’s still difficult for them,” A. said. “And then they find this opportunity to live a better life and they take it. That’s what people have to recognize.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyThe family was living in the Syrian city of Homs when the civil war broke out. A.’s used clothing store was destroyed. “We had to move from street to street to avoid the bombs,” he said.

Source: Syrian Family Diverted From Indiana Feels ‘Welcomed’ in Connecticut – The New York Times

Opinion: Silly season on Syrian refugees – LA Times

Sen. Ted Cruz would winnow the field of acceptable refugees down to only Christian Syrians, similar to what Jeb Bush proposes. In Congress, House Republicans voted to block Syrian and Iraqi refugees from coming to the U.S. A majority of U.S. governors want to refuse refugees resettlement in their states.The Times editorial board has a message for them: Stop the fear mongering. It writes:The United States doesn’t have the same challenge as Europe, whose relative proximity to the Middle Eastern war zone has left it inundated with millions of refugees. And the source isn’t just Syria and Iraq; refugees — both political and economic — from Africa have landed in Europe as well. There are few good options for stopping that tide without first stabilizing the regions from which it arises; a political solution to the Syrian civil war is a crucial first step to achieving that stability.We haven’t faced this exodus simply because it is so much harder for Syrian refugees to arrive at the border and seek asylum. President Obama affirmed in Turkey on Tuesday that “America has to step up and do its part” in providing for war refugees, which presumably includes moving ahead with his plan to accept up to 10,000 Syrian refugees this fiscal year, up from fewer than 2,000. This page has argued that the U.S. should take significantly more because there are too many for Europe to absorb and because of our history as a safe haven. Nothing in the Paris attacks changes that.That’s not to suggest that the U.S. should accept any and all comers. What the Republican candidates ignore, though, is that there is already a system in place to vet the refugees. To gain entry to the U.S., a Syrian refugee first must pass rigorous screening by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which verifies personal backgrounds and details before recommending individuals for resettlement to the United States. Then the Department of Homeland Security does its own screening before a refugee is granted entry and protection.» Click here to read more.Refusing entry to Syrians is not only unnecessary, it’s also un-American. Editorial writer Scott Martelle says this reflexive heartlessness goes against our national character: “For a nation built by immigrants and their offspring, including waves of refugees over the years, to say, ‘wait a minute, not THOSE people,’ is to reject our very roots. Not to mention hamstring future economic growth, since immigrants help fuel the economy.” Readers largely agree — a few draw comparisons to the homegrown mass shooters of late and wonder who it is Americans should really fear.

Source: Opinion: Silly season on Syrian refugees – LA Times

Ebola, Syrian Refugees, And Fox News’ Annual Hysteria Over Dark, Invading Forces | Blog | Media Matters for America

Accuse Obama of coddling would-be terrorists (including widows and orphans) who are viewed as encroaching on our borders. Or so goes the battle cry, which accuses the president of abdicating America’s national security — and allegedly doing so on purpose.*Fox’s Jesse Watters: Obama is inviting in “the barbarians at the gate.”*Fox’s Andrea Tantaros: “Everything that the president is doing seems to benefit what ISIS is doing.”*Ben Stein: Obama’s “hatred of America” may be “because he’s part black.” “He does not wish America well.”In other words, there’s a dark, invading force that Obama won’t stop. In fact, he seems intent on welcoming it across the border so it can wreak havoc here at home.Sound familiar?Indeed, watching the Fox meltdown over refugees you might think, ‘This is unique brand of rhetorical manure.’ I mean, Obama putting Muslim refugees above the safety of Americans? Opting for a “forced infiltration”? But if you hit the rewind button to October and November 2014, then you remember, ‘Oh yeah, they did pretty much the exact same thing twelve months ago with their full-scale meltdown over a domestic Ebola outbreak that never happened.’Is this now becoming an annual autumn tradition? Some Fox talkers are even connecting the refugee/Ebola dots, although they fail to see it as problematic. “He’s imported illegal aliens,” said Watters of Obama. “Remember he brought all of the Ebola victims into this country?”

Source: Ebola, Syrian Refugees, And Fox News’ Annual Hysteria Over Dark, Invading Forces | Blog | Media Matters for America

Paris attacks: nurse discovers man he tried to save was bomber | World news | The Guardian

David says he did not see Abdeslam walk into the restaurant. He believes he had been sitting at the terrace when he detonated the bomb.“He had a large opening on his side, about 30 cms (11.8 inches),” he said. “When you lift a T-shirt and you see wires, you know that’s not normal.”David says police told him Abdeslam’s bomb had not fully exploded.“[Later] I was thinking about how I lay him on the floor, with me doing CPR. It’s a pretty vigourous process. By just doing that, I also could have been gone,” he said.

Source: Paris attacks: nurse discovers man he tried to save was bomber | World news | The Guardian