Category Archives: human rights

Breaking the Media Blackout in Western Sahara | Inter Press Service

This year will mark four decades since this territory the size of Britain was annexed by Morocco after Spain pulled out from its last colony of Western Sahara.

Since the ceasefire signed in 1991 between Morocco and the Polisario Front – the authority that the United Nations recognises as a legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people – Rabat has controlled almost the whole territory, including the entire Atlantic coast. The United Nations still labels Western Sahara as a “territory under an unfinished process of decolonisation”.

via Breaking the Media Blackout in Western Sahara | Inter Press Service.

Opinion: Children of the World – We are Standing Watch for You | Inter Press Service

We must also continue to raise our voices in the face of tremendous opposition from groups that continue to oppose the treaty, arguing that it infringes upon national sovereignty. Quite the opposite is true: no sane definition of national sovereignty includes the right to sell arms for the violation of human rights in other countries. A nation willing to carry out such an act is not defending itself, but rather infringing upon the sovereignty of other nations that only want to live in peace.

We must also avoid using the danger and terrorism in the world today as an excuse for lack of regulation. Cicero’s famous phrase “silent enimleges inter armas” – among arms, laws are silent – has often been used to support the mind-set that the law does not apply during times of war.

But it is at times of war that the law must speak most bravely. When weapons are circulating freely into the worst possible hands, the law must speak. When the lives of the innocent are placed in danger by an absence of regulation, the law must speak.

via Opinion: Children of the World – We are Standing Watch for You | Inter Press Service.

“We’re fighting her lung cancer right now. She’s lost so much…

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“We’re fighting her lung cancer right now. She’s lost so much weight. We just moved to the sea so the air would be better. We had a close call the other night. I sleep in a different room because I don’t want to wake her with my snoring. But I woke up in the middle of the night and I could feel that something was wrong. I saw her shadow on the wall. I ran out to meet her in the hall, and she was gasping for her last breath. I had to give her an injection in the chest. If I hadn’t seen her shadow, we’d have lost her. Three years ago, the doctors told us that she only had six months. But God has given us three years. We take walks. We play backgammon. We look at photos of the grandchildren. I’m trying to cherish every moment.”

(Namakabroud, Iran)

via “We’re fighting her lung cancer right now. She’s lost so much….

When We Protested and The Lebanese Government Tried To Kill Us

The day after, I’m the most proud I’ve been in years. I’m proud of every single man, woman and child that went down yesterday to protest. I genuinely love every single one of those 10,000 people that gathered around in Beirut yesterday, even the smokers.I’m proud of the people of Tripoli who went down to Beirut late at night to protest even when no one protested for them when their city was being burned again and again. I’m proud they were not deterred at the Madfoun checkpoint which was blocked by the army at 1:40AM to stop them.You people turned Beirut into a city that’s worth being plastered across the world yesterday because you were amazing, courageous and wonderful. You got people all across the country to see the government for what it truly was: a rotten establishment that reeks of decay.The day after, you are all heroes, with your cuts and scars and bruises and teary eyes. The government fears you. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have reacted this way. In a few years, when you have children in a country that’s hopefully become civilized enough for us to bring children into, you will sit down and tell them how you changed things. It’s a beautiful story to tell, believe me.

via When We Protested and The Lebanese Government Tried To Kill Us.

CENSORED NEWS: EPA sent Navajos poisoned water after massive Animas gold spill

As they started to take water from the tanks for their corn and melons, the farmers noticed the water from some of tanks was rust colored, smelled of petroleum and slick with oil. The hopes of the farmers of actually being able to save some of the precious crops were obliterated in an instant with the tainted water. The farmers refused to use the water.”

“EPA and SSS Trucking were told to take the water and dump it off Rez, to load up the tanks and get off the Rez. Stands to reason, the water transport company was SSS Trucking of Farmington, one of the trucking companies that supply the dreaded fracking operations with 600+ nasty chemicals and millions of gallons of water. Now the Chapter, the Navajo Nation and BIA are scrambling to secure other sources for water. Crops are getting thirsty, it is reaching critical stage. Pray for rain.”

Navajo President Russell Begaye and the Navajo Nation Attorney General Branch are personally investigating concerns about tainted water in EPA tanks, Begaye said in a statement.

“The President and the Attorney General are extremely troubled by these reports and are working to gather all the facts and will discuss their findings with senior EPA officials and the Navajo Nation as soon as we updated information.”

Marisa Demarco at KUNM radio in Albuquerque reported Monday that Navajo farmers had been sent contaminated water by the US EPA.

KUNM reports:

“Farmers in Shiprock say the tankers arriving with desperately needed hydration for their crops contained water that smelled like petroleum, was visibly discolored and had an odd sheen to it.

“The barrels are not clean,” said Farm Board Representative Joe Ben Jr. “They are from oil drilling operations.”

via CENSORED NEWS: EPA sent Navajos poisoned water after massive Animas gold spill.

Yesterday 40,000 people donated over $1,000,000 in fewer than…

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Yesterday 40,000 people donated over $1,000,000 in fewer than 12 hours to help Fatima end bonded labor. The fundraiser currently sits at almost $1,400,000. There were no perks offered. No ‘reward levels.’ This was motivated by nothing more than genuine compassion and a desire to empower a woman who’s devoted her life to freeing people trapped in modern slavery. Thank you so much. Fatima has prepared a statement that I will post shortly.

I want to conclude this series with a story that will show you the character of the person you’ve just empowered. This is one of thousands of anecdotes that reveal a person who is more committed to humanity than to her own safety or comfort:

Recently a family trapped in bonded labor got in touch with Fatima. They told her that they could not escape their owners, and that the girls in the family were being sexually abused by the owners. Fatima immediately jumped in her car and drove to the kiln in the middle of the night. She told the family to run. The owners woke up and began to fire guns. The family reached the car, but the youngest girl—only four years old— had fallen down and been captured.

For three months the child was missing. Fatima went to court and begged for intervention, but the police kept insisting that they’d searched the kiln, and no child could be found. “I couldn’t sleep,” explains Fatima. “Every night I laid in bed and could think about nothing but this young girl in the hands of her brutalizers. I stayed awake all night thinking about how I could rescue her.”

Fatima recruited several other laborers to help her. Dressed in rags, they went to the kiln and pretended to be workers. They spent several days searching. They couldn’t find the girl anywhere. But from the owner’s house, they heard constant crying. They went back to the court and demanded that the house be investigated. The girl was found. But for weeks, she would not eat, talk, or cry. Fatima eventually learned that every time the girl would cry for food, the owner would beat her.

(Lahore, Pakistan)
(7 of 7)

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I’m going to leave the fundraiser up for the remainder of the day.
Anyone else who wishes to donate, can do so here:

via Yesterday 40,000 people donated over $1,000,000 in fewer than….

Video: Homeless Amputee Taken Down By 14 Cops At Seventh And Market: SFist

the fact remains that this is a disabled man and for some reason it took 14 cops to take him down, and even if no one was killed we should question how mundane such an incident appears to us.

These incidents are so quotidian, so mundane, that they do not merit a mention in even passing on the local news. Which is to say, this is everyday harassment. Which is to say, that we’ve normalized and habitualized the kind of policing in San Francisco and the rest of America that brutalizes the most vulnerable people, which strips them of their human dignity, the agency to their bodies — to walk with crutches when physically disabled, to have this body unviolated — when in actuality, they are whom the police are especially supposed to be protecting.

Also, she marvels at the proximity of the offices of Twitter and Uber, saying that workers at these companies should be working to figure out how “to use the powers of innovation, access and capital to change the narrative of police brutality in San Francisco and America.”

Is this brutality? You be the judge.

via Video: Homeless Amputee Taken Down By 14 Cops At Seventh And Market: SFist.