Tag: human rights

This Sunday, April 13, from 12 noon to 4 pm on the National Mall in Washington, DC, Americans will have the opportunity to learn first hand what the past 5 years have been like for the children of the Darfur region of Sudan.

Sponsored by Amnesty International, STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition, the Genocide Intervention Network, and the Save Darfur Coalition, this is a unique opportunity for people to gain an understanding of the complex yet devastating nature of the conflict giving rise to the ongoing genocide in Darfur.

When Anna Schmitt of Waging Peace traveled to eastern Chad bordering Darfur in 2007 to conduct research on the humanitarian, human rights, and security situation in the region, she was told “If you really want to know the truth, speak to the children.” She collected over 500 drawings by children in the camps. You can see some of them at the Save Darfur Coalition website here, or read more about them at the Darfur section of the Waging Peace website. These drawings can break your heart.

For a million Darfuri children, they have lived their entire lives now running from the janjaweed, traveling from camp to camp, never knowing the meaning of the words “safe” or “home” — these are concepts they have never experienced.  Five years is a lifetime to a child.

While the protesters were being thwarted by Mayor Gavin Newsom’s high speed game of wack-a-mole with the Olympic torch through the streets of San Francisco, the Dalai Lama was en route to Tokyo and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was giving one of the most important speeches of his diplomatic career.

First to the Dalai Lama. In remarks this morning in Tokyo, His Holiness defended the right of protesters to voice their dissent, while returning to his calls for nonviolence:

Diarists’s note on the above YouTube: The Dalai Lama’s remarks this morning come immediately after the short clip of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The final part of this YouTube contains a photo that has raised no small amount of controversy on the web. I include this YouTube because it was the only one I could find with His Holiness’s remarks in English. I have no thoughts regarding the veracity – or lack thereof – of the claims surrounding the last photograph other than to say that this is just one example of why an impartial, international investigation into the riots in Lhasa needs to be held, so that the truth around these events can be discovered.

The New York Times this morning is reporting that Afghanistan is holding secret trials for dozens of Afghan men who were formerly detained by the US in Gitmo and Baghram:

Dozens of Afghan men who were previously held by the United States at Bagram Air Base and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are now being tried [in Afghanistan] in secretive Afghan criminal proceedings based mainly on allegations forwarded by the American military.

The prisoners are being convicted and sentenced to as much as 20 years’ confinement in trials that typically run between half an hour and an hour, said human rights investigators who have observed them. One early trial was reported to have lasted barely 10 minutes, an investigator said. /snip

Witnesses do not appear in court and cannot be cross-examined. There are no sworn statements of their testimony.

Instead, the trials appear to be based almost entirely on terse summaries of allegations that are forwarded to the Afghan authorities by the United States military. Afghan security agents add what evidence they can, but the cases generally center on events that sometimes occurred years ago in war zones that the authorities may now be unable to reach.

“These are no-witness paper trials that deny the defendants a fundamental fair-trial right to challenge the evidence and mount a defense,” said Sahr MuhammedAlly, a lawyer for the advocacy group Human Rights First who has studied the proceedings. “So any convictions you get are fundamentally flawed.”

Join me below.

The Olympic Games have been the scene of several high-profile political statements over the past three-quarters of a century. Take a look at these photos and see which ones made an impact:

“We want to say to China, ‘We thought that the Olympic Games would help you improve your human rights record,” Tutu said. “We still hope… But what we are saying to the heads of state, to President George Bush, is, ‘For goodness sake, don’t go to the Beijing games… for the sake of our children, for the beautiful people of Tibet. Don’t go!'”

link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/…

“I think this is just a preview. I think there will be a lot more than this city is prepared for.”

link: http://www.reuters.com/article…

This was one San Fransican’s reaction to yesterday’s breath-taking protest by proponents of a free Tibet who scaled the Golden Gate Bridge:

One World One Dream – Free Tibet 08

Screen caps from KTVU Video

This is the BIG story in the Bay Area tonight.  These 3 people on the bridge were truly brave souls and after 3 hours flying their banners and Tibetan flags, they were taken into custody and booked for felony conspiracy.  The city of San Francisco is ‘bracing for uproar’, iow shitting bricks, about what to do with the Olympic torch relay on Wednesday.  After London and Paris I can only imagine what will happen here. Tensions have been building for weeks now.        

Londoners awoke on a lazy, snowy Sunday morning to images of protest flooding their television screens, including one moment when a protester was almost successful in dousing the Olympic flame as it was carried by British celebrity Konnie Huq: