El Salvador: Torturers May Meet Their Victims

July 16, 2016 by Leave a Comment

In an unusual, and brave move,

SAN SALVADOR — El Salvador’s Supreme Court has struck down a 1993 amnesty law enacted after the country’s devastating civil war, clearing the way for possible prosecutions of war crimes at the risk of reopening old wounds.

The amnesty has contributed to more than two decades of impunity for crimes committed during the 1980-1992 civil war, which claimed 75,000 lives. It helped end the conflict between the government and leftist guerillas, but it has blocked access to justice and reparations for victims.

The court’s constitutional chamber ruled 4 to 1 Wednesday that the amnesty violates international law and El Salvador’s constitution. The ruling said the government has an obligation to “investigate, identify and sanction the material and intellectual authors of human rights crimes and grave war crimes” and to provide reparations to victims.  Washington Post

If what happened during those years is hazy, or has been swamped by more recent atrocities, a short excerpt from a collection by courageous reporter, Martha Gellhorn, then in her 80s, is just below.

What Hands, Susan Meiselas, 1980

White Hands, Susan Meiselas, 1980

For a portfolio of Magnum photos see here.

A Daily Mail, 2013 article about the abducted children.

 

Filed under Human Rights, Torture, War Tagged with , , ,

Refugees: America’s Responsibility

September 10, 2015 by Leave a Comment

Excellent Op-Ed by Steve Hilton:

While we can argue forever about the causes of conflict in the Middle East, it is impossible to ignore the impact of American foreign policy on what’s happening in Europe. It was shocking to see an “expert” from the Council on Foreign Relations quoted on Saturday saying that the situation is “largely Europe’s responsibility.” How, exactly? The Iraq invasion (which could reasonably be described as “largely America’s responsibility”) unleashed a period of instability and competition in the region that is collapsing states and fueling sectarian conflict.

There are plenty of comments to his post, several asking what responsibility Russia and Iran have, particularly in Syria.  As usual in human affairs the choices vary from bad to worse.

It’s crazy that, as Nicholas Kristoff points out, that “…the World Food Program was just forced to cut 229,000 refugees in Jordan off food rations because it ran out of money…” There’s an example of losing a dollar to save a dime…

One think I have not heard anything of is what kind of organizing might be encouraged among the refugees — while still in the camps, and when disbursed around Europe.  It’s an enormous cohort of educated and talented people which, if they are like most refugees, will retain strong feelings for the lands of their birth for decades.  What might emerge if their social capital can be encouraged to grow and find a way to slow and halt the on-going disasters, then to stabilize and re-build what they have lost?

Filed under Human Rights, Middle East, Migration Tagged with ,

Syria: Journalist Mazen Darwish Released

August 10, 2015 by Leave a Comment

One of Syria’s boldest journalists, Mazen Darwish, has been released after three years [five months and 23 days] in Syrian prisons.  He was the director of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression when he was arrested in February 2012 for “promoting terrorist acts.”

Syria Darwish

In a letter smuggled out of prison in 2014 he thanked English PEN for its award to him as International Writer of Courage.

“…we are today, paying the high, bloodsoaked price of that collusion [of silence over Salman Rusdie’s fatwa] , and finding ourselves the main victims of the obscurantist ideology now infiltrating our homes and our cities. What a great shame that it has taken us all of this bloodshed to arrive at the belief that we are the ones who will pay the price for preventing those with whom we disagree from expressing their views – and that we will pay with our lives and our futures. What a shame this much blood has had to be spilled for us to realise, finally, that we are digging our own graves when we allow thought to be crushed by accusations of unbelief, calling people infidels, and when we allow opinion to be countered with violence. The disastrous consequences of this are clearly evident today across the Arab world, and especially in Syria, my country, where the ugliest forms of fascism and the dirtiest kinds of barbarism are practised in the name of both patriotism and Islam in equal measure.

Al Arabiya

Reporters Without Borders

 

Filed under Art & Culture, Human Rights, Middle East Tagged with , ,

Vienna on the March, Gaily

June 17, 2014 by Leave a Comment

I’m probably glad I missed this event in Vienna, not being a huge fan of huge crowds.  We left on Tuesday the 10th. just in time for the festivities to begin.

Vienna-Gay-Pride-2012-1

More than 150,000 people took part in the 18th edition of the Vienna gay pride parade this weekend.

The organiser Christian Högl of the Vienna homosexual initiative (HOSI) said this edition of the parade which saw masses of people travel around Vienna’s Ring road was one of the most successful to date.

The parade was lead by the Pride Boys and Pride Girls, followed by a mixture of trucks, motorbikes and various pedestrian groups.

The costumes this year included everything from naked skin to overall latex-costumes from queens and angels. Rainbow body paint was also very popular this year.

Even in the party atmosphere and the sunshine, participants made very clear they were protesting against discrimination against homosexual and transgender individuals under the motto “United in Pride”.

There were divided opinions amongst the spectators along the Ring. One woman said: “I came by chance. I actually wanted to go to the museum. I just don’t understand their requests.”

A Swiss tourist on the other hand said: “I am enjoying the day.”

Vienna Times

But all was not gay. In fact a lesbian Member of the European Parliament in attendance was attacked with a stinking but not corrosive acid.

Austria’s Green MEP Ulrike Lunacek has spoken of her disappointment following a butyric acid attack on her at Vienna’s gay pride on Saturday. Vienna Times

Filed under Europe, Human Rights Tagged with , ,

The Never Endig Persecution of the Royhinga

March 15, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Jane Perlez of the New York Times, who for so long was the Bureau Chief in Afghanistan, is now based out of Beijing — and covers most of South East Asia.  She has been bringing detailed stories of the persecution and flight of the Myanmar Royhinga to the front page of the times.  Today’s was especially harrowing.

More than 2,000 Rohingya are believed to be missing at sea, presumed drowned, since June 2012, when the violence against them first erupted in Rakhine, said Chris Lewa, coordinator of the Arakan Project, a human rights group specializing in the Rohingya. In all, about 80,000 Rohingya have left Myanmar by sea since then, Ms. Lewa said.

Run out of Myanmar by rabid Buddhist violence they try to get to Malasia, where their Islam faith is in the majority, but typically have to pass through Thailand to make the journey.

Burma ROHINGYAmap-artboard_1

Despite Thailand’s long history of absorbing refugees from conflicts in nearby countries like Vietnam and Cambodia, as well as members of other ethnic groups from Myanmar, the country has declined to grant the Rohingya temporary shelter or basic services. The government refuses to assess their requests for asylum, human rights groups say, instead subjecting them to detention so harsh that some die in custody. Arguments by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that Thailand should treat the Rohingya like other refugees have failed to convince the Thai government, the agency said.

Instead, the government has authorized what it calls “soft” deportation of the Rohingya: moving them out of detention cells, placing them in wooden boats at the southern port of Ranong, and sending them out into the Andaman Sea. There, they are picked up again by smugglers who, human rights groups charge, are often in league with Thai officials. Those who cannot pay ransom for passage to Malaysia are finally forced into indentured servitude on Thai plantations and fishing vessels, rights groups say.

NY Times: Perlez

 

Filed under Asia, Human Rights Tagged with , , ,

Prison State: Louisiana, USA

May 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Whew! Louisiana’s incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran’s… and there is money to be made!

From Charles Blow’s Saturday NY Times column:

“Louisiana is the world’s prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana’s incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran’s, seven times China’s and 10 times Germany’s.”

That paragraph opens a devastating eight-part series published this month by The Times-Picayune of New Orleans about how the state’s largely private prison system profits from high incarceration rates and tough sentencing, and how many with the power to curtail the system actually have a financial incentive to perpetuate it.

The picture that emerges is one of convicts as chattel and a legal system essentially based on human commodification.

Filed under Human Rights, Uncategorized Tagged with ,

A Boy to Be Sacrificed

March 25, 2012 by Leave a Comment

This short opinion piece by Abdellah Taia in the Sunday NY Times, has got to be one of the most distressing  accounts of a boy’s life I have read in years.

IN the Morocco of the 1980s, where homosexuality did not, of course, exist, I was an effeminate little boy, a boy to be sacrificed, a humiliated body who bore upon himself every hypocrisy, everything left unsaid. By the time I was 10, though no one spoke of it, I knew what happened to boys like me in our impoverished society; they were designated victims, to be used, with everyone’s blessing, as easy sexual objects by frustrated men. And I knew that no one would save me — not even my parents, who surely loved me. For them too, I was shame, filth. A “zamel.”

Read All

His An Arab Melancholia,(2008/2012e) and Salvation Army (2006/2009e), are available in an English translation by Frank Stock.  Le rouge du trabouche, which he mentions, seems not yet to be translated

 

Filed under Human Rights, Sex Tagged with , ,