Argentine Church Faces ‘Dirty War’ Past

From The New York Times:


By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
Published: September 17, 2007

LA PLATA, Argentina, Sept. 10 — A simple wooden cross hanging from his neck, the Rev. Rubén Capitanio sat before a microphone on Monday and did what few Argentine priests before him had dared to do: condemn the Roman Catholic Church for its complicity in the atrocities committed during Argentina’s “dirty war.”

“The attitude of the church was scandalously close to the dictatorship” that killed more than 15,000 Argentines and tortured tens of thousands more, the priest told a panel of three judges here, “to such an extent that I would say it was of a sinful degree.” The panel is deciding the fate of the Rev. Christian von Wernich, a priest accused of conspiring with the military who has become for many a powerful symbol of the church’s role.

The church “was like a mother that did not look for her children,” Father Capitanio added. “It did not kill anybody, but it did not save anybody, either.”

Father Capitanio’s mea culpa came nearly a quarter century after the junta was toppled in 1983 and democracy was restored. But in some ways, it occurred at just the right time. Through the trial of Father von Wernich, Argentina is finally confronting the church’s dark past during the dirty war, when it sometimes gave its support to the military as it went after leftist opponents.

That past stands in stark contrast to the role the church played during the dictatorships in Chile and Brazil, where priests and bishops publicly condemned the governments and worked to save those being persecuted from torture and death.

Officially, the church has maintained its silence throughout the trial, even knowing weeks in advance that Father Capitanio had been compelled by the tribunal to testify. The priest said in an interview that he was not ordered by the church to testify and was not speaking on its behalf.

Father von Wernich worked as a police chaplain during the dictatorship, from 1976 to 1983. He escaped to Chile but was found in 2003 in the seaside town of El Quisco by a group of journalists and human rights advocates. He was working as a priest under the name Christian González.

Some three months of often chilling testimony in the trial illustrated how closely some Argentine priests worked with military leaders during the dirty war. Witnesses spoke about how Father von Wernich was present at torture sessions in clandestine detention centers. They said he extracted confessions to help the military root out perceived enemies, while at the same time offering comforting words and hope to family members searching for loved ones who had been kidnapped by the government.

His lawyer, Juan Martin Cerolini, said Father von Wernich was a “Catholic scapegoat” for those who wanted to prosecute the church. “The witnesses did not say that he tortured, kidnapped or murdered,” Mr. Cerolini said in a recent interview. “Nobody said he participated in any act of torture.”

Calls to Father von Wernich’s home parish were not returned.

[Testimony in the trial ended Thursday. Now a three-judge panel will read documents into the record before convening to decide Father von Wernich’s fate; a decision is not expected until October. He stands accused of involvement in seven murders and 42 cases of kidnapping and torture. He faces life imprisonment if found guilty, though many expect the 69-year-old priest will be sentenced to live out his days under house arrest.]

Father von Wernich has declined to testify; he appeared only a few times during the proceedings at the request of the judges seeking clarification in other witness testimony. At those appearances, he wore a bulletproof vest and sat behind a glass screen.

There is little question that human rights advocates hope to make an example of him. Hernán Brienza, a journalist who helped find the priest in Chile and wrote a book about the case, said he believed that about 30 other Argentine priests, some already dead, could have been brought up on human rights charges for their involvement in torture. But Mr. Brienza said that if Father von Wernich was found guilty, he was likely to be the last to be tried.

Either way, Father Capitanio, a 59-year-old priest from the town of Neuquén who attended the same seminary as Father von Wernich, said he saw the trial as a noble effort. “There are some who think that this trial is an attack on the church, and I want to say that this is a service to the church,” he said in his final words to the tribunal. “This is helping us search for the truth.”

The von Wernich trial takes place as Argentina’s neighbors are also continuing to unearth human rights violations from their dictatorships. In Brazil, the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva just last month released a 500-page report — after an 11-year investigation — that sought information about the cases of government opponents who were killed or “disappeared” by state security forces from 1961 to 1988. More than 350 people are known to have been killed.

And in Chile late last month, a court said it would put on trial a Catholic priest for his suspected involvement in the assassinations of 28 opposition figures in October 1973, at the beginning of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s rule.

In Argentina, however, there was a much tighter relationship between the clergy and the military than existed in Chile or Brazil. “Patriotism came to be associated with Catholicism,” said Kenneth P. Serbin, a history professor at the University of San Diego who has written about the Roman Catholic Church in South America. “So it was almost natural for the Argentine clergy to come to the defense of the authoritarian regime.”

Those days may be over. After he finished his testimony on Monday, Father Capitanio was surrounded by a sea of elderly women from the Mothers of May Plaza, a group that has pushed successive Argentine governments for answers since the dirty war began in 1976. They wore white scarves in their hair bearing the names of family members who disappeared. Dabbing away tears, they clung to the priest, kissing him on the cheek and whispering their thanks.

Father Capitanio said that he felt that a weight had been lifted — and that he was not alone. “Many men and women of the church, bishops as well, have come to agree with my way of looking at the reality of the church’s role,” he said. “We have much to be sorry for.”

Vinod Sreeharsha contributed reporting from La Plata, and Andrew Downie from Rio de Janeiro.

Conservative with a Conscience

Jack Goldsmith, who, along with John Yoo, aided the Bush administration in justifying the use of torture, comes clean in this NY Times magazine article.


By JEFFREY ROSEN
Published: September 9, 2007

This article will appear in the Sept. 9 issue of the New York Times magazine.

In the fall of 2003, Jack L. Goldsmith was widely considered one of the brightest stars in the conservative legal firmament. A 40-year-old law professor at the University of Chicago, Goldsmith had established himself, with his friend and fellow law professor John Yoo, as a leading proponent of the view that international standards of human rights should not apply in cases before U.S. courts. In recognition of their prominence, Goldsmith and Yoo had been anointed the “New Sovereigntists” by the journal Foreign Affairs.

Goldsmith had been hired the year before as a legal adviser to the general counsel of the Defense Department, William J. Haynes II. While at the Pentagon, Goldsmith wrote a memo for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warning that prosecutors from the International Criminal Court might indict American officials for their actions in the war on terror. Goldsmith described this threat as “the judicialization of international politics.” No one was surprised when he was hired in October 2003 to head the Office of Legal Counsel, the division of the Justice Department that advises the president on the limits of executive power. Immediately, the job put him at the center of critical debates within the Bush administration about its continuing response to 9/11 — debates about coercive interrogation, secret surveillance and the detention and trial of enemy combatants.

Nine months later, in June 2004, Goldsmith resigned. Although he refused to discuss his resignation at the time, he had led a small group of administration lawyers in a behind-the-scenes revolt against what he considered the constitutional excesses of the legal policies embraced by his White House superiors in the war on terror. During his first weeks on the job, Goldsmith had discovered that the Office of Legal Counsel had written two legal opinions — both drafted by Goldsmith’s friend Yoo, who served as a deputy in the office — about the authority of the executive branch to conduct coercive interrogations. Goldsmith considered these opinions, now known as the “torture memos,” to be tendentious, overly broad and legally flawed, and he fought to change them. He also found himself challenging the White House on a variety of other issues, ranging from surveillance to the trial of suspected terrorists. His efforts succeeded in bringing the Bush administration somewhat closer to what Goldsmith considered the rule of law — although at considerable cost to Goldsmith himself. By the end of his tenure, he was worn out. “I was disgusted with the whole process and fed up and exhausted,” he told me recently.

After leaving the Office of Legal Counsel, Goldsmith was uncertain about what, if anything, he should say publicly about his resignation. His silence came to be widely misinterpreted. After leaving the Justice Department, he accepted a tenured professorship at Harvard Law School, where he currently teaches. During his first weeks in Cambridge, in the fall of 2004, some of his colleagues denounced him for what they mistakenly assumed was his role in drafting the torture memos. One colleague, Elizabeth Bartholet, complained to a Boston Globe reporter that the faculty was remiss in not investigating any role Goldsmith might have played in “justifying torture.” “It was a nightmare,” Goldsmith told me. “I didn’t say anything to defend myself, except that I didn’t do the things I was accused of.”

Now Goldsmith is speaking out. In a new book, “The Terror Presidency,” which will be published later this month, and in a series of conversations I had with him this summer, Goldsmith has recounted how, from his first weeks on the job, he fought vigorously against an expansive view of executive power championed by officials in the White House, including Alberto Gonzales, who was then the White House counsel and who recently resigned as attorney general, and David Addington, who was then Vice President Cheney’s legal adviser and is now his chief of staff. Goldsmith says he is not speaking out for the money; though he received a low six-figure advance for the book, he is, after deducting some minor expenses, donating the advance and any profits to charity. Nor is he speaking out because he disagrees with the basic goals of the Bush administration in the war on terror. “I shared, and I still share, a lot of their concerns about what we have to do to meet the terrorist threat,” he told me. When I asked whether he thought Gonzales should have resigned and whether Addington should follow, he demurred. “I was friends with Gonzales and feel very sorry for him,” he said. “We got along really well. I admired and respected Addington, even when I thought his judgment was crazy. They thought they were doing the right thing.”

read on

International Law and the Armenian Genocide: conference this weekend

I am planning to attend this on Saturday, so if anyone wants to join me, just leave a comment on this post and we can carpool perhaps.

USC INSTITUTE OF ARMENIAN STUDIES

International Law & the Armenian Genocide: Recognition, Responsibility & Restitution

Program

Morning Session

9:00 Breakfast

9:35 Richard Hrair Dekmejian – Director, USC Institute of Armenian
Studies

Opening Remarks

9:40 Sarkis Bezelgues – Freie Universität Berlin

International Liability and State Succession: The Responsibility of the Turkish
Republic for the Armenian Genocide

10:00 Michael Bazyler – Whittier Law School

Litigation for Restitution – Comparative Analysis of Armenians and Other
Groups

10:20 Break

10:40 David Nersessian – Harvard University

The Armenian Genocide and Human Rights Litigation in US Federal Courts

11:00 Payam Akhavan – McGill University
Criminalizing Historical Truth: Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code and
the Armenian Genocide

11:20 Discussants and Q&A

12:10 Dean Howard Gillman – USC College of Letters Arts & Sciences

Welcoming Remarks

12:20 Break for Lunch

Afternoon Session

12:50 Mark Geragos, Esq. – Geragos & Geragos – Luncheon Speaker
Tales from the Trenches: A Practitioner’s View

1:10 Hon. John Marshall Evans – US Ambassador to Armenia (2004-2006)
The Armenian Genocide: The International Political and Diplomatic Context of
Recognition and Redress

1:30 Alison Renteln – University of Southern California
An Overview of Holocaust Denial Litigation

1:50 John Torpey – City University of New York
Beyond Recognition: Truth, Reparations, and the Armenian Genocide

2:10 Break

2:30 Alfred De Zayas – Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes
Internationales, Genève The Armenian Genocide in the Light of the
Genocide Convention

Paper to be read in absentia by Harut Sassounian

2:50 Discussants and Q&A

4:00 End of Symposium

Free Admission, with complementary Breakfast & Lunch, Reservations Required: Armenian@college.usc.edu

Colt Serves as a Reminder of a Philosopher’s Reach

From The New York Times:

By JOE DRAPE
Published: September 3, 2007

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y., Sept. 2 — Rabbi Israel Rubin conceded that it was an unusual field trip for his students. They were here at Barn 70 on the backside of Saratoga Race Course on Friday morning to see a trainer about a horse. The trainer was Bob Baffert, and the horse, Maimonides, was a fast one who just may capture the Kentucky Derby next May.

Maimonides cost $4.6 million at last year’s Keeneland September Sale, and last month he appeared as if he was worth every penny when he won his debut by 11 ½ lengths. He is one of the favorites Monday to win the Grade I $250,000 Hopeful Stakes, a seven-furlong sprint for 2-year-olds.

None of that, however, interested Rubin or his charges. He does not attend horse races or gamble. In fact, upon hearing about the colt, Rubin thought long and hard before arranging to take his students here.

“Some may think this is sacrilegious,” he said.

Ultimately, however, the rabbi and his students were drawn here from the Maimonides Hebrew Day School in Albany for what is in a name.

The school and the colt are named for Moses Maimonides, who lived more than 800 years ago and is considered among the greatest Jewish philosophers. He was the chief rabbi of Cairo and the physician to the sultan of Egypt.

“He blended religious study and intellect with worldly manners to heal the sick and guide the healthy,” Rubin said.

“He was respected and honored by both Jews and Arabs. This is especially relevant now in our life and times.”

Maimonides is owned and was named by Ahmed Zayat, an Egyptian now living in New Jersey.

He did not know about Rubin’s visit, and, indeed, was flying back from San Diego and Del Mar on Friday morning. When told of the smiles of the youngsters petting the nose of his expensive colt, however, Zayat was beyond gratified.

He is a Muslim who grew up in a suburb of Cairo and had put much time and effort into bestowing the name Maimonides on his prize purchase.

“He was a very special man who was highly regarded by all people, regardless of faith,” Zayat said of Maimonides. “What has happened with Sept. 11, Iraq, and what’s going on in the region is contrary to the way I grew up. If this horse was going to be a superstar, I wanted an appropriate name. I wanted to say something with the tool I had, which was a horse. I wanted it to be pro-peace, and about loving your neighbor.”

When Zayat tried to register the name Maimonides with the Jockey Club, however, he discovered that it had been reserved for more than nine years by Earle I. Mack, a New York real estate investor and a former ambassador to Finland.

In 1997, Mack, then the chairman of the board for the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, was instrumental in bringing King Juan Carlos I of Spain to New York to accept the school’s Democracy Award.

Mack had been moved by the king’s remarks about how much Spain’s culture had lost when the country expelled its Jews in 1492 as part of the Inquisition.

The king mentioned Maimonides, who was born in Córdoba, Spain, in 1135, and who, with his family, was forced out of the country while Spain was ruled by Muslims.

“I was just waiting for a horse good enough to deserve the name,” Mack said.

He has owned and bred horses for more than 40 years, and knew that Zayat’s colt, a son of Vindication, was bred to be special. Each also understood the other’s good intentions. Zayat donated $100,000 to Cardozo to commemorate the king’s visit there, and to promote tolerance. Mack released his claim to the name Maimonides.

“He had the right horse, and the right motives,” Mack said. “We are all after the same thing: to touch people across cultures.”

Zayat and Mack know that horse racing is an unpredictable business, and a thoughtfully named horse hardly guarantees future fame and fortune.

When Eli O’Brien, 14, patted Maimonides between the ears and promised to say some prayers for him, Baffert nodded enthusiastically.

“We’ll take anything you can give us,” Baffert said.

Genocide Studies Program in Argentina

I got this announcement from one of my IISGHR peers:

November 20-22, 2007
Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero (UNTREF)
Postgraduate Studies Site / Centro Cultural Borges
Viamonte 525, 3rd Floor Buenos Aires, Argentina

Though genocide has an ancient history, the role of annihilation in modern times has acquired a special character, transforming itself in a tool of social control used to discipline populations and to transform social relationships.

Genocide has been a regular feature of the classical, early-modern, and colonial eras, culminating in the modern period with the destruction of the Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians, in World War One, and the multifaceted genocidal campaigns of the Nazis during World War Two. These and other genocides have found a strong echo in the repressive experiences of Latin America, as exemplified by the cases of Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and El Salvador, among others. However, genocidal social practices in the Latin American region have scarcely been dealt with in genocide
studies. Certainly, they have not been systematically connected to previous European experiences of genocide or to the experiences of war and postcolonial counterinsurgency in Indochina and Algeria, for example.

The First International Meeting “On Genocidal Social Practices”, held in Buenos Aires in November 2003, was the first opportunity for Argentine, Chilean, Mexican and other Latin American researchers to establish contact with the field of genocide studies. Some of the products of this gathering were published in English in a special issue of the Journal of Genocide Research, 8:2, June 2006 and in Spanish in the book Genocidio. La administración de la muerte en la modernidad (Genocide. Death administration in Modernity), published by UNTREF University in 2005.

The goal of this second meeting is to bring together researchers from different continents to explore the continuities and differences of genocidal social practices in different regions.

Academic Director of the Meeting
Daniel Feierstein (dfeierstein@untref.edu.ar)
Director Center of Genocide Studies (Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero, Argentina)

Organizing Academic Committee
Marcia Esparza (John Jay College, City University of New York)
Henry Huttenbach (The City College, City University of New York)
Adam Jones (Genocide Studies Program, Yale University)
Guillermo Levy (Universidad de Buenos Aires)
Hamurabi Noufouri (UNTREF / UBA)
Luis Roniger (Wake Forest University)
Juergen Zimmerer (University of Sheffield)


Topics for Roundtable discussions
1) The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and its Debates: The Struggle against Impunity. (Feierstein)
2) Colonialism and Genocidal Social Practices. (Huttenbach / Levy)
3) Genocidal Social Practices in the 20th Century. (Jones / Noufouri)
4) Preventing Genocide in the 21st Century: Major Risks and Early Warning Mechanisms. (Huttenbach)
5) Political Mass Violence and Genocide in Latin America. (Feierstein / Roniger)
6) Ways of “Symbolic Achievement” of Genocide: Genocidal Social Practices and Narration. (Feierstein / Levy)
7) Genocide and Structural/Institutional Violence. (Jones / Noufouri)
8) Processes of Resistance to Genocidal Social Practices. (Levy / Esparza)
9) Aftermath and Long-Term Repercussions of the Genocidal Social Practices. (Roniger/ Esparza)

Deadline for submission of abstracts: April 30, 2007
Deadline for submission of papers: October 15, 2007

•Registration fee for Argentine presenters and attendees: ARG $ 120.-
•Graduates, professors and students from Argentine National Universities: ARG $ 60.-
•Registration fee for foreign presenters and attendees: U$S 150.-
(The foreign registration fee includes the Meeting’s materials, Conference meals, a CD with the expositions and papers, and the attendance certificate.)

Information and registration
•UNTREF - Centro Cultural Borges Site: Viamonte 525 (almost San Martín), 3rd Floor - Pabellón de las Naciones, Buenos Aires City - Business hours: from 10 am to 7 pm. You can also consult the website www.untref.edu.ar

•For those who are interested in participating of the meeting, please fill out and e-mail the registration form to congresogenocidio@untref.edu.ar
•For those who reside outside Buenos Aires or abroad, fees can be paid at the opening of the meeting. However, attendance must be confirmed in advance by sending the registration form.

Confirmed international Lectures:
Marcia Esparza (John Jay College, City University of New York)
Henry Huttenbach (The City College, City University of New York)
Adam Jones (Genocide Studies Program, Yale University)
Luis Roniger (Wake Forest University)
Dominik Schaller (Bern University)
Jacques Semelin (CNRS, Paris, Director Encyclopedia of Mass Violence)
Juergen Zimmerer (University of Sheffield)
Gianni Tognoni (Tribunal Permanente de los Pueblos)

Organizer:
Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero

Co-Sponsors:
INOGS (International Network of Genocide Scholars)
Facultad de Ciencias Sociales - Universidad de Buenos Aires
Tribunal Permanente de los Pueblos

The Center's Library

The Center's library has been newly cataloged (courtesy of LibraryThing) and is awaiting your browsing. The library has expanded thanks to the generous donations from Professor John K. Roth and Bonnie Snortum. Everything (including videos and DVDs) is available to be checked out. Search for books on the right-hand side of the blog or visit it online here: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/CMCHolocaustCenter

News flash: ADL statement

ADL Statement on the Armenian Genocide

New York, NY, August 21, 2007 … Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today issued the following statement:

In light of the heated controversy that has surrounded the Turkish-Armenian issue in recent weeks, and because of our concern for the unity of the Jewish community at a time of increased threats against the Jewish people, ADL has decided to revisit the tragedy that befell the Armenians.

We have never negated but have always described the painful events of 1915-1918 perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians as massacres and atrocities. On reflection, we have come to share the view of Henry Morgenthau, Sr. that the consequences of those actions were indeed tantamount to genocide. If the word genocide had existed then, they would have called it genocide.

I have consulted with my friend and mentor Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel and other respected historians who acknowledge this consensus. I hope that Turkey will understand that it is Turkey's friends who urge that nation to confront its past and work to reconcile with Armenians over this dark chapter in history.

Having said that, we continue to firmly believe that a Congressional resolution on such matters is a counterproductive diversion and will not foster reconciliation between Turks and Armenians and may put at risk the Turkish Jewish community and the important multilateral relationship between Turkey, Israel and the United States.


The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.

The Armenian Genocide and the ADL

Armenian genocide? ADL debate hitting home


By Amanda McGregor , Staff writer

Salem News


August 21, 2007

Salem, Massachusetts

Apo Torosyan said his documentaries will clear up any doubt in the Anti-Defamation League's dispute over recognizing the Armenian genocide.



Torosyan lost most of his family in the killings and has spent years chronicling survivors' stories.



"People are fighting for the truth," said Torosyan, an Armenian from Turkey has lived in Peabody since the 1960s. "I have witnesses telling with their own mouths what happened to them and their ancestors - people shot, boys tied up together on boats and pushed into the water to drown."



Last week, the Anti-Defamation League's national leadership fired its New England director, Andrew Tarsy, because he wanted the organization to recognize the Armenian genocide. His firing prompted two regional ADL board members to resign in protest.



The controversy is resonating on the North Shore with the families of survivors and is prompting some local communities to re-evaluate their participation in the ADL's No Place for Hate Program. The organization is primarily known for combating anti-Semitism.



"They wouldn't deny it, but they wouldn't affirm it, either," said Holocaust survivor Sonia Weitz of Peabody, who founded the Holocaust Center Boston North. "I very much agree with what Andrew Tarsy did, because it's unacceptable to me - the denial of genocide that is accepted by just about any historian and most countries."



The controversy has weighed on Mary Torigian Foley of Peabody, whose four grandparents and many other relatives were killed in Turkey between 1915 and 1918.



"People were slaughtered left and right. To say it's not genocide is very, very painful," said Foley, whose brother, the late Peabody Mayor Peter Torigian, founded the city's annual Armenian genocide recognition ceremony more than 20 years ago. "My hat's off to (Andrew) Tarsy for speaking up."



Many North Shore cities and towns have signed onto the ADL's No Place for Hate designation, in which communities host regular events in conjunction with the ADL to promote human rights and religious and racial tolerance. Salem joined earlier this year, and in light of the controversy, the city will review its membership at its next meeting.



"I'm actually very surprised by the ADL's stance on this," said Salem City Councilor Lucy Corchado, who advocated joining No Place for Hate. "We need to promote being tolerant and respectful to others, and that's what (the ADL's) mission was, so I thought."



'Difference in policy'



James Rudolph of Swampscott is the ADL's New England regional board chairman, and he said he hopes that local No Place for Hate communities won't jump ship amid his office's brush with the national ADL.



"Our executive (New England) committee has voted that the ADL should acknowledge the Armenian genocide," Rudolph said. "Right now, we're in what I would call uncharted waters with respect to the relationship between the national and regional board, where we have this difference in policy."



Even North Shore residents angered by the national position don't want it to cast a shadow over the ADL's work in other arenas.



"The ADL has done some wonderful, wonderful things on human rights and against racism and bigotry," Weitz said, "and I hope the communities can see that one thing really has nothing to do with the other."



In response to the dispute, the ADL's national office issued a letter this week that said its policy has been distorted.



"The controversy occurred because of the distortion of our position on a complex issue," Chairman Glen Lewy wrote in a letter that the ADL is running in newspapers this week and posted on its Web site, www.adl.org.



The letter does not use the word genocide but goes on to read, "ADL has acknowledged and never denied the massacres of hundreds of thousands of Armenians - and by some accounts more than 1 million - at the hands of the Ottoman Empire in 1915-1918.



"We believe that the Turkish government must do more than it has to confront its history and to seek reconciliation with the Armenian people."



Historians estimate up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed by scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey, however, denies that constituted genocide, saying the death toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.



Genocide usually refers to a systematic effort to destroy an entire national or ethnic population.



Susan Fletcher leads the Danvers Committee on Diversity, which is mulling whether Danvers will rejoin the No Place for Hate program after a several-year hiatus. She said Lewy's letter raised valid points.



"It's an issue that really isn't black and white," said Fletcher, who said the Diversity Committee will meet Thursday and likely discuss the ADL controversy. "There are valid points on both sides, and it's also important to consider the many wonderful ADL programs."



What's behind it?



The debate was sparked in Watertown, home to 8,000 Armenian Americans, where the town rejected the No Place for Hate designation.



The ADL's recent letter called Turkey "a key strategic ally and friend of the United States and a staunch friend of Israel . ... In the struggle between Islamic extremists and moderate Islam, Turkey is the most critical country in the world."



Torosyan believes money and power fuel the denial. He is also a member of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.



"This was not a civil war, but the Turkish government covers it. They know if they accept it, it will be a financial burden," he said, referring to the possibility of reparations. "But the Armenian people don't necessarily want that. They want an apology and recognition."



Foley, who lost so many of her family members, said politics should not prevail.



"They think a stand on genocide will hurt Israel, but I don't think so," Foley said, "because the ADL is not the government of the United States. It really bothers me that it's so difficult to call this a genocide; that's what it is."



Material from The Associated Press was used in this report.



Copyright © 1999-2006 cnhi, inc.

What's in a Name?

The Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights at Claremont McKenna College is a pretty lengthy title. Generally, as most of you know, it is referred to as, simply, "The Holocaust Center." With both its founding director and current director as scholars of the Holocaust and with a library that is around 85% Holocaust-centric, it seems reasonable that the Holocaust focus of the Center's mission would take "center" stage. But perhaps this should be readdressed.

I spent the past two weeks at the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies in Toronto, Canada, learning about genocide from a comparative and interdisciplinary standpoint with twenty-five other students from around the world. In the sixty-five hours of classroom time, we looked into the Armenian Genocide, the Nazi Holocaust, the Cambodian Genocide, Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and Darfur. We spent time talking genocide and philosophy, international intervention, and preventing genocide. The professors brought in were all top of their field and the students with whom I studied were Ph.D. candidates, museum archivists, play directors, and NGO volunteers. As the youngest and one of two undergraduate students attending, I found myself slightly intimidated but more inspired by my peers in the program.

The main thing I took away from this program, however, was the realization of how important comparing genocides is for future genocide prevention. The trick, of course, is learning to do that while honoring the uniqueness of each victim groups' experience. We study genocide to honor these victims and to understand human experience, but also to understand human capability and hopefully learn to prevent the full capability of destruction from emerging in the form of genocide.

There's a reason our Center has such a long title. Inspired by the horrors of the Holocaust, the founders of this Center sought to create an institution that would address them while also opening up scholarship into other genocides and human rights violations. Acronyms can be complicated and over-used, but as all three elements of this Center's name are important to its mission, perhaps we should consider CSHGHR when referring to it, so as not to belittle pieces of the mission. Or, taking human rights in the positive sense, maybe we should, as Prof. Faggen suggests, emphasize the Human Rights aspect. Increasing human rights is, after all, the goal. Isn't it?

Click here to learn about the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (or IIGHRS)

The Un-Olympic Torch

Taiwanese human rights activist light a rival Olympic torch to emphasize human rights abuse in China.

Health Care as a Negative Right

Last night I saw Sicko, Michael Moore's latest expose about the state of health care in the United States. To look beyond Moore's black-and-white view of health care (socialized good, privatized bad), one can and should ask what kind of human right health care is. If it's a negative right, then the government's only responsibility is they can't prevent us from obtaining it. If it's a positive right, then the government is required to provide it to all. Without using these terms per se, much of the debate on health care in the United States depends on what kind of right you see it as. Republicans fighting the Clinton health care reform in the '90s repeatedly spoke of "government interference" in hospitals, which essentially implies that governmental control would prevent people from receiving care. In other words, it would infringe upon our negative right against government interference. Those for socialized health care, on the other hand, believe our rights are already being denied, as it is the government's duty to provide it's citizens with medical attention when needed.

Moore clearly takes the latter view, as evident by his glorification of Canada, France, and even Cuba. That does not mean, however, that one who sees health care as a negative right has nothing to gain from the movie. The dozen or so people denied treatment Moore interviewed show that people can be left choiceless when it comes to their medical care and the laws of our nation fail to protect them. Goodbye negative right. So even if Michael Moore's tactics (trying to take a boatload of sick Americans to Guantanamo Bay, for instance), leave you with a bad taste in your mouth, our government's failure to provide even the most basic human right to its citizens should leave a worse one.

Summer Internship

Thanks to support from the Center, I have had the opportunity this summer to live in Washington, DC, and intern at the U.S. Department of State. I am working in the Bureau of African Affairs, which I selected because of my interest in Africa and issues relevent to the continent, such as economic development, public health, and human rights. The Bureau placed me on its Economic Policy Staff, the office that conducts all of the U.S. government's economic relations with sub-Saharan Africa. This placement has turned out to be a great way for me to combine my interests in economic development, foreign aid, and international trade.
Now halfway through my internship, my work thus far has revolved around the African Growth Opportunities Act (AGOA), a trade policy passed by Congress in 2000. AGOA provides trade preferences to nations that are progressing in political, economic, and human rights reforms, allowing eligible countries to export duty-free products to the U.S. Since AOGA went into effect, U.S. imports from sub-Saharan African nations have increased by over 150%, which has allowed for increased economic growth in much of Africa.
So far, I have been able to learn a lot about how the U.S. conducts aid policies in developing countries, and I am looking forward to learning more about AGOA and other development programs in the coming weeks!

Peace Movement in Colombia

Marianne Pearl interviews activist Mayerly Sanchez about the Children's Movement for Peace in Colombia.

Thus far my internship with the Student Movement for Real Change (SMRC) has been the experience of a lifetime. My internship began about 3 weeks ago in Washington, D.C. where I assisted the Executive Director with final preparations for the summer project that we have worked on together for the past year. Students for Students 2007 was created to uplift the rural communities in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa. There are 18 U.S. students here, including 3 staff members. We spent the first week in meetings in Cape Town and Johannesburg with political officials including the Consulate General, Helen La Lime, and Special Advisor to the Ministor of Housing, Saths Moodley, and arrived to the village this past Saturday. As Project Director I worked extensively on coordinating the project's logistics with the SMRC contacts on the ground in South Africa and designing the project's structure in the three villages.
Although the whole group is living in homestays in Utha Village, we are split into three working groups in separate villages. Each group is responsible for organizing, creating, and managing their own two week Experiential Education "Camp" and assisting the South African youth with service projects to benefit the community. Our second two weeks in the villages we will work with teachers and offer separate English lessons as well as some entrepreneurial education. As a team leader I manage my group at Sampson Primary School in Makrepeni Village everyday by ensuring camp runs smoothly. With over 100 kids who barely speak English, it has been a little chaotic the first few days.
We spent our first day completing a "community assessment" of sorts whereby we walked around in several groups with translators and spoke with families about what they believe their greatest needs to be and also recorded some demographics. The majority of families in Makrepeni have to walk 2 or 3 miles to access a water tap in another village (that does not work all the time) and the nearest health clinic is a four hour walk. Unemployment is also a major problem. Although some people said they had no needs and were quite happy, the highest complaint regarded the clinic and the unemployment situation which is incredibly high in this part of the country.
We spend mornings with students from ages 4-14 and the afternoons with the older youth (between 15-20) that come to participate in small roundtable discussions with us. The activities we deployed have been fun and educational and we feel we have actually engaged the students, which can be quite difficult considering the language barrier and many other challenges. Our discussion with the older youth has been the most informative part. The groups are finally opening up to us about serious problems in the community with HIV/AIDS, infidelity, sexual violence, unemployment, lack of motivation to attend school and many other issues. It is exciting to work with them to conquer these issues.

Human Rights in Cuba: Improving Under Raul?

Fewer political prisoners in Cuba
from BBC

An independent Cuban human rights group says there are fewer political prisoners in the country since Raul Castro took over as interim leader.

The group says up to 70 political prisoners have been freed in the past year, continuing a trend.

But it says the government in Havana still systematically violates the human rights of its citizens.

International inspection of its overcrowded prisons and labour camps is not allowed, the group's report said.

The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation said political prisoners still represented an "alarming" percentage of the Cuban population and that human rights violations were still widespread.

'Police state'

"Still in force is a police state whose nature is reflected in almost every aspect of national life," the report said.

Freedom of expression and association, and the right to form trade unions or political organizations, is still suppressed and criminalized under a penal code.

The commission, whose reports are regularly used by international groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, is illegal in Cuba but tolerated by the communist state.

The group was also critical of United States sanctions against Cuba for causing hardship to the Cuban people and providing the government with a justification for its economic failures.

Raul Castro has been acting president since his brother, Fidel, fell ill and underwent intestinal surgery last year.

Children and education in Dakar and St. Petersburg

As I have sent out to many professors and friends, this past semester I was in St. Petersburg, Russia and the semester before that in Dakar, Senegal. In both cities I had an internship working with children. Below I will paste what I wrote to friends and family in October 2006 about my experience at the school in Dakar and also my internship in St. Petersburg.

Dakar, Senegal:
I wanted to write about a school that I visited this morning with another CIEE student, Kendle. Kendle’s internship is related to education. For the past four weeks she has been teaching English to kids in secondary school. I don’t think she has ever taught before but for these kids it’s a good start. I later learned that there are 14 teachers for about 200 students. The teachers do get training, but I’m not sure how much. In any case, today Kendle taught the lower school kids. Because of the holidays, there were no teachers or something of that sort. Kendle had 25 students, which were mixed ages. I would say half were 1-3rd grade and the other half 5-7th grade age. She was teaching them “Hello, My name is (blank). What is your name? Nice to meet you.” And then “head shoulders knees and toes.” It was so chaotic. And maybe b/c I did summerbridge (a teaching program for college students in the United States; now known as Breakthrough Collaborative) I felt like I needed more of a structure. But then I realized, that today was under special circumstances b/c of the class combination. And also… how useful is English to these students? It was very overwhelming. The school is not public or private but ‘social.’ It’s for students who can’t afford public schools (here [in Senegal] they aren’t free) or failed out of public school or came from the villages and don’t have a birth certificate. It is the only one in Dakar and was founded and is run by someone who was in a koranique school until he was about 14. He taught himself English and French on the street. And began attending French school, which his father paid for, when he was 14. Then when he was 21, in secondary school, he had to stop b/c of strikes. And now… what he does is amazing. He had classes for all subjects all throughout the day, so that all kids, those who go to koranique school during the day, or who have to work to help their families, or adults, can come and learn to read and write, or math, etc. The school was in a poor neighborhood downtown. The buildings that surround it are hard to describe. They are like trailers but not really – cement building with tin metal roofs. The first time I saw them I was shocked b/c I hadn’t seen poverty here yet and it really is here; somehow we are just able to ignore it. Surprising though for a third world country… I think it’s the same in the states, especially in SF where there are SO many homeless people…

July 9, 2007
Reading that entry now, I realize that with my first impressions, I gave the school a bit too much credit. For the remainder of my time in Senegal I volunteered at that school twice a week. The director that I described above asked me to work with the little kids b/c of my smile and energy. We mostly did numbers and vowels in French, coloring, and learning how to write. The most frustrating feeling was watching their regular teacher sit back. One day I had to leave early and I asked her if she thought she could finish up with the coloring activity. A look of panic appeared on her face. I was so surprised. She was their teacher. Where was her energy? And when did watching kids (only 12 of them, each about 4 years old) color become so difficult? I felt like I was wasting my time. The kid were enjoying me being there and I do hope it had some impact but my goal was to present some of my ideas (or others') to the regular teacher so that she can utilize those techniques later, after I left. Everyone knew I wasn't going to be there long. I just felt like my efforts ended up being effective short-term instead of long-term. There is really no way for me to find out what is going on there now, but sadly I imagine little has changed.

St. Petersburg, Russia:
I stayed in St. Petersburg a month after my program end date to complete an internship I had attempted to begin in February. I worked for Doctors to Children, a branch of the US’s Doctors of the World. The organization has several projects ranging from working with babies rejected from HIV-positive mothers, or babies whose mothers are at rehab during the day, or at-risk children living in a social apartment, or at-risk children with families at a drop-in center, which also serves homeless (in Russian “street”) children. I worked at the social apartment as an English tutor with several different boys around the age of 16. I also worked at the drop-in center with the street children and the children with families but still considered “at-risk.” What I learned from this experience was that nothing is for sure. An event may be arranged (for example I helped to arrange field trips to museums around the city [there are 221 museums in St. Petersburg, including apartment/museums of famous Russian authors, not just Pushkin]) but the peple at the center told me to not rely on the sign-up list b/c the amount that actually do come is never equal to the amount that signed up. That was so weird for me – that lack of structure, at least compared to what I was used to at Breakthrough Collaborative last summer with lesson plans turned in every week, a schedule for the kids to follow, etc. I tried to introduce some games and logic activities and "word of the day" in Russian and English. I did so right before I left so I’m not sure if anything went into effect. I will have to call to find out. It’s sad leaving an organization where the help is needed, wanted, and appreciated. When I came back a second time the people at the drop-in center were so grateful. I explained to them that this was an internship I had set up for myself and that I would be coming every day. Still, there are no volunteers in Russia. No one does anything for free b/c everyone needs and wants money. I have never felt SO truly appreciated for something. Here, in the States, we’re paid for what we do so it’s expected. Even when I volunteer, I’m thanked for my time and energy, etc, but that’s expected, too. I think it’s good that volunteering is something that Americans (we?) are raised with be it for the resume or “wanting to change the world,” but I have to admit, I liked how my time and ideas were acknowledged. Most of all though, I hope that that center and others like it gets more volunteers, especially Russians, who can inspire the kids to stay off the streets, not drink beer to the extent that they do (especially at age 12 or younger), and not sniff glue or do other drugs. It’s sad to watch someone literally waste away their future like that. But I’m glad to see that there are organizations in Russia finally doing something about even if it’s slow.

I almost had an internship with a tolerance organization in St. Petersburg. Although the issue there, with all the hate and racial crimes, is a very important one, I am very happy I was able to see what is being done by government and non-government organizations to help children without families and children from families with difficulties. After a friend of mine read what I wrote about my internship in St. Petersburg, she wrote to me about her training in Houston for Teach for America. She said the kids she taught there we much more difficult than the ones we taught at Breakthrough in San Francisco last summer. I believe her. Her email was a nice or maybe more appropriately "sad," reminder of the problems with education and at-risk youth in the United States, not just abroad or only in underdeveloped countries. Most people I know, recognize this, but expect it more from a poorer society. I went to a conference last year where a recent college graduate spoke about an NGO for young girls and women she co-founded in Kenya after she had studied abroad there. She said her family members asked why she couldn't just stay in New York, her home town, and help poor children there. I'm not sure of her exact words but she said something along the lines of "everyone deserves the right to an education." She had already worked with those girls and did not want to be "just another white face that comes and goes." I think she has a good point. No matter where one is, children from needy backgrounds all need care, attention, and to be believed in by someone who in their eyes is not like them.

Human Rights Watch issued a report today that calls for the immediate release of the three Israeli soldiers taken prisoner last summer. Corporal Gilad Shalit was taken near the Gaza border last year by Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees and the Army of Islam, while Sergeant Eldad Regev and Sergeant Ehud Goldwasser were captured at the Lebanese border by Hizbullah forces. Human Rights Watch stressed the illegality of taking hostages in the laws of war, a grievance that probably won't garner much respect by terrorist organizations.

Much focus has been on Gilad Shalit as of late, as an audiotape was released on the anniversary of his capture (June 25) in which he requested the Israeli government adhere to his captors' demands. Additionally, Hamas leader Ismail Haniya has specifically called for a deal to be made for Shalit's release. But then so have Galit's captors.

“If they think the soldier will be presented on a golden dish, they are wrong. We have proved our ability to keep the soldier for one year, and we can continue for years. They have to realize that Shalit will not be released without a glorious deal which comprises the largest number of Palestinian prisoners being released, especially the long-term prisoners," Abu Mujahid, spokesperson for the Popular Resistance Committees, stated.

There is precedent for unequal prisoner exchanges from Israel. Most notably, perhaps, was in 2004, when hundreds of Lebanese fighters were exchanged for one Israeli and three bodies of soldiers, all missing since 2000.

Human Rights Watch also called for the cessation of illegal Israeli practices, specifically imprisoning Hamas leaders to use as their own bargaining chips for the captured soldiers. "Associated Press reported that, when asked if the Hamas officials would be freed if Shalit were released, Major General Yair Naveh, the head of Israel Defense Forces' central command, responded: 'I think so. The decision to arrest them came from the political level ... and I think the political level's perspective could change.' However, many other Israeli officials have denied that the Hamas members were arrested to gain Shalit's release."

Individuality Through Objects and Literature in Holocaust Memory

Norine Zapata, the administrative assistant for the Center, handed me an article this morning from the University of Chicago Magazine (Volume 99, Number 5, May-June 2007).

It deals with the impersonal impressions of the Holocaust derived from satistics and piles of objects, such as eyeglasses or suitcases.

“Those piles of objects don’t speak of the lives of their owners. They speak of their death. Shoes, eyeglasses, bones: these speak of death.”

Literary theorist Bożena Shallcross, an associate professor of Slavic languages & literatures, uses literature to transform the role of these objects. “Very often poems do not talk about human fates, but only about objects,” she says. “They enumerate them, they list them, they show them, they describe them from a personalized perspective.”

Just like in non-Holocaust-related literature, an object is never just an object; it is a symbol, a metaphor. Rather than discrediting objects, then, Shallcross reemphasisizes their importance on an individual level.

Read the whole article here.

Croatian rock star embraces Nazi past

At a recent concert in Zagreb, some fans of the Croatian rock star Marko Perkovic wore the black caps of Croatia's World War II Nazi puppet government, known as Ustashe. (Denis Lovrovic)

By Nicolas Wood
Sunday, July 1, 2007

ZAGREB, Croatia: For the Croatian rock star Marko Perkovic, it is a routine part of his performance: He shouts a well-known Croatian slogan from World War II and his fans respond with the Nazi salute.

On a hot Sunday evening last month, thousands did just that in a packed soccer stadium here in the Croatian capital. Photographs from the concert show youths wearing the black caps of the Nazi-backed Ustasha regime that ruled Croatia, and which was responsible for sending tens of thousands of Serbs, gypsies and Jews to their deaths in concentration camps.

Perkovic's popularity is nothing new in Croatia. It dates back to the Balkan wars in which he fought in the Croatian Army. His patriotic and sometimes violently nationalist songs made him an instant hit. Most Croats know him better by his stage name, Thompson, which was given to him during the war, when he carried the vintage British-made submachine gun of the same name.

But now Thompson's growing success - among a new generation of Croats, many of them apparently oblivious to the history of the Holocaust - has prompted concern and condemnation from minority groups in Croatia and Jewish groups abroad. The concert last month was his biggest to date, with at least 40,000 people in attendance.

What has shocked those groups more, though, is that in the ensuing debate, many senior politicians and the members of the media have not seen a problem with the imagery or salutes.

"They just don't seem to get it," said Efraim Zuroff, the Israel Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, who called on the president of Croatia, Stjepan Mesic, to ban future concerts and help outlaw the use of extremist symbols and slogans.

Despite those objections, the concert was shown during prime time Sunday night on state-owned television, prompting further protests from Jewish and Serbian groups in Croatia.

"We don't want to pay for something that strikes fear into my children, or distances them from their friends or neighbors," said Milorad Pupovac, leader of the largest Serbian political party in Croatia.

Such imagery is also at odds with the image that the Croatian government wants to send to the world.

Over the last three years, the conservative Croatian prime minister, Ivo Sanader, has to some extent reduced its reputation as a nationalist state that once harbored war criminals. The transition is widely viewed as a success and Croatia is a favorite to join the European Union, possibly in 2009.

So the country that for much of the 1990s was seen as a war-torn nation is now widely perceived as a prime destination with four million tourists a year flocking to its Adriatic coast line. A government-backed advertising campaign on CNN urges more to come and experience "the Mediterranean as it once was."

Many former critics of Croatian nationalist leanings in the 1990s acknowledge that the country has a come a long way. Once it was possible to buy photographs and memorabilia from the Ustasha period openly in the center of Zagreb. Restaurants displayed pictures of Ustasha units on their walls.

While that has disappeared, souvenir shops still sell key rings and baseball caps with the Ustasha U, as well as the slogan used in Thompson concerts; "Za Dom: Spremni!" which means "For the Homeland: Ready!" And sometimes, insensitivity about issues stemming from the Holocaust can verge on extreme.

Take Perkovic's public affairs manager, Albino Ursic. A large poster entitled "Final Solution" adorns the wall of Ursic's office. It shows a packet of cigarettes marked with a large Swastika and labelled "Adolf Filters" poking out of a black leather jacket. "It's an antismoking picture," Ursic explained. He designed the image in 1994.

"It won an award in Lisbon," he added, stressing that he had no sympathies with the right, and viewed himself as left of center. As for Perkovic's use of the slogans, Ursic said the fascist salutes were no different than those made by soccer hooligans across Europe who have little understanding of what they are doing

"It is just teenage rebellion," he said.

And while the Croatian government issued a statement after the concert in June criticizing the open display of Ustasha memorabilia and slogans, much of the Croatian political establishment seems to agree with Ursic. They cannot see what all the fuss is about.

"You can't see any antisemitism here," said Dragan Primorac, the education minister of Croatia. He was due to attend the same Thompson concert last month, before it was postponed by a day due to rain. Other celebrities who did manage to make it included a former Croatian foreign minister and two former Croatian NBA basketball stars.

"At most you could blame four to five people," he said, for wearing Ustasha regalia, or giving the Nazi salute during the concert. He stressed, too, that Croatia was a good friend of Israel and pointed to his mantelpiece, where there stood a photograph of himself meeting Shimon Perez.

Perkovic, too, has recently sought to tone down his nationalist image. In an interview, the soft-spoken singer said he had never raised his own arm to make a fascist salute. Nor, he said, did he encourage people to wear Ustasha uniforms. As for the Ustasha slogan he uses, he said it was a traditional Croatian salute that predated World War II.

But rights groups here say there is a fundamental problem: while Croatia is now seeking to move away from the nationalist period of the 1990s, a whole generation of young people has grown up in the last 15 years with an incomplete education about the Holocaust, and many in Croatia believe the deeds of its wartime leaders are on the same level as Communist leaders in Yugoslavia.

"The education about the recent history of Croatia is not adequate," said Danijel Ivin, the president of the Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights.

Primorac, the education minister, said that is slowly beginning to change. Since 2004, a whole day is dedicated each year to studying the Holocaust. Still, others believe Croatia's ability to face its past will remain a problem for some time.

"It is an issue," said Tomislav Jakic, an advisor to President Mesic. "It is far from the Ustasha nostalgia that it was 15 years ago, when the ghost was first let out of the bottle. But the ghost is still here, and it will be for years to come."

from The International Herald Tribune

Fight Modern-Day Slavery!

From www.iabolish.com:

We need your help today to ensure that essential anti-slavery legislation will be signed into law. Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey, a longtime supporter of American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG), is ready to reintroduce House Resolution 5911, the Eradication of Slavery in Sudan Act.

Click here to learn more about this bill and to contact your representative today.

The bill is struggling against opposition by the U.S. State Department, which argues that they can do the job without a commission. However, tens of thousands of Southern Sudanese slaves remain in bondage in Northern Sudan. Representative Smith needs co-sponsors in order to re-introduce his bill.

Please ask for your legislator's support.

The Resolution would:

1. Create an independent commission of experts;
2. Investigate the fate of slaves in Sudan; and
3. Make recommendations on U.S. policy to eliminate slavery in Sudan.

This legislation is crucial to the elimination of slavery in Sudan, which has victimized tens of thousands of people. But without significant co-sponsorship, it will not even come to a vote.

Let your representative know this is important to you, and then make sure you tell your friends to do the same.

Please also join AASG on Tuesday, July 3, from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm EST as we call Congress to urge them to support this piece of legislation.

Click here for a list of legislators that we are targeting and a sample script of what to say.

We must tell Congress that we can no longer tolerate the complicity of the U.S. government on this deliberate abuse of human rights.

In Freedom,

the iAbolish team




© American Anti-Slavery Group. All rights reserved.

Fear in Afghanistan

NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, clad in a burka, stands with farmers in an opium poppy field outside Lashkargah, in Afghanistan's Helmand province.

A Correspondent Finds Afghans' Optimism Waning
by Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson

Morning Edition, June 28, 2007 · More than five years after the fall of the Taliban, little optimism remains about the future of Afghanistan, and more and more people are looking to get out of the country, says Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, who covers the country for NPR.

"There is still a little hope," Nelson, who is wrapping up a U.S. visit, tells Steve Inskeep.

"You ask an average Afghan, [and] they will tell you everything is dire, the economy stinks, there are no jobs, the government is collapsing, the corruption is rampant, the Taliban menace is growing.

"And you will ask them, 'Well, do you think the Taliban are going to take back over?' Most of them will say, 'No.' They haven't gotten quite that far yet. But I think that's only a matter of time."

Civilian casualties, largely in NATO airstrikes against Taliban fighters, are contributing to the pessimism.

"The anger toward NATO is very much there," she says. "People really feel that they are not there to help them anymore and that they in fact are killing people."

Life in Afghanistan these days is a tale of two cities — the somewhat Westernized Kabul, and a violent Taliban stronghold called Lashkargah, in southern Afghanistan.

"In Kabul, you'll see women or girls walking down the street with just a veil on and jeans," Nelson says. "It's very relaxed and it has a little bit of a Western feel to it. You definitely see that Afghanistan has come a long way from the Taliban days."

Nelson says Kabul feels safe enough to walk around in — especially in daylight.

But the situation is much different in Lashkargah, the capital of Helmand province.

"You don't see any women on the streets without burkas. [There is] a lot of paranoia. The bazaar is very rarely filled. People are so scared, they don't trust their neighbors. They don't trust anybody.

"They're basically racing to work — if they even still go to work — and race home at night. A lot of life is spent in the family compound. Nobody ever goes out.

"There's fear because it's very difficult to tell who's Taliban and who's not .... A lot of times they'll use motorcycles that have sirens very similar to what the police will use. As a result, you just don't know who's in town, you don't know who's an informant because the Taliban do pay money to be able to find people to kidnap. A lot of times, bodies will be left outside the city .... As a result, you just don't have really any life."

listen to full story

Jenna Bush in Africa

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/28/btsc.malveaux/index.html

Supreme Court: Schools can't use race to assign students

Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, June 28, 2007

(06-28) 10:17 PDT WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Supreme Court dealt a severe blow to school integration efforts today, ruling that the Constitution forbids assigning students to particular schools because of their race, even when the goal is campus diversity.

The 5-4 ruling, on the last day of the 2006-07 term, came 53 years after the court unanimously outlawed racial segregation in public schools and declared that segregated schools are inherently unequal. Today's decision invoked some of the same concepts of racial equality to strike down race-conscious enrollment systems in Seattle and Louisville, Ky., similar to programs in hundreds of school districts nationwide.

"The state must seek alternatives to the classification and differential treatment of individuals by race, at least absent some extraordinary showing not present here,'' said Justice Anthony Kennedy, who cast the decisive fifth vote against the Seattle and Louisville districts.

The court's most conservative members, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, would have gone further and banned all school district efforts at racial balancing, saying they violated the principle of a "color-blind'' Constitution. Kennedy disagreed, saying racial diversity in public schools is a legitimate goal, but that it generally must be pursued by such measures as designing attendance zones or locating new schools to minimize racial isolation rather than assigning individual students on the basis of their race.

If those measures are inadequate, he said, a school may be able to justify an enrollment system that takes a student's race into account. Kennedy did not define those circumstances but said the Seattle and Louisville districts failed to meet his test.

Dissenting justices said the ruling endangered the principles of racial equality established in the landmark 1954 ruling, Brown vs. Board of Education.

"The last half-century has witnessed great strides toward racial equality, but we have not yet realized the promise of Brown,'' said Justice Stephen Breyer. "To invalidate the plans under review is to threaten the promise of Brown. The (Roberts) position, I fear, would break that promise. This is a decision that the court and the nation will come to regret.''

The ruling comes four years after the court allowed public universities to consider applicants' race as one of several factors to promote a diverse student body. The 5-4 majority in that case included Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who retired last year and was replaced by Justice Samuel Alito, an appointee of President Bush who joined Roberts' opinion today. The court majority said today it was not questioning the 2003 ruling.

The decision affects numerous school districts that have adopted race-conscious enrollment systems to offset the effects of housing patterns and parental choice that have resulted in heavily white and minority schools even after the abolition of state-sponsored segregation.

According to a report by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, whites made up 58 percent of the nation's public school enrollment in 2003, but the average white student attended a school that was nearly 80 percent white. African Americans accounted for 17 percent of all students, but the average black student attended a school that was 53 percent black. Latinos made up 19 percent of enrollment but attended schools that were typically 55 percent Latino.

The impact of today's ruling on California is less clear, because state voters may have already outlawed race-based enrollment systems more than a decade ago.

Proposition 209, passed in 1996, prohibited race and sex preferences in public education, employment and contracting. The state Supreme Court has declared that the initiative bans all government classifications that treat the races differently, but has never ruled on its application to public schools.

San Francisco's new school superintendent, Carlos Garcia, said earlier this month he would like to resume the use of race as a factor in enrollment, a position shared by a majority of the school board. Students' race was considered in school assignments under a court order in effect from 1983 until 2001, when racial considerations were prohibited in a settlement of a suit by Chinese-American parents. Since then, single-race enrollment at some schools has risen above 80 percent.

Any attempt to reinstate race-based enrollment would face a legal challenge under Prop. 209 as well as the U.S. constitutional standard that the court announced today.

The ruling was a victory for groups of white parents who sued the Seattle and Louisville districts, saying their children were turned away from their preferred schools because of their race.

read on...

Ocean's 13 Cast Helps Darfur

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 27, 2007

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- ''Ocean's Thirteen'' stars have donated $5.5 million to humanitarian efforts in Sudan's Darfur region, according to actor George Clooney.

Clooney told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Rome that he was joined by Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle and producer Jerry Weintraub in raising $9.3 million for Darfur, most of which was contributed at a dinner during the film's premiere last month at the Cannes Film Festival.

Clooney said more than half the money has already been donated to various charities dealing with Darfur. He said his group wants to keep emptying and replenishing the coffers of the humanitarian organization they co-founded, called Not On Our Watch, to focus global attention on the plight of the 2.5 million civilians in Darfur who have fled their homes.

''There are only a few things we can do -- protect them where we can, and provide food, water, health care and counseling,'' he said. ''We're just trying to get them to live long enough to get to the next step.''

More than 200,000 people have died in the Darfur region of western Sudan since 2003, when local rebels took up arms against the Sudanese government, accusing it of decades of neglect. Sudan's government is accused of unleashing in response a militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed -- a charge it denies.

Clooney announced the latest donation from Not On Our Watch -- $1 million to the U.N. World Food Program -- which will be used to help the U.N. agency deliver food and other necessities by helicopter to inaccessible villages in Darfur.

The latest donation raised to $5.5 million the amount that Not On Our Watch has given to humanitarian and relief organizations in Darfur in less than three weeks.

Not On Our Watch's first donation of $2.75 million went to the International Rescue Committee. It has also donated $750,000 to the British-based relief agency Oxfam and $1 million to the Westport, Conn.-based charity Save The Children.

Clooney said everyone on the board is committed to keep raising awareness and money.

''I have every intention of doing it in other places,'' he said, and the upcoming film festivals in Venice, Italy, and Deauville, France, ''sound like good spots'' for fundraising events.

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On the Net:

Not On Our Watch:

http://notonourwatchproject.org/

Paying Developing Countries Not to Burn Forests

Indonesian students look at the wooden wall which was cut down by a Greenpeace activist during a protest against deforestation in Jakarta. AFP/Getty Images

from www.npr.org

by Christopher Joyce

Morning Edition, June 26, 2007 · Many industrialized nations are trying to use less coal, oil and natural gas to lower carbon dioxide levels, which is warming the atmosphere and changing the Earth's climate. But one-fifth of all greenhouse gases comes from forests that are cut down and burned to make way for crops or pasture.

Now there is a movement to get countries with big forests to slow the rate of cutting by paying them.

When a forest is burned to make room for a soybean field or a cattle pasture, for instance, the carbon in those trees goes up into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide — the leading greenhouse gas. As a result, burning forests creates a huge pulse of the gas.

The international treaty that limits greenhouse gases, the Kyoto Protocol, doesn't do anything directly about deforestation. It is aimed at factories and power plants in industrialized countries.

Thus, the new idea was born; it was first floated by developing countries: Why not pay them to slow down their deforestation. In the process, after the carbon that is kept earthbound as a result is tallied, it can be sold as a carbon credit to anyone who wants to offset their own carbon dioxide emissions.

Supporters of the "avoided deforestation" idea also say that in the effort to slow climate change, it could help remake developing countries from spectators into first-string players.

"Every year in tropical countries we lose about an area of forest about the size of New York state," said Peter Frumhoff, of the advocacy group the Union of Concerned Scientists. "The sum total of those clearings is that it contributes about 20 percent of the heat trapping gases into the atmosphere that cause global warming."

One group that has emerged to represent the developing countries is the Coalition for Rainforest Nations. Led by Kevin Conrad, a young business school graduate born and raised in Papua, New Guinea, the coalition tries to offer incentives for its members to keep their plush forest lands.

"What was driving deforestation was a global market for cows or a global market for coffee," Conrad said. "Nobody could compete head to head with the money a country was making elsewhere, so carbon was the first time we had a chance, a global market that could compete head to head with these other markets."

Redoubling Efforts? The International Community and Darfur

Meeting on Darfur ends with few signs of progress
By Craig S. Smith
International Herald Tribune
Published: June 25, 2007

PARIS: They came, they met, they agreed that more must be done, but a Paris meeting aimed at solving the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan ended with little visible progress Monday.

"We really must redouble our efforts, and I think that that was the spirit of today's conference," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said at a brief news conference following the day of closed-door meetings. "The point here was to take stock of where we are and to make sure that we are doing everything we can."

Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner of France said the delegations from 18 countries, including Sudan's major donors, the Group of 8 industrialized countries and China had reaffirmed their support for a joint African Union and United Nations peacekeeping force according to a deal hammered out with Khartoum earlier this month.

"There is a little light at the end of the darkness," Kouchner said.

But there was no announcement of who would contribute soldiers to the force, nor was there any signal that China had softened its resistance to levy sanctions on Sudan, a measure that would require Chinese acquiescence for it to win UN Security Council approval. China is a staunch Khartoum ally and major buyer of Sudanese oil.

France did say it would contribute about €10 million, or $13.5 million, to help fund the peacekeeping force. The country has spent just €2.5 million on aid to Darfur so far this year and only €3.9 million for all of 2006, according to UN figures. The European Union also promised to spend an extra €31 million for humanitarian relief in the coming months.

Since early 2003, an Arab militia known as the janjaweed have been raping and killing non-Arabs in Darfur, ostensibly as part of the Sudanese government's effort to suppress a rebellion there.

The United States labeled the violence genocide in 2004, but the international community has done little to stop it.

The African Union and the United Nations hope to get all factions to sit down for peace talks in August. China's special envoy, Liu Guijin, said Monday that the Sudanese government was ready to participate in such talks.

But delegates said that with more than a dozen armed groups operating in the region, negotiating peace will be difficult.

2007 AnneMerie Donoghue Human Rights Fellows Named

Fifteen students have received AnneMerie Donoghue Fellowships for projects this summer. The Fellowship, sponsored by CMC's Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights, provides financial support for internships or research projects that deal with human rights. Students much submit a detailed project description and budget proposal to be considered for this prestigious award. This summer, Donoghue Fellows will be spread across the globe. Their projects take them to China, California, Spain, Tanzania, South Africa, Washington, D.C., and Russia. Below is the list of internships and research projects of these students.

Internships:
Jennifer Ambrose, '09: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of African Affairs, Washington, DC
Kyle Block, '10: Orphanage in Yanji, China
Natasha Bogopolskaya, '08: Doctors to Children, St. Petersburg, Russia
Jim Castellanos, '08: Veteran’s Writing Group, Berkeley, CA
Elizabeth Pavlovich, '08: Touch Foundation, Mwanza, Tanzania
Max Wilson, '09: Enough: The Project to Abolish Genocide and Mass Atrocities, Washington, D.C.
Vanessa Carter, '08: Student Movement for Real Change, Limpopo, South Africa
Raymond Hall, '09: U.S. Embassy, military attaché office, Spain
Ilana Kegel, '08: Weill Medical College of Bugando University College of Health Sciences, Mwanza, Tanzania
Alexandra Aznar, '08: Guatemala Human Rights Commission; Washington, DC
Andrew Bogrand, '09: Special Olympics Office, San Gabriel, CA
Kevyn Klein, '08: Holocaust Centre, Cape Town, South Africa

Research projects:
Amy Berg, '08: Philosophical approaches to global poverty
Becky Grossman, '08: Ethnic minorities in the former GDR during the Communist era
Marisa Shea, '08: The effects of Turkey’s 2002 Civil Code on the welfare of women

Hypernova: Illegal Indie-Rock from Iran

Iran's Hypernova is an underground band by necessity: Western-style music is banned by the country's Islamic regime.
by Shereen Meraji

Day to Day, June 19, 2007 · In Iran, people are not allowed to listen to Western music, let alone make it.

But more than half of Iran's population is under 25 years old. So it's not surprising that young Iranians download music off the Internet, watch satellite TV and make music in a thriving underground scene.

Hypernova is an indie-rock band from Tehran influenced by groups such as The Strokes, the Arctic Monkeys and Queens of the Stone Age. Their new CD is called Who Says You Can't Rock in Iran?; they recorded it illegally in their home country.

Lead singer Raam says, "There's an element of danger involved in what we do. But the laws are so chaotic back home that they're hardly enforced. Ninety-nine out of 100 times you can get away with anything."

The Iranian indie-rock band struggled for seven long years in Tehran. They played shows in dank basements and at kids' birthday parties. One day, Raam decided to try for the big time: the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas.

Raam recalls: "I got this e-mail: 'Congratulations! You've been accepted to showcase the festival.' I thought it was spam mail or something."

The trip was not easy. "We had to go to Dubai, because there's no U.S. consulate in Iran," Raam says. After traveling from Tehran to Dubai, the band was denied visas. Heartbroken, they waited and applied again — this time, with a faxed letter from Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY).

Hypernova eventually got the visas, but the band missed the South by Southwest music festival. Despite the setback, Hypernova continues to tour. Raam says Hypernova's members are living their dream in the United States. Soon they will be back in Tehran, rocking in the shadows.

from www.npr.org

Sierra Leone: Landmark Convictions for Use of Child Soldiers

(New York, June 20, 2007) – The war crimes court for Sierra Leone has handed down the first convictions by a UN-backed tribunal for the crime of recruiting and using child soldiers. Human Rights Watch said that these convictions are a ground-breaking step toward ending impunity for commanders who exploit hundreds of thousands of children as soldiers in conflicts worldwide.

" This use of child soldiers is a particularly horrific crime. These children should have been learning how to read, not how to shoot an AK-47. "
Jo Becker, children’s rights advocate for Human Rights Watch

In Freetown today, the Special Court for Sierra Leone handed down verdicts against three accused men from the rebel Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), one of three warring factions during Sierra Leone’s 11-year brutal armed conflict, which ended in 2002. The judges found the three accused – Alex Tamba Brima, Brima Bazzy Kamara and Santigie Borbor Kanu – guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of international humanitarian law, including the recruitment and use of child soldiers.

“This use of child soldiers is a particularly horrific crime. These children should have been learning how to read, not how to shoot an AK-47,” said Jo Becker, children’s rights advocate for Human Rights Watch. “We hope that the Special Court’s decision will protect children in other parts of the world from suffering what so many Sierra Leonean children were forced to endure.”

Thousands of children were recruited and used by all sides during Sierra Leone’s conflict, including the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), the AFRC, and the pro-government Civil Defense Forces (CDF). Children were often forcibly recruited, given drugs and used to commit atrocities. Thousands of girls were also recruited as soldiers and often subjected to sexual exploitation.

The Special Court for Sierra Leone was established in 2002 to prosecute those “who bear the greatest responsibility” for war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international humanitarian law, along with several domestic offenses, committed since 1996. All nine defendants being prosecuted by the Special Court have been charged with the recruitment and use of child soldiers. The trial phase is complete for cases involving individuals associated with the CDF and AFRC. For accused associated with the RUF, the defense began presentation of its case this May. The Special Court began the trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor on June 4 in The Hague.

“Commanders in many conflicts deliberately prey upon children as recruits,” said Becker. “Now that child recruiters are being brought to justice, their impunity is no longer so certain.”

The Special Court’s Appeals Chamber also issued a significant ruling in 2004 that the prohibition on the recruitment or use of children under the age of 15 had crystallized as customary international law prior to 1996, and that individuals bore criminal responsibility for such acts.

The first individual being tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the former militia leader Thomas Lubanga from the Democratic Republic of Congo, has also been charged with the crimes of enlisting and conscripting children as soldiers and using them to participate actively in hostilities. In March 2006, Lubanga was transferred to the ICC in The Hague.

from: www.hrw.org

Muslims' Veils Test Limits of Britain's Tolerance

A "mark of separation" or freedom of dress?

By JANE PERLEZ
Published: June 22, 2007
New York Times

LONDON, June 16 — Increasingly, Muslim women in Britain take their children to school and run errands covered head to toe in flowing black gowns that allow only a slit for their eyes. On a Sunday afternoon in Hyde Park, groups of black-clad Muslim women relaxed on the green baize lawn among the in-line skaters and badminton players.

When she is walking she is often stopped, Ms. Mayata said. “People ask, ‘Why do you wear that?’ A lot of people assume I’m oppressed, that I don’t speak English. I don’t care. I’ve got a brain.” More Photos »

Their appearance, like little else, has unnerved other Britons, testing the limits of tolerance here and fueling the debate over the role of Muslims in British life.

Many veiled women say they are targets of abuse. Meanwhile, there are growing efforts to place legal curbs on the full-face Muslim veil, known as the niqab.

There have been numerous examples in the past year. A lawyer dressed in a niqab was told by an immigration judge that she could not represent a client because, he said, he could not hear her. A teacher wearing a niqab was dismissed from her school. A student who was barred from wearing a niqab took her case to the courts, and lost. In reaction, the British educational authorities are proposing a ban on the niqab in schools altogether.

A leading Labor Party politician, Jack Straw, scolded women last year for coming to see him in his district office in the niqab. Prime Minister Tony Blair has called the niqab a “mark of separation.”

David Sexton, a columnist for The Evening Standard, wrote recently that the niqab was an affront and that Britain had been “too deferential.”

“It says that all men are such brutes that if exposed to any more normally clothed women, they cannot be trusted to behave — and that all women who dress any more scantily like that are indecent,” Mr. Sexton wrote. “It’s abusive, a walking rejection of all our freedoms.”

Although the number of women wearing the niqab has increased in the past several years, only a tiny percentage of women among Britain’s two million Muslims cover themselves completely. It is impossible to say how many exactly.

Some who wear the niqab, particularly younger women who have taken it up recently, concede that it is a frontal expression of Islamic identity, which they have embraced since Sept. 11, 2001, as a form of rebellion against the policies of the Blair government in Iraq, and at home.

read on

2 CMC Students Earn Projects for Peace Awards

Two Students Earn
Projects for Peace Awards


Date Issued: 05/02/2007

Sophomore Marya Husain and freshman Andres Angel are among an elite group of 100 undergraduates from across America selected to participate in the 100 Projects for Peace initiative. Husain and Angel will each receive a grant of $10,000 to help finance their projects, designed to help foster world peace in summer 2007.

Husain will use her grant to combat the exploitation of child laborers in an industrial area of Karachi, Pakistan. She estimates there are at least 300,000 “economically active” children working in Sindh province alone. Husain says providing children with an education at a young age is crucial if they are to avoid a lifetime of forced labor. Her project is based on a two-pronged approach: providing educational and recreational opportunities to approximately 400 working children, while simultaneously maintaining close ties with employers and parents to support the children’s self-development.

Husain will coordinate her efforts with the Child Development Center in Sher Shah, Karachi, an organization she greatly admires. “I have personally witnessed the level of commitment and dedication shown by the CDC and its employees,” she states. “Their director has been very appreciative of the interest I take in their projects and has ensured me of the organization’s full support and encouragement at every step of my project.”

Angel will use his grant in Baru Island, Colombia, to help create a sustainable business for 20 widows displaced from their homes, a consequence of the ongoing strife between government troops, guerillas, and drug traffickers. The women currently survive by selling handbags made from material they scavenge from the streets. Angel’s idea is to help these women turn their skills into an enterprise called “Displaced Art.” He has already secured land for a factory and, most importantly, an eco-fashion accessories company in Florida has signed on to purchase the handbags for at least two years, once the company is up and running.

“Buying short-term happiness is not my goal,” Angel says. “By empowering the economic head of the family with a sustainable micro-enterprise and a reliable market, we are removing their families from the vicious cycle of crime.”

Abigail Haskell, CMC’s associate director of foundation & corporate relations, is one of three staff members who served on the college’s Projects for Peace selection committee. She says the students selected for the prize demonstrated genuine creativity in forming proposals that established a real plan for success. Furthermore, the students were clearly thinking about the future viability of their plans.

“The projects conceived by Marya and Andres demonstrate that they are not students looking to do good work for a single summer and then return home,” she notes. “They are truly searching for ways in which to have a lasting impact.”

The 100 Projects for Peace is the brainchild of Kathryn Wasserman Davis, a lifelong internationalist and philanthropist, who is about to celebrate her centennial birthday. “I want to use my 100th birthday to help young people launch some immediate initiatives that will bring new thinking to the prospects of peace in the world,” Davis has said.

The competition was open to undergraduates enrolled in the 76 colleges and universities in the Davis United World College Scholars Program.

A "Global Magna Carta?"

The most recent issue of Foreign Policy entitled, "21 Solutions to Save the World," features, you guessed it, 21 articles discussing global issues ranging from malnutrition to anti-Americanism (I highly recommend it to everyone). The article that I found most pertinent to our class discussion, "A Global Magna Carta," underscores the global double standard when it comes to engaging rogue and failed states and repressive regimes. The author, Russian democratic activist Garry Kasparov, declares the UN outdated and ill-equipped to win today's "global war," which he deems a "war about the value of human life." Consequently, he advocates the creation of a new organization based on a so-called "global Magna Carta, a declaration of inalienable human rights that all member nations must recognize."

Kasparov calls on wealthy nations that highly value democracy and human life to coalesce and adopt a staunch multilateral policy against states that sponsor terror and oppress their people. In order to fight the "global war," this united front should use its strongest weapon, wealth, "to provide real leadership by example as well as concrete incentives to respect human rights." In his concluding remarks, he cites Winston Churchill's 1946 speech declaring that the "UN must be a force for action, and not merely a frothing of words."

If the author were in our class, he would have hesitated before making such a bold suggestion and acknowleged the quagmires inherent in creating a universal declaration of human rights. It seems that in today's increasingly interdependent and complicated world creating such a document would be even more difficult than it was in 1948. It is not merely serendipitous that the UNUDHR remains the cornerstone of international human rights norms, for it was, and still is, the most successful multilateral effort to establish a framework for protecting human rights. Though it would be nice to imagine that the US and its wealthy, democratic counterparts could align their rhetoric with their actions, national interest, sovereignty, and geopolitical strategies render this merely a utopian vision. Is it plausible that in the future there might be mechanisms by which to truly enforce a universally binding international code of human rights? As demonstrated by the fact that we have been debating it all semester, I know there is no answer to this question, but I had to posit it once again before we part ways. Much to my dismay, the realist within me emerges in my response: doubtful.

Note: References to our class and its discussions refer to Jerry Fowler's ORDER/DISORDER Gould Seminar on human rights; this post was originally published on our class blog.

China gets low grade in human rights

Amnesty gives China low grade on Olympics reforms

The human rights group cites detentions without trial and restrictions on domestic journalists. Beijing argues it's made progress.

By David Pierson, Times Staff Writer
May 1, 2007

BEIJING — The Chinese government has failed to meet its promise to introduce greater freedoms, Amnesty International charged Monday, in the latest international criticism ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games here.

The London-based human rights organization said in its report that China had made progress reforming its death penalty system and granting greater access for foreign journalists. However, the group charged that Beijing continues to detain local activists without trial, stifles domestic journalism, and has embarked on a campaign to "clean up" the streets of Beijing of petty criminals, vagrants and drug users ahead of the Summer Games.

read on...