Pax Gaea Human Rights World Post

PAX GAEA WORLD POST HUMAN RIGHTS HEADLINES TUESDAY, JANUARY 16, 2007

• More help to battle malaria desperately needed in Africa
• Liberia's President sheds her light on a country living in the dark
• Pakistani families demand government explain whereabouts of missing loved ones
• Egyptian bus driver raped by police sentenced for "interfering with civil servant"
• Rights groups demand Spain provide safeguards for unaccompanied children
• Chad and Sudan must stop aid to militias who have killed hundreds of civilians
• Condemnation of Catholic Church for its role in force evictions in Angola
• Virginia lawmaker: Blacks should get over slavery, not expect apology any more than Jews should apologize for killing Christ
• Argentina official acknowledges Armenian genocide
• Far right parties a growing force, challenge for European Union

More help needed to fight malaria in Africa

By Tan Ee Lyn

GUANGZHOU, China, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Aid agencies and African states called for more help on Tuesday to fight malaria, a disease that kills more than a million people each year, 90 percent of them in sub-Saharan Africa. A dire shortage of money, infrastructure and medical personnel continues to make drugs inaccessible to people who most need them - children and pregnant women, the two groups most vulnerable to the disease. The World Health Organisation recommends artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) as the drug of choice to fight malaria. Artemisinin is compound extracted from a herb that is mostly grown in China. "We have many very good drugs, but populations which need them most are not getting them, and these are the rural poor," Prudence Hamade, chairman of Medecins Sans Frontieres' International Malaria Working Group, told an anti-malaria conference in China's southern Guangzhou city. Citing a study in Burundi, Hamade said only 9 percent of children with malaria were treated with ACTs in 2003 and 2004. "Developed countries need to contribute more to the fight against malaria and because it only affects people in developing world, it's a neglected disease," she told Reuters. One of the world's oldest diseases, malaria sickens between 300 million and 500 million people a year, killing more than one million of them, or a person every 30 seconds, according to the World Health Organisation. Reuters/AlertNet (1/16)

As street lights return to Liberia, so does hope

PRUE CLARKE, Special to The Globe and Mail

MONROVIA -- As the sun went down on a recent public holiday in the Liberian capital, young people poured onto the streets to mingle and flirt in the glow of yellow street lights. "We are having fun tonight because of the street lights," said a 17-year-old boy dressed in scruffy hip-hop clothes, with a deep machete scar across his left eye and cheek. When President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf flipped the switch on rebuilt parts of Monrovia's electricity grid late last year, youths like these saw streetlights for the first time. "We could not come here before because it was too fearful," the teen said. "There is no more shakabatt [pidgin English for fighting], no more chopping people, because of the street lights." Later, in her modest office, the Harvard-educated President smiled when told of the street scene. Today, as she marks one year in office, Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf and her experienced cabinet can take credit for slashing corruption, boosting the government's near-empty coffers and laying the groundwork for what could be one of the most dramatic economic turnarounds in recent African history. Since her predecessor Charles Taylor launched his army of drug-addled child soldiers on a bloody rampage in 1989, destroying the country's infrastructure, Liberia had been in literal and figurative darkness. (Mr. Taylor is awaiting trial in The Hague for war crimes committed when his battle spilled into neighbouring Sierra Leone.) By restoring street lights, the President sent a message she would not only rebuild the country's infrastructure, but would rebuild its broken people. "We've brought back hope," Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf said in an interview. "Our people were tied to a culture of violence and dishonesty and accepted it as a way of life. You can see the changes in their faces. For them, now, the future does have promise. And that to me is the greatest thing we've done." Toronto Globe & Mail (1/16)

Relatives and rights group search for Pakistan's missing

State agencies fall under suspicion

By Salman Masood

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan: Amina Masood Janjua has been fighting for some word on the fate of her husband since he vanished from a bus station here in July 2005. In recent months, she and her two teenage sons and 11-year-old daughter have begun a campaign of court petitions, protests and news releases. More than 30 families of other missing men have joined her, all seeking to locate what they and human rights groups say are hundreds of people who have disappeared into the hands of the country's feared intelligence agencies in the last few years. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent group, estimates that 400 citizens have been abducted and been detained across the country since 2001. Amnesty International says many have been swept up in a campaign against people suspected of being extremists and terrorists. But some here also charge that the government is using the pretext of the war on terror to crack down on political opponents. In addition to some with ties to extremist groups, those missing include critics of the government, nationalists, journalists, scientists, researchers, and social and political workers, the groups say. Janjua says she has compiled a list of 115 missing persons and believes the list could grow as more families gain the courage to come out in the open. Pakistani officials deny any involvement in extrajudicial detentions or any knowledge of the men's whereabouts. International Herald Tribune (1/16)

Egypt: Bus Driver Raped by Police Faces New Risk of Torture Egyptian

Authorities Responsible for Safety of Torture Victim Sentenced to Prison

(Cairo, January 13, 2007) — A criminal court in Giza this week sentenced `Imad al-Kabir, a 21-year-old microbus driver tortured and raped by police last year, to three months in prison for resisting authorities and assaulting an officer, Human Rights Watch said today. Al-Kabir now risks being sent back to the same police station where he was tortured by police officers who later circulated a video of his rape. Al-Kabir told Human Rights Watch that two plainclothes officers detained him on January 18, 2006, after he intervened in an altercation between the officers and his cousin. He said that the officers took him to Bulaq al-Dakrur police station, where they beat him, tied him by his wrists and ankles, and raped him with a stick while one of the officers made a video of the torture with his mobile phone. The video shows al-Kabir screaming and begging for mercy while being raped. A police report dated January 18, 2006, indicated that al-Kabir was arrested for “resisting authorities” and assaulting a civil servant performing his duties. On January 9, roughly a month after al-Kabir complained to prosecutors about the abuse he suffered in custody, Judge Samir Abu al-Mati sentenced al-Kabir to three months is prison. “Egyptian authorities are responsible for `Imad al-Kabir’s safety in custody,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East Director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities must not send al-Kabir back to face further harm or intimidation, and they should take immediate steps to prosecute the people who tortured him.” Human Rights Watch (1/16)

Spain: Safeguard Rights of Children Sent Back

(New York, January 9, 2007) – Spain must include vital human rights safeguards in its upcoming readmission agreement with Morocco for unaccompanied children, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, made public today. The preliminary document that is the basis for the agreement includes provisions that do not comply with Spain’s human rights obligations under national and international law. Human Rights Watch (1/16)

Chad/Sudan: End Government Support to Militias

Hundreds of Villagers Killed in Raids and Communal Violence

(New York, January 9, 2007) – Chadian and Sudanese militias and other armed groups are committing serious human rights abuses against civilians in eastern Chad, and the Chadian government must do more to protect civilians from such abuses, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The UN Security Council will meet on January 10 to discuss deployment of an international security force to eastern Chad and the northern Central African Republic. The 70-page report, “They Came Here to Kill Us: Militia Attacks and Ethnic Targeting of Civilians in Eastern Chad,” documents a drastic deterioration in the human rights situation in eastern Chad, where more than 300 civilians were killed and at least 17,000 people displaced in militia violence in November alone. In most instances, civilians were targeted on the basis of ethnic identity. The Chadian government, preoccupied with quashing rebel insurgents, has not only failed to protect civilians, but is contributing to the cycle of violence by supporting certain abusive armed groups. Human Rights Watch called on the Security Council to authorize a deployment of international military personnel and human rights monitors to eastern Chad to: protect and deter further attacks on civilians; monitor the Chad/Sudan border; and publicly report on cross-border attacks on civilians and the movement of armed groups in the border zone, including Sudanese government-backed “Janjaweed” militias. Human Rights Watch (1/16)

Angola: Catholic Church involved in forced evictions

Amnesty International today released a report revealing the scale and extent of forced evictions in Angola, and expressing particular concern at forced evictions carried out by Angolan authorities, apparently at the request of the Catholic Church in Angola. The organization said that nearly all of the forced evictions were accompanied by excessive use of force, which sometimes involved police beatings of children and women -- including one pregnant woman -- and indiscriminate shooting at residents attempting to protect their homes. According to the report, Lives in ruins: forced evictions continue, thousands of families have been forcibly evicted since 2001 -- nearly always without notification to the families affected. Tens of thousands have been left without shelter, with hundreds of families still living their lives in ruins. Since September 2004, the homes of residents in the Kilamba Kiaxi municipality have been demolished repeatedly to make room for public and private housing projects. In 2006, the Angolan government publicly acknowledged the right to compensation of those forcibly evicted, and proclaimed that it was reviewing its housing strategy with a view to responding to the housing needs of its urban population. Thus far, none of the affected residents of Kilamba Kiaxi has received compensation or alternative adequate accommodation. "Despite these claims by the government, the housing situation in Luanda has not improved -- in fact, hundreds of families are still homeless after having been forced from their homes," said Tawanda Hondora, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Africa Programme. "Disturbingly, many forced evictions in the last two years have been carried out apparently at the request of the Catholic Church." Amnesty International (1/16)

Va. Lawmaker Denounced for Slave Comment

By BOB LEWIS, Associated Press Writer

A state legislator said black people "should get over" slavery and questioned whether Jews should apologize "for killing Christ," drawing denunciations Tuesday from stunned colleagues. Del. Frank D. Hargrove, 79, made his remarks in opposition to a measure that would apologize on the state's behalf to the descendants of slaves. In an interview published Tuesday in The Daily Progress of Charlottesville, Hargrove said slavery ended nearly 140 years ago with the Civil War and added that "our black citizens should get over it." The newspaper also quoted him as saying, "are we going to force the Jews to apologize for killing Christ?" Black lawmakers swiftly denounced Hargrove's comments."When somebody tells me I should just get over slavery, I can only express my emotion by projecting that I am appalled, absolutely appalled," said Del. Dwight C. Jones, head of the Legislative Black Caucus. Del. David L. Englin also criticized Hargrove's remarks, recalling that his grandparents were driven from their homes in Poland "by people who believed that as Jews, we killed Christ."When Hargrove rose to speak, he told Englin he didn't care about Englin's religion. "I think your skin was a little too thin," Hargrove said as lawmakers gasped and groaned. San Francisco Chronicle (1/16)

ARGENTINA OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZES ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IN OTTOMAN EMPIRE

YEREVAN, January 12. /ARKA/. President of Argentina Nestor Kirchner approved the draft law proclaiming April 24 the Day of tolerance and respect among nations, and on this day the victims of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire will commemorated, reported the South American Commission of "Hay Dat" (Armenian Cause) of the Armenian Revolution Federation (ARF) Dashnaktsutyun. The draft law, introduced by the Hay Dat Commission, was passed by the Chamber of Deputies of Argentina's Parliament on November 29, 2006 and approved by the Senate on December 13. The law recognizes the Genocide of the Armenian nation in Turkey in 1915-1923 when 1.5 mln Armenians were massacred. "The Armenian Community of Argentina expresses its gratitude to the authorities of the country for the step which has become a successive stage in the combat against the crime against humanity and restoration of historical truth and justice, a process that is going on throughout the world," the statement says. "Thus Argentina appeared on the international scene as a country that demands restoration of the truth and justice," the Commission reported. Since 1985 the Parliament of Argentina has been recognizing the fact of the Armenian Genocide and supporting the Armenian nation in its numerous decisions and declarations. The parliaments of provincial Buenos-Aires, Cordoba, and Jujui as well as the legislative bodies of the country's capital made similar decisions. Armenian Genocide is considered the first genocide of the 20th century, organized and systematically executed by the Young Turkish government. More than 1.5 million Armenians were slaughtered in different regions of Western Armenia that was part of Ottoman Empire at that time. Argentina Star/ARKA News Agency (1/16)

Gypsy-haters, holocaust-deniers, xenophobes, homophobes, anti-semites: the EU's new political force

By Stephen Castle in Strasbourg Europe's far-right, xenophobic and extremist parties crossed a new threshold yesterday, winning more speaking time, money, and political influence in the European Parliament than ever before. Claiming the backing of 23 million Europeans, ultra-nationalists secured enough MEPs to make a formal political grouping, underlining the growing challenge posed by the far right across the continent. For the first time since the Second World War a series of elections has swept nationalistic, far-right parties into office in municipal, regional, national and European parliament elections. The admission of Romania and Bulgaria in January of this year brought in enough far-right MEPs to form a bloc. Mainstream politicians have been struggling for years to contain the threat from hardline nationalists and extremists who have entered coalitions or supported ruling governments in countries such as Austria, Denmark, Poland and Slovakia. Amid formal protests and jeers in the Strasbourg Parliament, 20 MEPs yesterday signed up to the new formation called Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty (ITS). As a formal group, they are entitled to up to €1m in central funding. It is led by Bruno Gollnisch of France's National Front, who is awaiting a court verdict on charges of Holocaust denial. Made up of ultra-nationalists the group includes one Bulgarian parliamentarian, Dimitar Stoyanov, who yesterday attacked the "Jewish establishment" and accused Roma parents of selling 12-year-olds into prostitution. Even the ringtone of Mr Stoyanov's phone points to his hardline politics. It features a former Bulgarian national anthem which, he says, "tells of the atrocities of the Turkish army in the second Balkan war, how the rivers were flowing with blood and the widows weeping, and urges people to fight for Bulgaria". Independent (1/16)

posted by Dave Carroll @ 1/16/2007 06:11:00 PM