Posts tagged “human rights”
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Women’s ENews features excerpt from The Unfinished Revolution
September 26, 2012
Women’s ENews featured an excerpt by Judith Sunderland, from the collection of essays The Unfinished Revolution, this past weekend. While many of us can agree that it is a human rights violation to force women to cover their head and face with a veil, few have thought about the other side of the coin. According the Sunderland’s excerpt:
“The sad irony is that whether they are being forced to cover up or to uncover, these women are being discriminated against. Banned from wearing the hijab–a traditional Muslim headscarf–or forced to veil themselves, women around the world are being stripped of their basic rights to personal autonomy; to freedom of expression; and to freedom of religion, thought and conscience.”
Sunderland’s article explains that although some European countries see banning veils as a means of liberation, it is yet another form of dictating how a woman will not only dress, but how she will represent herself and her religion, if she so chooses.
Tags: human rights, judith sunderland, minky worden, religion, the unfinished revolution, women's enews, women's issues, womens rights
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Aung San Suu Kyi freed
November 13, 2010
Myanmar’s pro-democracy leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was freed from seven and a half years of house arrest on Saturday and was greeted at the gate of her compound by thousands of jubilant supporters.
She stood waving and smiling as people cheered, chanted and sang the national anthem in a blur of camera flashes. She held a white handkerchief in one hand.
“Thank you for welcoming me like this,” she said, clutching the iron bars of her gate as she looked out at the cheering crowd. “We haven’t seen each other for so long, I have so much to tell you.”
She said she would speak again on Sunday at the headquarters of her now defunct political party, the National League for Democracy.
“We must unite!” she said. “If we are united, we can get what we want.”
Tags: articles, aung san suu kyi, human rights, myanmar, new york times, voice of hope
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Take action: Aung San Suu Kyi could be free tomorrow
November 12, 2010
From our friends at Amnesty International:
The military rulers of Myanmar have jailed thousands of people in their continuing efforts to crush all dissenting views. Most prominent of those detained is Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has been the beacon of hope and change for nearly two decades in Myanmar, the Southeast Asian nation formerly known as Burma.
Aung San Suu Kyi, co-founded the National League for Democracy (NLD), a pro-democracy political party that sought to counter the military junta that had reigned over Myanmar since 1962. In 1990, the NLD won almost 80 percent of the parliamentary seats in a general election. Surprised at the landslide victory, the military junta refused to transfer power to Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD, and jailed scores of political activists.
For 14 of the past 20 years, Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced “Awng Sahn Soo Chee”) has endured unofficial detention, house arrest and restrictions on her movement. She continues to be held under house arrest in Yangon. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s sentencing comes in the midst of ongoing human rights violations by the military against ethnic minority civilians. In early June the Myanmar army staged attacks and took Karen civilians for forced labour in Kayin State. This resulted in over 3,500 refugees fleeing to Thailand.
Amnesty International seeks the immediate and unconditional release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all prisoners of conscience in Myanmar.
Take action now through Amnesty International: tell Myanmar that the only acceptable solution is immediate and unconditional release from a house arrest without justification, imprisonment that has gone on for twenty years too many.
Tags: amnesty international, aung san suu kyi, burma, human rights, myanmar, voice of hope
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BBC documentary on Aung San Suu Kyi
June 22, 2010
Aung San Suu Kyi is a political icon, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and the charismatic leader of Burma’s struggle for human rights. But it has come at immense personal cost. Under house arrest for many years, unable to watch her children grow up and excluded from public life, her plight is ongoing: as the Burmese regime prepares for its first election in years, Suu Kyi will be detained as a political prisoner throughout. — from the website for the BBC documentary Freedom From Fear, available free of charge online
Tags: alan clements, audio, aung san suu kyi, bbc, burma, current events, human rights, voice of hope
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Kenneth Roth’s “Empty Promises?”: On Obama and Human Rights
February 25, 2010
… Two days after taking office, [Obama] insisted that all U.S. interrogators, including those from the CIA, abide by the stringent standards adopted by the U.S. military in the wake of the Abu Ghraib debacle. He also ordered the shuttering of all secret CIA detention facilities, where many suspects “disappeared” and were tortured between 2001 and 2008. Finally, he promised to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, within a year.
But it is not enough for the government to stop using torture; perpetrators must also be punished. The Obama administration has so far refused to investigate and prosecute those who ordered or committed torture — a necessary step to prevent future administrations from committing the crime. While in office, as he did during the campaign, Obama has repeatedly spoken of wanting to “look forward, not back.” And although Attorney General Eric Holder has launched a “preliminary review” of interrogators who exceeded orders, he has until now refrained from prosecuting those who ordered torture or wrote the legal memos justifying it. This lets senior officials — arguably those who are most culpable — off the hook. —Kenneth Roth
Tags: articles, human rights, human rights watch, kenneth roth, obama, torture, world report 2010
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Haifa Zangana at Bluestockings in NYC
September 23, 2009
September 23, 7pm, Bluestockings Radical Books, 172 Allen St, New York, NY 10002. For more information, visit bluestockings.com.
Tags: bluestockings, foreign affairs, haifa zangana, human rights, memoir, new york city, readings
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Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi faces five years’ prison for alleged violation of house arrest
May 15, 2009
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel laureate, leader of the National League for Democracy in Burma, elected leader of the Burmese civilian government in 1990, and political prisoner for 15 of the years since 1989, was accused on May 13 of violating the terms of her house arrest by the military government of Burma. Dr. Suu Kyi was transferred from her lakeside compound to Insein Prison along with two members of her household. Learn how you can get involved by reading the full article.
Tags: aung san suu kyi, Authors, burma, daw aung san suu kyi, house arrest, human rights, myanmar