apparently a big week for human rights

The darfur issue seems to be reaching critical mass, with a 15,000 person rally on the mall in washington DC, and 5 members of congress being arrested for protesting in front of Sudan's embassy...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-28-protest_x.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/04/30/us.sudan.ap/index.html

immigration protest backlash?

As everyone knows, a massive protest for latino immigrant's rights will be occuring tomorrow. It is true that this is similar to the civil rights movement in the 1960s, however, is the country ready for this now? There still seems to be a great deal of resentment towards the immigrants--apparently this is true even among the naturalized/citizenshipped latino population. Which leads me to believe that this is possibly more a class issue than a race issue. The protest is not neccesarily fighting to end discrimination, but rather, will highlight the importance of immigrant workers to our economy, in the spirit of the labor movement of the industrial age, etc.

US media

so after trying to surf HRW to find something that hasn't yet been addressed on the blog or in class, i came across this article about the Colombia news media that i found interesting. they are being charged by the Pres. for basically reporting the truth.
"Over the last 2 weeks, major news media have extensively reported on allegations of paramilitary infiltration of the Colombian executive branch's intelligence agency, targeted killings of labor union leaders and academics, and electoral fraud in the 2002 presidential elections. President Uribe has reacted by charging the news media with being dishonest and malicious, and with harming Colombian democratic institutions."

the article then started those little wheels in my brain to start turning, remembering what i've been learning about in leighton's Clash of Civilizations course about the cartoon controversy in Europe and throughout the majority of the world. the questions brought about how far is too far in the media world and the role of the media (which is, if i'm not correct, to INFORM to public and present events and opinions of the public). censorship has been an issue for the media since it's invention and the U.S. still feels the bite of the government on issues today. but this article forced me to step back for a moment and for once be thankful i live in the United States, yes full of ignorance and righteiousness as we can be at times, the freedoms we hold, although sometimes still neglected, throw almost every other country out of the water. just imagine for a moment if the New York Times or CNN was charged by Bush for reporting on botched elections - the country would be in an uproar. don't get me wrong, i've done my share of complaining about the governments influence on the media here and how we don't ever know what's really going on in the world - but, i able to sit in the privacy of my own room and look up information (true or false) about the effectiveness of my government at any given moment without facing charges and all i'm saying is for that i am thankful.

finally some solutions

two years after the initial Abu Ghraib scandal, recent findings show that abuse of detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq, Afghanistan, and at Guantánamo Bay has been widespread, and that the US has only taken limited steps to investigate and punish implicated personnel. more than 600 have now been implicated in detainee abuse.
-so although the general public, including our contexts have confirmed that what these are blatant human rights violations and that they should be stopped as soon as possibly. but what no one seems to have done is to work positively and productively into putting these thoughts into action... until now that is.
the Detainee Abuse and Accountability Project (a joint project of New York University’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First) has produced a 27 page report that presents the findings of their research. the project is the first comprehensive accounting of credible allegations of torture and abuse in U.S. custody in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo.
just thought this was worth posting because it's nice to finally here some solution oriented thinking rather than simply reporting on or complaining about such atrocities.

Outlawing Abortion...

(I guess this supplements Emily's recent post- see below)

As some of you may be aware, the Governor of South Dakota signed into law a bill that outlaws abortions state-wide in December of last year. Although there are some exceptions (preventing the death of the mother, for example), this new law poses many threats to the financial, physical, and emotional well-beings of the numerous women of S.D. who will seek to have the operation performed in the future. For example, before the legislation that was issued from the Roe v. Wade case took effect, many women in the US had illeagal abortions (which severely jeopardized thier health). If this new law isn't appealed, many more women will take the same actions and put themselves at similar risks. I feel that this new law is not only a direct violation of a number of human rights (the most central of them being "Health"), but I also feel that it was passed under the persuasion of religious motives (those of the Governor and of his many coservative supporters). To learn more, you can visit the post link, or the one below.

http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/choice-action-center/take-action/south-dakota-ban.html

PLA and Hamas

ok, I don't know if anyone has been following this, but the US and the EU dropped all of their funding to the PLA about 10 days ago. Many countries have been pledging to increase their donations to the PLA to offset this. Many Arab nations, such as Qatar, have already pledged a dollar amount, and Russia has pledged to give emergency aid but have not stipulated how much. The US and EU can only make this situation more volatile by withdrawing their money. Hamas won the western mandated democratic elections in the PLA and the west didn't like this. Yes, Hamas is a terrorist organization, but taking money from the PLA does nothing to stop the funding to Hamas, it only hurts the peace process. Terrorism as we know it today started in Israel and Palestine and our actions only further the reasons for attack. This was unfair of the US and they need to see their mistakes. Global politics is run by extremist positions, and if we can't negotiate with extremists then we will never have world peace. The US needs to understand that their money and influence doesn't run everything. We can be sure to see more human rights violations in Palestine because of the west's actions.

Sudan vs. Congo?

So yeah, I read a few articles the other day that seemed to me to say that Sudan and Congo are having some border problems. It seems that refugees from Darfur are running to the Congo, where they are being attacked by the Sudanese fighters, undermining the Congo's sovereignty. Congo is under internal political pressure as well, it seems that their president is trying to serve a life sentence. These issues are pretty relevant if you view the world in Samuel Huntington's paradigm of a Clash of Civilizations. You see, the Sudanese-Congo border is a fault-line in the Sahel regionof Africa between the African and Islamic Civiliztions and this could be seen as pressure to expand their borders. Each country is funding resistance in each other's country and also calling for the other to stop. We need some real negotiation here, the problem is, the Islamic and African civilizations don't have a strong core state, leaving them no option but to simply fight it out. I would say that we should step in, but every time the United States steps in somewhere, people complain about cultural imperialism. Oh well, world politics is a sticky thing, I just hope this doesn't evolve into an all out war.