Salem-News.com Human Rights articles Page 28

Battling Racism in the South Hebron Hills

Umm al-Ara’is, Khushiyya and Twaneh by David Shulman

(UMM AL-KHAIR, Occupied Palestine) - It’s not a good time to walk through the fields. The first, tentative green shoots are pushing up from soft soil irrigated by last month’s fierce snowfall.

At Umm al-Khair, the huge field we cleared of rocks and thorns last summer is now a miracle of Irish green, wildly at odds with the browns and purples of the desert. The light is wintry, crisp, more than sufficient to highlight the gap between good and evil.

So When Will International Justice Save Palestine?

“If you commit war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide you will not be able to rest easily in your bed: the reach of international justice is long and patient.... There is no expiry date for these crimes...." (William Hague, British foreign secretary)

(LONDON) - Eighteen months ago UK foreign secretary William Hague delivered an important speech at the Hague, home of the International Criminal Court.

He spoke of a growing reliance on a rules ­based international system. "We depend more and more on other countries abiding by international laws.... We need to strengthen the international awareness and observance of laws and rules....”

SRI LANKA: Rajapaksa Lies Through His Teeth While Continuing With His Human Rights Violations

While they appear to be worried about the impending UNHRC resolution in March 2014, they were not about to give up the colonisation of the North-east of Sri Lanka.

(MELBOURNE) - Sri Lankan President and Commander-in-Chief of the Sinhala military, Mahinda Rajpaksa, put the figure of the SL soldiers in the North as 12,000 in responding to a plea by Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister CW Wigneswaran, at the same stage in Thellippazhai, where a cancer hospital was declared opened on 19 January 2014.

Credible sources put the figure of the occupying military at minimum 136,000.

Myanmar Forces Kill, Rape Rohingya Muslims

Rohingya Muslims have been denied citizenship rights since an amendment to the citizenship laws in 1982 and are treated as illegal immigrants in their own home.

(CAIRO IINA) - Human rights activists have accused the Burmese police forces of killing at least 16 Rohingya Muslims and kidnapping 100 more in a village located in an isolated corner of Burma to cover-up a recent discovery of a mass grave, International Business Times UK reported.

“The villagers were shocked because a worker had found the bodies of eight Rohingyas in a dump,” Tun Khin, human rights activist and president of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation in the UK, said.

SRI LANKA: Government Census Inadequate or Fallacy?

Ruling autocracy that comprises the hypocrites of politics, military and the overjoyed wider proponents who oxygenate the misdemeanors of this pathetic regime is making Sri Lanka a mockery and projecting it worse than a banana republic.

(LONDON Sri Lanka Guardian) - The census of human and property damages undertaken by the Government of Sri Lanka has been a downright sham from its birth.

The government is determinedly trying to downplay a fair assessment and stubbornly endeavouring to falsify the full extent of the three decades old war through a facade of official process.

Sri Lanka and UNHRC Resolution March 2014

The following is an open letter to the Consulate of the Cuban Embassy in Sri Lanka...

(MELBOURNE) - Human rights activists are consistently appalled that countries with rich revolutionary histories fail to support modern, similar movements.

Case at hand, Cuba's decision to join countries like Israel in embracing the bloody state terrorism government of Sri Lanka, under the leadership of President Majinda Rajapaksa and his three brothers.

Foreskin Advocate Speaks at UBC`s Buchanan Building

“There’s a 2,000-year body of Jewish writing, a 200 year body of medical writing illustrating that the purpose of circumcision is permanently damaging an innocent boy so that, when puberty comes, he will not be able to fully enjoy sex” - children’s rights activist Glen Callender

(VANCOUVER, BC) - It’s a rare thing to meet an activist who manages to remain persuasive and credible when naked from the waist down.

Judging by the audience’s reaction to children’s rights activist Glen Callender’s presentation at UBC on Friday, he pulled it off.

China: Detention of Uyghur Academic and Human Rights Defender Mr Ilham Tohti

Immediately and unconditionally release Ilham Tohti as he is being detained solely as a result of his legitimate and peaceful work in defence of human rights, and immediately reveal his whereabouts - William Nicholas Gomes

(WASHINGTON, DC) - On 15 January 2014, Mr Ilham Tohti, an economics professor at the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing, was detained by police following a raid on his home that afternoon.

According to a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, he was detained on suspicion of 'breaking the law'. Ilham Tohti has been consistently outspoken on Uyghur rights in China and critical of official policy in Xinjiang province, the homeland of China's Muslim Uyghur population. He has been detained numerous times previously as a result of his advocacy.

US Urges Myanmar to Probe Attacks on Muslims
Numbers of Unconfirmed Dead Ranged from 10 to 60

The United States said that it is deeply concerned about reports of fresh violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state.

(RANGOON World Bulletin) - The United States on Friday urged Myanmar to investigate reports that security forces and Buddhist mobs attacked members of the Rohingya Muslim minority this week, killing as many as 60 people.

Rights groups reported attacks by security forces and ethnic Rakhine Buddhist mobs against Rohingya in a village in the Maungdaw township of western Rakhine state over the past three days.

PRESS TV: No End in Sight to Rohingya Muslims Plight

Dozens of children reportedly killed by Buddhist extremists in Burma...

(SALEM) - Sectarian violence, which has gripped Burma since the summer of 2012, is back in full swing, leaving an untold number of Rohingya Muslims dead in this latest flare up near Maungdaw. They are being targeted by Rakhine Buddhist extremists, who are operating with local Buddhist political leaders.

Earlier this week, Rakhine mobs and security forces known in Burma as Lun Htein, entered the settlement of Kiladaung Village East. As it turned out, the men entering the village were police who didn’t wear uniforms.