The Yale Journal of Human Rights

We Have Moved AGAIN!

2010-05-26T13:44:00.000-07:00

New Website, New (Second) Issue:

www.theyalejournalofhumanrights.com

WE MOVED!

2009-10-29T23:38:00.000-07:00

We have moved our blog to another website! Please visit us now at yjhr.wordpress.com

The Spotlight's on Israel

2009-10-22T18:02:00.000-07:00

contributed by Zach Plutzik

Op-Ed Contributor
Rights Watchdog, Lost in the Mideast
By ROBERT L. BERNSTEIN
Published: October 19, 2009

AS the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics. Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.

Click here to read the entire article on 'The New York Times'.

Not a Holiday Destination

2009-10-13T17:44:00.000-07:00

contributed by Laura González

Former Marine Becomes Face of New Vieques Battle

by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 11, 2009

Marrero is a key witness in a lawsuit seeking billions of dollars in compensation for illnesses that past and current Vieques residents have linked to the bombing range, where the U.S. and its allies trained for conflicts from Vietnam to Iraq. ... Marrero, who was born in Puerto Rico and grew up in New York City, has had colon cancer twice. He is losing his vision and suffers from more than dozen other illnesses, including Lou Gehrig's disease, that he believes are lingering effects of his 18 months at Camp Garcia. He said he was recently diagnosed with a new bout of cancer that is inoperable in part because of a lung disease that requires him to stay on oxygen around the clock."

Click here to read the entire article on 'The New York Times' website.
Read Laura's article about Vieques, 'Paradise Lost,' in the latest issue of The Yale Journal of Human Rights.

Punished for Sex

2009-10-08T20:35:00.000-07:00

contributed by Meredith Morrison

Saudi gets 5 years, 1,000 lashes for TV sex talk
Comments by ‘sex braggart’ led to hundreds of complaints from viewers

AP Associated Press

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - A Saudi court on Wednesday convicted a man for publicly talking about sex after he bragged on a TV talk show about his exploits, sentencing him to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes, his lawyer said.

Click here to read the entire article on MSNBC.

Kim Jong Il the Spaceman

2009-10-07T17:05:00.000-07:00

EXTRA EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT! Oh. Wait a moment. There's nothing to read.

Human rights organizations, including the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic Republic of Korea, are repeatedly denied access to North Korea, which is notoriously reclusive yet provocative. The state-run news outlet, North Korea's Central News Agency (KCNA), is not only North Korea's only news outlet but is also (unsurprisingly) censored and nationalistic. Far from critiquing the government it speaks only in awe of it, giving it its absolute support and admiration. Consider its reporting on the 'Trial of American Journalists' who illegally entered North Korea this summer, "Clinton expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong Il for the hostile acts committed by the two American journalists against the DPRK after illegally intruding into it."

As a result of its closed- doors policy, the international community, NGOs, and news stations have been forced to make things up about the country of secrets that is North Korea. The Onion has been especially successful at this:

Homeless in New Haven

2009-10-05T07:26:00.000-07:00

Contributed by Sunnie Jaye Tölle

On the way home from basketball practice Sunnie met Will, a New Haven homeless man who frequents Temple Street. Will urged her to share this Youtube interview of him (embedded below) with her friends. Sunnie is at a loss as to how a man becomes homeless merely by losing his job. The only people Sunnie spots on the street in her hometown of Zurich, Switzerland are people who have "...really messed up- drug addicts, criminals. In Switzerland there are too many safety nets, too many social programs that prevent you from losing your home as soon as you lose your job."

Has America failed Will? Or has Will failed himself?

Drop Words not Weapons

2009-10-04T22:32:00.000-07:00

From: Benjamin
Date: October 5, 2009 12:12:53 AM EDT
To: Meredith
Subject: Re: yjhr article

Hey Meredith,

Sorry it took me a little while to get in touch. Anyway, about the Israel article: I started thinking about it after you guys mentioned in Egypt that you'd like something from an Israeli perspective. I spent parts of the rest of the summer working with Israeli children who have lost a family member to terrorism, talked with the mostly right-wing Israelis who are part of that organization, and visited Sderot, so there's a lot I can talk about. My discomfort comes from the fact that I can't really write two sentences sympathetic to the Israeli cause without qualifying them with a list of the reasons the Palestinians have to be more upset. If I sit down to write an article about human rights in the Middle East, I'm not going to be talking about Israel's problems. That said, I don't think we're going to get anywhere in the region unless we understand that the Israelis, like Palestinians, are not generating their hatred out of nowhere, and so I think there's merit in presenting the Israeli side.

Basically, I'm confused about what kind of article would be most appropriate and honest. There's the option of working in both points of view by talking about my experience in the West Bank. Or I could just talk about Israel, but I'm not sure what exactly we'd consider an issue of human rights, and I'd need to figure out how to write an article about Israeli concerns without suggesting that they're the victims. In general, it seems like focusing more on my specific experiences and less on a wider-angle political piece would be helpful.

If you've got any thoughts on what would be right for the magazine, I'd love to hear them.

Best, Ben

Look forward to what Ben ultimately comes up with in the next issue of The Yale Journal of Human Rights to be released this November.

It's Only Africa.

2009-09-26T16:56:00.000-07:00

(Picture taken from BBC Newsnight website.)

by Kwaku Osei, Saybrook College, Yale 2010
Accra, Ghana

I don’t blog.

It’s just not something I do. I have never really felt so strongly about something that I feel the urge to write it down and share it with the world. And on the off- chance that something really gets my blood boiling, I have never felt like I have much to say. This has been my philosophy for the better part of the past few years.

So what is it, you ask, that brought me out from hiding and forced me to go against my philosophy on blogging? Oh, only some new developments in the biggest toxic dumping scandal of the 21st century that no one is talking about! I was so pissed off when I read this article; not only because the Ivory Coast is near and dear to my heart (my older brother grew up there) but also because it is yet another reminder of a global attitude towards the African continent that continues to anger, frustrate, and confuse myself, other Africans, and all human beings with any sense of empathy.

If before now, you haven't heard of the Trafigura Scandal, I encourage you to take 10 minutes to educate yourself by watching this video. For those of you with a little more time on your hands, or with more of a need to procrastinate, this video goes a bit more in depth. And if you prefer to read go here.

The initial article that I linked to (and the one that inspired me to hop into the blogosphere) basically says that emails obtained by the BBC reveal that high level executives in Trafigura, the oil company at the center of the case, knew perfectly well about the hazardous nature of the waste that they were dumping in the Ivory Coast and were perfectly aware that it might have dangerous consequences for the population living there. This discredits their previously held stance that the toxic waste couldn't possibly have caused the illnesses and deaths in the affected regions.

"The e-mails obtained by [BBC] Newsnight show that in the months before the waste was dumped the company knew about the difficulties they would face in disposing of the waste. 'This operation is no longer allowed in the European Union, the United States and Singapore" it is "banned in most countries due to the 'hazardous nature of the waste,' one e-mail warns. Another e-mail points out that "environmental agencies do not allow disposal of the toxic caustic."

This new development raises many questions. Why did Trafigura, knowing all of this, and after being prevented from treating the waste in the Netherlands, decide to move it to the Ivory Coast, a country still recovering from civil war? Why is this scandal so underrepresented in the media, and barely even reported on? How would the coverage and handling of the scandal be different if the waste had been dumped in a different country?

I think the answer to one of these “Whys?” is pretty easy to determine: Because companies, and especially oil companies, are out to make profits. This is what happens when corporations focus solely on their bottom line. Stories like just convince me that a lot of right can be done in the world if we set our goals above the bottom line, putting people over profits.

The other reason why this happened and why it's so under- reported is even more frustrating to acknowledge. After telling this story to my friend Drew Ruben (great kid, founder of Blue State Coffee; y'all should check him out) he said as horrified as he was he wasn't surprised. You see a few months ago, he had the opportunity to meet Harold Koh, former Dean of Yale Law School and current legal adviser to the United States Department of State. Ruben asked him "Why isn't more being done or said about the Darfur conflict?"

Koh’s response? "Because it's Africa."

That's the way the world thinks. It should therefore not be surprising that a company like Trafigura would feel that they can get away with injustice. We also should not be surprised that stories like this never make mainstream media.

After all, it's only Africa.

Check out Kwaku's blog, Afropolithoughts, here.

A Predictable Future

2009-09-25T11:24:00.000-07:00

By Ashley Gutierrez, Filipina

Silliman College, Yale 2010

Will the Philippines put its foot down against the United States (U.S.)? The Department of Foreign Affairs (Philippines) is reviewing the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), which governs the treatment of American troops engaged in joint military exercises in the Philippines, after recommendations from the Senate and the House Human Rights Committee. There are complaints of the VFA being a "downright unconstitutional treaty" and that the Philippines has been getting the "short end of the stick." Highlighted by the case of the American Marine placed under United States' custody last year instead of in a Philippine prison after raping a Filipina, the claims of the VFA being "lopsided" is a fact that I personally believe most Filipinos know about - and have chosen to ignore.

Or will that now change?

Re-evaluating or possibly terminating the VFA is a bold move. Yes, it will do a lot for Philippine sovereignty. Yes, it will affect RP (Republic of the Philippines)- U.S. relations. But the VFA is also necessary for stability in the region and the fight against terrorism.

That said, I am almost positive of how this will turn out: The review will indeed find that the VFA is lopsided. There will be many recommendations for change. The U.S. is getting the most out of this deal. But nothing will change. Because at the end of the day, the Philippines is still too dependent on the U.S. The country is too unstable at the moment given the conflict between the government and the Muslims in Mindanao. President Arroyo is trying to forge a strong relationship with Obama before the 2010 Presidential elections. The Philippines needs the U.S. much more than it needs us.

In short, once again, the Philippines will bend backwards to accommodate the U.S.

Correction for YJHR Issue i, Fall 2009

2009-09-25T09:11:00.000-07:00

The pullquote on page 14 ("New Solutions or New Problems" by Justin Petrillo) is an excerpt mistakenly taken from the previous article ("The United States and Human Rights: Still Only Halfway There" by Jordan Laris Cohen). The editors apologize for the error and any confusion this may have caused our readers.

Nuestros Desaparecidos

2009-09-19T12:03:00.000-07:00

Contributed by Jason Ketola
GEOVISION Production Company

(San Francisco CA) OUR DISAPPEARED/NUESTROS DESAPARECIDOS is the heart-breaking chronicle of director Juan Mandelbaum’s personal search for the souls of friends and loved ones, idealistic young students and activists, who were caught in the brutal vise of the right-wing military and “disappeared” in his native Argentina during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship. OUR DISAPPEARED/NUESTROS DESAPARECIDOS will air nationally on the Emmy Award-winning PBS series Independent Lens, hosted by Terrence Howard, on Monday, September 21, 2009 at 10PM. Find your local listing here.

Mandelbaum’s quest was triggered by a recent and very painful revelation. Through a Google search, he made the terrible discovery that Patricia Dixon, a long lost girlfriend,was among the desaparecidos. Almost thirty years after he left at the height of the repression, to escape the pervasive climate of feat, Juan returned to Argentina to explore her story and the stories of other friends and loved ones who had also disappeared. He learned first-hand of the horrors that befell them and the almost 30,000 people who were kidnapped by agents of the military government, secretly detained without trial, brutally tortured and then killed, never to be seen again.

Although idealistic and involved in community organizing, Mandelbaum was not willing to join the more militant and radical groups that were recruiting many of his friends. Inspired by the Cuban revolution and the election of Chile’s Salvador Allende, the first democratically elected Socialist president in the Americas, many of his fellow students at the University’s School of Philosophy and Letters were willing to support an armed struggle for a cause they believed in passionately -- that former President Juan Peron, who had been exiled to Spain, would lead Argentina on the road of socialism. It was a hope that was quickly crushed when Peron returned in 1973, and disowned the young radicals who had fought so hard for his return. Instead, right wing death squads began to pave the way for the military regime that, after 1976, targeted thousands of leftist activists for annihilation. Over 250 of Mandelbaum’s fellow students are among the disappeared.

In OUR DISAPPEARED, NUESTROS DESAPARECIDOS, Mandelbaum meets with the parents, siblings and children of many of these old friends, piecing together their dramatic stories through reminiscences, home movies and old photos. The film also uses rare and extraordinary archival footage (including an appearance by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1977 endorsing the military president) to bring the energy and tension of the time and place to life. It is a quietly devastating story of young lives viciously ended and the unending pain suffered by their families and their country.

To learn more about the film, visit the OUR DISAPPEARED, NUESTROS DESAPARECIDOS interactive companion website (http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/ourdisappeared/) which features detailed information on the film, including an interview with the filmmaker and links and resources pertaining to the film’s subject matter. The site also features a talk back section for viewers to share their ideas and opinions, preview clips of the film, and more.

Shooting Up in Athens

2009-09-15T21:45:00.000-07:00

by Ethan Light*
Pierson College, Yale 2009

I’d like to think of myself as a relatively worldly individual. I will admit I am pathetically mono- linguistic (and still working on English), have one passport, and have lived outside of the United States only once - and very briefly. Regardless, I have spent a good amount of time traveling, have family living in four countries, read the international dailies, and am currently looking for work in Asia. I’d like to think that this global view in some ways contributes to an international understanding and a thick skin when it comes to things that fall out of my realm of experience. This past summer, however, I saw something which absolutely thrust me out of my comfort zone.

I was travelling on the cheap and staying in hostels, generally not located in the most upscale neighborhoods, so I wasn’t expecting my small hotel in Omonia Square, Athens to be the Mandarin Oriental. But what I was unaware of until arriving is that Omonia has a much more popular name for native Athenians: Heroin Square. I first noticed the clumps of prostitutes encircling the group of teenagers and young adults in the middle of the small park. Their numbers were only dwarfed in comparison to the population with needles in their bodies. In the early evening, in the middle of a busy public square, under city lights, scores of people were shooting heroin into feet, hands and arms. I counted to 45 before giving up and paying attention to the ground to make sure I didn’t step on rouge hypodermics.

Perhaps the only thing more shocking were the police, stationed no more than two blocks in every direction, aware of the flood of synthetic opiates down the street but entirely uninterested in doing anything about it. I assume their purview extends only so far as to ensure no junkies wander into the nicer parts of town.

Coming face- to- face with passed out heroin addicts, their bodies sprawled so that their heads rolled into the middle of the street, made me reconsider my position on victimless crime. Before the summer I would unflinchingly support the legalization not only of marijuana but of all drugs. Similarly, prostitution was merely a contractual obligation between two adults in which the government had no business injecting moralizing puritanical legislation.

But as I stood on the street surrounded by a mix of Somali immigrants and junkies looking for a fix, I wondered if the Greek government had some obligation to that 17-year- old with a needle in his arm; an obligation to keep him from throwing away his future. At the very least it is a good investment: by keeping that kid off of heroin Greece has one more productive worker and one less social pariah and fiscal drag.

Wouldn’t those nonchalant police officers better spend their time attempting to drag those addicts out of brutal heroin addiction, rather than allowing the situation to escalate? At the very least, minors deemed too young to vote or serve in the army should not be given the opportunity to be hooked on opiates. However, were police to target minors (or anyone for that matter) the tacit agreement between Athens’ finest and its “victimless” criminals would be violated.

I’ll let you know if I end up reconciling a disagreement with a moralizing government and the importance of a state to protect it’s people- even from themselves.
And here is the rest of it.

*A pseudo-name has been used to protect the identity of this author.

LGBT Hater Gets a Stage at Toads

2009-09-14T21:33:00.000-07:00

From: Name Suppressed
Date: September 14, 2009 1:25:15 AM EDT
Subject: Violent hate singer at Toad's Place New Haven, CT

Hey guys,

I wanted to share with you an email I received from a friend about Buju Banton coming to Toad's on Wednesday: Reggae singer Buju Banton began his US tour last night in Philadelphia. His shows in Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Dallas, and Houston have all been cancelled. That's because there's a big campaign going on to try to get him cancelled everywhere because of his hateful singing about gay people. I don't mean the usual "no homo" bullshit in hip- hop. He sings about torturing and murdering "queers". It seems he's not just talk, either. He was charged for being a part of a group of about a dozen people who allegedly beat six men believed to be homosexual. One of the victims lost an eye. You can see why people would be outraged by his tour, then, and why most major promoters canceled his events.

But he's still coming to Toad's, this Wednesday! Seems like something we should address. Ideally we should try to force them to cancel it last minute, or, if that doesn't happen, we should let everyone know what kind of person is coming to Toad's.

Here's some information--

The main web page for the campaign to cancel his tour: http://cancelbujubanton.wetpaint.com/ (including explanations of his homophobic lyrics as well as a list of his shows and which ones have been cancelled)

LA Gay & Lesbian Center's press release about promoters AEG Live and Live Nation canceling their shows with him: http://www.lagaycenter.org/site/DocServer/2009-08-28_Live_Nation_and_AEG_Cancel_Buju_Banton.pdf?docID=7541

The relevant Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=124784767349

If you have a minute, and you feel so inclined, send an email to Hollis@toadsplace.com encouraging them to cancel this concert on Wednesday. What a shame it would be for New Haven to be the exception out of all of these places refusing to hand a pulpit over to someone who spews hate and violence.

Thanks, Name Suppressed

Rest in Peace, Annie Le

2009-09-14T14:47:00.001-07:00

"To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die."
~Thomas Campbell, "Hallowed Ground"

Our thoughts and prayers are with the friends and family of Annie Le, MED '13. All of us from the Yale Journal of Human Rights are thinking of you - we can only imagine the pain you are going through. We continue to pray for your healing and for justice. The Yale community is staying strong for you.

Rest in Peace, Annie Le.

The Boyz of Camp Breakerz

2009-09-13T19:09:00.000-07:00

Kashmiriyat

2009-09-10T17:35:00.000-07:00

by Kunal Lunawat
Branford College, Yale 2011
Q. What are your first associations when you hear about this region?
A. Conflicts, struggles, armed barricades, hard-nosed diplomacy, human-rights violations, a frustrating and politicized status quo, cross-border terrorism, rising fundamentalism…

And so I began my journey into the Valley...

It was rather apt that the first few days of my stay were marked by the closure of the summer capital of the state, Srinagar. I was there to get a feel of what living in Kashmir is like, and truly bandhs, day-long curfews, had become an integral part of life in the region.

You would have to be ultra vigilant and in touch with your environment to find out the real reason behind the current shutdown in the city. It could be anything, from a mere political gimmick, to a preemptive move by the security forces and, sometimes, genuine public dissent at the current state of affairs in the city. What fascinated me the most was how these three factors merged into one another; often obliterating boundaries of individual reason and catalyzing one great mess, marked by sheer political ineptitude.

Take the Shopian rape case for instance. In a small town of the Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir, two young women were raped and murdered this summer. A rather gory incident, despicable in all forms, was transformed into political mileage by the opposition. The call within the political circle seemed to be:

“A visit a day to Shopian,
Will make National Conference*
Go astray.”

(*National Conference is the ruling party in Jammu and Kashmir. Most of the political visits were made by the rulers of the Opposition in a bid to make the former unpopular.)

Impassioned and emotionally charged protestors took to the streets, provoking the armed forces to take action. There were barricades in sensitive areas, curfews in others, and monitoring throughout the region for fear of further repercussions. And while all this was happening, the state government, watched and mulled; a week later it set up a judicial inquiry into the incident which had been politicized, militarized, and sapped of any empathy for the victim’s family.

And while all this happened, I stumbled into these people…

We often hear of silver linings which line thick, dark masses of precipitation, but seldom come across one. Here, in the midst of standstill and chaos (Because both standstill and chaos are contradictory, yet visible in Kashmir. I guess it is nature’s beauty and man’s fight against it which make both co-exist.), I happened to meet a few people who introduced me to another side of Kashmir.

They were authors, economists, businessmen, professors and doctors: men and women who were determined improve the quality of life in their society. Yes they were affected by the debilitating political dispute, but they were also driven to look beyond it and work for the greater cause. In fact, many of them believed that by doing so, they would render the dispute sans its venom, the fear and instability that has plagued Kashmir since 1991.

And these people introduced me to what Kashmir once was…

Nature at its purest and hospitality at its best. This other Kashmir – places like Sonamarg, Gulmarg and Pahalgaon - was testimony to its claim of being paradise on Earth. These regions lay in stark contrast to the rest of the valley, almost unperturbed by the conflict which had afflicted its surroundings.

Was it Nature herself that had stood her ground and made it impossible for state and non-state actors to extend the turmoil in these regions? No. There is something more. The firm resolve of people to stay unaffected by what was happening around them, the resilience of the local populace to remain this way, come what may, and an inherent desire to retain the spirit of Kashmir had left the area in its virgin and truest form. This, I am told, was once known as Kashmiriyat, or the essence of what the Kashmir Valley stood for.

NBA Diplomacy

2009-09-10T17:05:00.000-07:00

by Avi Kupfer,
Pierson College, Yale 2010

A strange phenomenon takes place every year during the final weeks of the professional basketball season. With playoff dreams unrealizable and no hope for salvaging a winning season, the league’s worst teams see their supporters turn against them. Many fans will root against their own losing teams because a poorer record increases the likelihood of their teams drafting higher valued players for the coming season. The National Basketball Association (NBA) lottery system is weighted so that the team with the worst record has the best chance of obtaining the highest draft pick.

The leaders of the least developed countries would make particularly cynical basketball fans. Governments of the world’s poorest nations often downplay—or far worse, hijack—their countries’ performance in a host of development categories. The UN has uncovered high ranking officials in several West African countries encouraging their subordinates to fudge numbers in every category from human development to communications and transportation.

This despicable practice has a perverse logic. The leaders of the developing world have rightly realized that wildly deflated statistics will increase aid contributions from the US and other Western nations. In countries like Sierra Leone, where more than half of the national GDP comes from foreign aid, the stakes are high. The poorest governments run on a steady stream of donations and even the most corrupt officials depend on these perpetual contributions. The result is NBA Diplomacy; diplomacy with a striking similarity to the attitudes of disparaging basketball fans.

Whitewashing official figures for the sake of aid officers is rampant in the developing world and will become the norm without a serious effort to restructure Western aid programs. Duplicitous incentives reward lack of development rather than real progress. This does far more harm than good. The US must hold governments accountable for aid funds and base future donations on tangible growth rather than pitiable development statistics. Not surprisingly, in recent years countries like Ghana, with a relatively small infusion of Western aid, have made the steadiest progress. To curb NBA diplomacy and realize concrete returns on the billions of dollars that the US invests in the developing world, we must strategically motivate governments to strengthen economic infrastructure, improve education, and stamp out corruption. Rewarding real improvement, rather than the lack of it, will make this a reality.

ON OCTOBER 17 ACTIVISTS WILL UNITE (in Connecticut)

2009-09-03T22:07:00.000-07:00

by Helen Jack
Saybrook, Yale College 2012

Amnesty International student and local groups from high schools, colleges, and towns around Connecticut will be coming to Yale University on Saturday, October 17 for the Amnesty International Connecticut State Meeting. Meeting participants will spend the day attending workshops to build their organizing skills, hearing guest speakers on Amnesty's priority issues, and discussing how to better work together as a state. Guest speakers include Yale Law School lecturer Hope Metcalf, speaking about detainee abuse by US forces; Pooja Sripad, a student at the Yale School of Public Health, presenting on maternal mortality to introduce Amnesty International's new Demand Dignity Campaign; and Cynthia Gabriel, Amnesty's Field Organizer for the Northeast region. If you are interested in attending the state meeting, please email Yale Amnesty's State Meeting Coordinator Helen Jack at helen.jack@yale.edu

Check out more details of the event (via Facebook) here!

An HIV Remedy in Clowning & Dancing

2009-09-01T16:59:00.000-07:00

by Cleo Handler
Yale College, SY 2012

Whenever anyone asked me what I was doing this summer, I had a hard time trying to explain. “I’m taking this class,” I’d say, “that attempts to combine theater and public health into a thorough, psychosocial approach to dealing with the HIV/AIDS epidemic and helping those affected by it.” Blank stares. “Well, uh…” I’d continue, “it’s about trying to use art to help educate people about public health…or at least to try to get a message across.” Cocked heads. “Umm… I don’t totally know yet, but it involves using theater to try to bring people’s attention to certain aspects of the epidemic, in order to allow them to more fully understand it, and possibly get them to change their deeply-rooted outlooks toward this hushed-up, stigmatized disease.” At this point, I’d be met by more looks of confusion, accompanied by glossed-over eyes. “I’m going to Africa!” I’d sputter at last, and then receive wide smiles and enthusiastic nods of approval.

Yet after all of my attempts at describing the course - which was actually called 'Arts and Public Health in Action: Study of HIV/AIDS in Swaziland'- it turned out to be even more impossible to describe than I could have ever expected. And even more incredible. This year, the agenda was to spend three weeks in Durban, South Africa, working with a socially- sensitive dance company and then two weeks in Swaziland, collaborating with groups called 'Clowns Without Borders' and 'People’s Educational Theater.' Our intention was to create and perform various clown shows for the children and, in addition, to lead after- school workshops teaching them how to make up their own plays and to engage their imaginations. And, of course, we would also be providing them with food.

In Durban, we worked with one of the first performance companies to be racially integrated at the end of the apartheid, a very talented group of dancers called Siwela Sonke (meaning “going across together” in Zulu). Together, we did a project called ‘Secrets,’ in which we interviewed local people about their secrets, especially in relation to health issues, and the embarrassment, stigma, and shame associated with being HIV- positive. We created four separate pieces involving dance, music, and poetry, based on what different people had told us about their secrets, and then performed them on the streets of Durban, as people got on and off buses all around us and gathered into an attentive, ever-growing crowd.

In Swaziland, we spent our days clowning, our evenings reading about epidemiology and public health, and our nights writing in our journals. As the country with the last remaining absolute monarchy in the world, and the country with the highest rate of HIV, Swaziland was quite an adjustment for us all. Swazi women have very limited rights and are considered perpetual minors, which means that they go from being wards of their fathers to financially, legally, and socially dependent brides. They cannot buy property or make important decisions without their husbands’ approval. The country also still places large value on the traditional notion of the dowry, or “lubuli”- the typical matrimonial price is 17 cows. Yet, while these different customs and gender- related attitudes interested us and raised many questions, they were not our main focus.

After performing our clown shows at different schools in the mornings, we led our workshops with certain students who had been identified by communities as OVCs (orphans and vulnerable children) in the afternoons. This classification was given to kids who had been seriously affected by the AIDS epidemic and, as a result, were either living with incredibly overworked and underpaid caretakers, many of whom were unrelated to them, or in child- headed households.

Being with the kids, teaching them songs and theatrical games that made them laugh, gave me a mixed feeling of hope and futility. Our project only lasted two weeks. How much could we really do? Even though we gave them food at the end of each session, how useful really were our chants and “zip-zap-zop” exercises, when they would get home and probably not eat again for the rest of that day? Although it was great to see them smile, it was hard to keep up my own smile as we drove away. One thing that gave me hope was the knowledge that, despite the fact that our program had an end- date, Clowns Without Borders would come back multiple times a year. In addition, other local organizations would do their best to help. And even if it was only for a brief amount of time, I felt sure that we had helped to make their lives a little easier, and a lot more fun.

This experience with clowning and teaching the kids made me start thinking about something that had happened a few weeks earlier, at the beginning of the trip. We had visited an HIV clinic in Durban and had gotten the chance to talk to one of the head doctors about her job. Extremely passionate, yet understandably embittered, she explained to us that the situation was grim. The epidemic had hit southern Africa hard, and did not seem to be letting up any time soon. After presenting these statements, she started to get really riled up. Her life would be a lot easier, she went on to say, if it weren’t for “that damn human rights problem.” In her opinion, the HIV epidemic could be stamped out in a few decades if the government started regulating automatic screening and treatment of all those who tested positive. “However,” she said, “there are those damn human rights issues: the right to not know your status, the right to not take medicine, the right to die, blah blah blah. This is what really stands in the way and makes the virus virtually unbeatable.”

Shocked, we stopped her right there. Was that really how she saw it? Did she truly believe that, given the rampant prevalence of the disease and the powerful stigma associated with not only having, but even just talking about being HIV positive, people really didn’t have the right to not pay it a lot of attention? And, if that were the case, was she actually advocating that, in this situation, the inalienable human right to decide whether or not to know the full facts or to take action based on individual preferences and comfort levels, be stripped away? Was she really telling us that, given the severity of the epidemic, as a contagious, ever-spreading, unchecked, and indiscriminate attacker, no one really had the right to not care?

“Yes,” she said emphatically. “Or as we say in Zulu, ‘yebo.’” I have been mulling over this doctor’s thought- provoking statements ever since. In the service of public health, is it actually justifiable that the rights of the individual get sacrificed on the altar of the bigger picture? Is there a point at which personal liberties become less valuable than more global considerations, and, as a result, must bow down to them?

Well, I never thought of it that way before. Maybe this is something I need to think about some more? Yebo. Yebo, indeed.

Article 25

2009-08-20T05:14:00.001-07:00

THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, Article 25, Part 1: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well- being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

In the on- going American debate over public health care a variety of negative opinions have been espoused (the economic crisis makes public health care untimely, America is heading towards socialism, creating universal health care essentially legalizing death panels, "when Obama lies grandma dies"), and these opinions have been expressed in constitutional ways (protests and unruly behavior define freedom of expression, town hall meetings are the epitome of freedom of association, and bringing loaded guns to talks by President Obama are the American citizens' realization of the infamous Second Amendment: the right to bear arms).

Throughout the debate, the health systems of Canada and Great Britain have been referenced as examples of government- healthcare failures. One British European member of Parliament even went on FOX News to explain that NHS (National Health Services, the name of the Great Britain public healthcare) was a national disaster. He was later rebuked by many Members of the British Parliament, including David Cameron, the leader of the opposition party in British parliament, who called his views, "eccentric."

Additionally, this article in British paper, 'The Times,' which is about the National Healthcare System in the United Kingdom, could give Maureen Dowd of 'The New York Times' a run for her money.

British Badmouth Lily Allen

2009-08-16T15:36:00.000-07:00

Lilly Allen's potty mouth and British twang have combined in this Youtube video, generating a buzz with the LGBT community. In discussing her song 'F- - - You!' the singer stated, "This song is not a direct attack at anyone, it was originally written about the BNP* in the UK, but then I felt that this issue has become relevant pretty much everywhere, we are the youth, we can make coolness for our future, its up to us. Go green and hate hate."

Watch the video at risk to your own ears. (This video is intended for Youtube users ages 18 years and older.)

*The BNP is a far- right and (traditionally) all- white political party in the United Kingdom.

-- Contributed by Pruittiporn Kerdchoochuen

One for Chechnya

2009-08-16T14:59:00.000-07:00

This past week, an Internet blog reader, Mark S, emailed in to The Yale Journal of Human Rights with these comments - -

Why not one blog post on the murder of human rights defender Natasha Estemirova in July? Are you on top of the human rights topic or just padding your resumes? Try subscribing to HRW’s blog or reading The Economist. We need more voices speaking out for the truth and justice in repressive and dangerous places.

Natalia (Natasha) Estemirova deserves a voice here, as do the string of human rights activists who put their lives at risk in the Russian- controlled province of Chechnya. The oil- rich, predominantly Muslim region, which was formally a part of the Soviet Union, has been the sight of two wars spurred by Chechnyan separatists who believe in the creation of an independent Islamic State. In 1999, Russia fought its last war in Chechnya, capturing and completing razing the capital, Grozny, in 2000. The end of war does not bring peacetime, but rather a series of terrorist attacks in Russia and Chechnya alike. Despite announcing that they had ceased counterinsurgency operations, Russian troops continue to patrol Chechnya, instigating and provoking backlash by rebels and separatists. The resulting human rights violations are overwhelming: indiscriminate killings, forced eviction of internally displaced people, arbitrary detention, torture, poverty, lack of aid, health resources, and education, and the inhibiting of the right to life because of constant fear being caught in the crossfire, just to name a few.

In a report from April 2009, the human rights organization Amnesty International discovered that,

“… only one person has been convicted in relation to a case of enforced disappearance – and the fate of his victim remains unknown. …Victims of human rights abuses fear reprisals if they turn to the authorities, while those submitting cases to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) have faced reprisals ranging from threats and intimidation to disappearances.” (April 2009, Amnesty International)

The same reported highlighted the “threats to human rights activists” in the region. This threat often materializes into actual killings, with activists reporting that an ambience of wariness has settled among them, and no conversation fails to meditate on the unsettling question, “Who will be next?” In an article from the British newspaper, ‘The Times,’ a Death List summarized the most recent spawn of killings, not including last week’s murder of Zarema Sadulyeva and her husband, Alik Dzhabrailov, in Grozny where she was director of the children’s charity, Save the Generation:

Anna Politkovskaya 48, journalist and author. She had exposed human rights abuses in the North Caucasus. Shot dead in her apartment building on October 7, 2006

Stanislav Markelov 34, human rights lawyer. Was appealing against early release of a Russian military officer convicted of killing a young Chechen woman. Shot dead leaving a press conference in Moscow on January 15, 2009

Anastasia Baburova 25, journalist. Had investigated neo-Nazi groups and taken part in environmental protests. Shot dead with Markelov on January 15, 2009

Natalia Estemirova, 50, human rights activist with Memorial. She had called for Russian officials, including Vladimir Putin, to be called to account over Chechen crimes. Abducted and shot dead on July 15, 2009

At least six political opponents of the Chechnyan President Ramzan Kadyrov have also been shot dead in the past two years, in locations ranging from Vienna to Dubai. (The Times, Online)

Natasha Estemirova drew international attention to herself working tirelessly to establish accountability and cement a culture of justice in Chechnya by seeking out human rights perpetrators. Her most recent efforts concerning a series of kidnappings that lead her back to the Kremlin- backed, Chechnyan president, Ramzan A. Kadyrov. Unfortunately, the law enforcement is the both the party in power and the guilty party, as confirmed by the same Amnesty report mentioned above,

“To date the European Court of Human Rights has made rulings in about 100 cases concerning human rights violations committed in the course of the conflict in Chechnya. In most of these cases, the Court found Russia responsible for the death, torture, or enforced disappearances of people in Chechnya or for the failure to investigate such crimes.” (April 2009, Amnesty International)

Natasha was accustomed to death threats and, like many human rights activists in the region, seemed to know it was only a matter of time. Indeed, after her death, Kadyrov described Natasha as without “honor, dignity or conscience.” Taken from her front doorstep back in July, Natasha shouted her last known words, “I’m being kidnapped!” Then, she disappeared. Her body resurfaced, a gunshot in her head and chest, indicating the brutality with which she had been treated. Her killers were merciless in sending the international community a clear message.

Even Natasha’s funeral in Grozny was not without incident: as mourners followed her body through the capital, they travelled barely 200 yards before being stopped by police in camouflage who informed them that they needed a permit to march. One mourner argued back, but the officer insisted: funeral processions can turn into protests.

It seems that President Ramzan Kadyrov’s boastful statement that Chechnya would soon be “the safest place in the world,” needs revising. Soon after Natasha’s death, news that Zarema Sadulayeva, the director of Save the Generation, an organization in Grozny that works to rehabilitate and provide a safe haven for children traumatized by war was found dead in the boot of a car with her husband. There is speculation that the killings were motivated by her husband’s alleged ties to an illegal separatist group. Regardless, the organization’s apolitical work makes the killings all the more chilling and human rights defenders even more reluctant to work in the region. As Lyudmila Alexeyeva of the Moscow Helsinki rights groups put it, “She headed an NGO that saved a generation of children. They just helped disabled children and children from poor families… It just shows that anyone whose position allows them a gun can kill whoever they like.” Amazingly, Sadulayeva had been hired at Save the Generation, after the previous director Murad Muradov was arrested and killed by security services in 2005 who apparently suspected him of being an insurgent. (Murad was later cleared of these charges, a little too late.)

Natasha’s friend, Tatyana Lokshina, the deputy director of Human Rights Watch in Moscow remembered her in a piece called, 'Another Voice Silenced in Russia' that included this segment,

“Natasha was dedicated to exposing the gross misrule of Chechnya today. Among the most recent cases she publicized was that of Madina Yunusova, 20, who married a suspected Chechen militant last month. Yunusova’s husband was killed in early July. Two days later, security forces came to her house, locked her mother, father and two sisters in the adjacent shed, and used gasoline to set the house on fire. The armed men unlocked the shed as they left, and Yunusova’s family managed to put out the fire. The next day, the forces returned – this time bringing Yunusova’s body wrapped in a shroud, along with instructions to bury her ‘without noise.’

As Natasha knew, ‘noise’ is the only weapon against the grotesque abuses that civilians in Chechnya continue to suffer. She was a meticulous researcher, but she was also fierce in her determination not to submit to the fiction, so ardently purveyed by Russian Prime Minister Vladmir Putin and his circle, that Chechnya is quiet and that the problem there has been solved. It has not.

Natasha is not the first Russian human rights defender murdered this year. In January, a friend of ours, Stanislav Markelov, a prominent human rights lawyer who helped many victims of abuse in Chechnya, was shot in central Moscow. Natasha came to town for his funeral. We sat at my kitchen table talking into the wee hours… speculating about who would be next.

Now I know.

The killers… are still at large, and the Russian government has shown little political will to seriously the Russian government has shown little political will to seriously investigate the murders of rights defenders. Natasha’s death must be the moment this changes. That’s where Western governments come in. We Russians have a saying, ‘The dogs bark, and the caravan moves on.’ Europe and the United states have foundn it convenient to let Chechnya slip off the agenda in their meetings with Russian policymakers. The dogs are barking.” (Human Rights Watch, Online)

The name's Khan. Shahrukh Khan.

2009-08-16T11:31:00.000-07:00

by Sarika Arya

Indians speak over 400 different dialects and devote themselves to as many different religions and spiritual followings. The country finds common ground in its worship of cricket players and movie stars who are demigods among the population of more than 1 billion. Among even these select few, some, like Shahrukh Khan, stand out as Herculean when compared to the rest.

Khan is an actor (he has been in more than 70 films), film producer, television host, and a Bollywood king; which is really film star royalty since Bollywood is the largest film industry in the world. Bollywood produces 850 films annually (about 2 films a day), while Hollywood churns out about 450 films annually. Khan is slowly gaining prominence among Western audience who were hitherto still clueless about Bollywood. In 2008 Newsweek named Khan one of the 50 most powerful people in the world.

So, Khan is an internationally recognized name: but, as the megastar realized, not always for the right reasons.

On Friday, at Newark Liberty International airport, Khan was detained for inspections. Immediately, tales of racial profiling hit Indian newsstands, enraging Khan’s extensive fan base. Apparently inspired by the incident, 'The Times of India’ published this affronted, defensive, (and oddly patriotic) segment:

My name is Khan? Too bad. SRK feels the heat of American paranoia.
Chidanand Rajghatta and Bharati Dubey, 15 August 2009

WASHINGTON/MUMBAI: “My name is Khan.” “Oh it is, is it? Step aside, please.”

The way it was related, that might well have been the opening exchange between Shahrukh Khan and an unnamed, uninformed, super-empowered US immigration official who had no idea (and didn’t care) that the man in front of him is the star of a film by the same name (My name is Khan), much less that he is a universal Bollywood icon.

SRK, as the actor star is known by his popular acronym, was asked to indeed step aside for a “secondary inspections” at Newark’s ironically named (in this context) Liberty International airport on Friday en route to an event to celebrate India’s Independence Day in Chicago, President Barack Obama’s hometown. But that was only after a “primary inspection.”

(Click the link above to read the entire piece on 'The Times of India' website.)

Apparently, Khan, who has travelled to the US before and was never singled out then, believes that he was questioned because of his Muslim name and heritage. “I told them I was a movie star,” he was quoted as saying. But Khan’s stardom did not shield him from detention and a barrage of irrelevant questions, excused away by security reasons.

It has become disturbingly easy to generalize notions of human rights, simplifying the particular down to vague umbrella terms like “security,” “peace,” and “freedom.” In doing so, specific human rights law has been forgotten as governments tries to forward greater, unspecific, ‘humanitarian’ missions. The means justifies the ends. America tortures for security, bombs for peace, and detains for freedom. Paraphrasing Harold Koh, Dean of Yale Law School, in recent times America, instead of being a country of “zero tolerance” has become a country of “zero accountability.”

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the US bureau of Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP’s) “suspicionless search policy” violates the constitutional rights and privacy rights, as well as the right to freedom of speech, inquiry, and association, of international travellers. CBP is even permitted to search laptops and other electronic devices of passengers, retaining their personal information indefinitely, regardless of whether they are suspected of wrongdoing in the first place. Human rights groups claim that CBP’s policies allow them to severely discriminate against travelers who are, or even appear to be, Muslim, Arab, or South Asian – those most associated with extremism and terrorism in light of the 9/11 attacks. Towards it end, the Bush administration issued a report to the United Nations (UN) Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination stating it was making efforts to end racial profiling, but included an absolute reservation against previous U.N. recommendations concerning “national security” or “border integrity.” Bush- era policies have become status quo in airport security, although the Obama administration has pledged to reverse this effect.

Racial profiling in airports can actually undermine security initiatives. According to Reginal Shuford, a senior staff attorney with ACLU’s Racial Justice Program, “It is a dangerous and slippery slope when we allow our government to take away a person’s rights because of his speech or ethnic background. Racial profiling is illegal and ineffective and has no place in a democratic society.” This does not mean security should be absent in American airports; far from it. "American paranoia" is very much so justified, to a certain extent. Recent events prove that it is necessary, more than ever, to maintain high vigilance – especially in ports of entry. But nations must be careful that in protecting human rights and civil liberties, they do not actually provoke and instigate the desire to revolt against such measures. For instance, detaining international Muslims is not a good way to promote peace and gain respect for democracy in an already alienated part of the world. Continental Airways employees are still suffering the backlash of frisking A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, a Muslim, Indian V.V.I.P (very very important person), and, not to mention, the former president of India, before he boarded a flight to New York back in April 2009. A standard security procedure should be required for all travelers (whether they be tourist, businessman, movie star or president) but further detention should only be implemented when suspicion is warranted by very specific behavior – one’s ethnic makeup does not qualify as a security breach that justifies a round of humiliating questions, full body pat- down, and retainment of one's private documents, in an isolated back room. In the case that security officials grossly misjudge someone, apologies, for the goodwill of all, must be made. Being treated in an otherwise degrading manner would only encourage hateful sentiments, fuelling desire to actually commit an act of terrorism. Big ideas about human rights can be reinforced and actually achieved by ensuring the detailed intricacies of human rights, those rights enshrined in national and international law, are respected.

US officials disputed the claim that Khan was detained. CBP stated that the agency routinely questioned foreigners and that Khan was questioned for exactly 66 minutes – not, as is being reported, 2 hours. Following intervention by American and Indian officials, Khan was ultimately released and is now focusing on completing his next film, which has since become a kind of art-imitates-life-piece, “My Name is Khan,” in which Shahrukh stars as a man subjected to racial profiling in America.

How many years can some people exist before they're allowed to be free?

2009-08-11T11:21:00.000-07:00

by Oscar Pocasangre

After repeated arrests and abuses from behalf of the ruling junta, Aung San Suu Kyi has come to represent peaceful resistance. Her name inspires a fight against repressive and unfair regimes that have constantly violated human rights.

Despite the advocacy efforts of various human rights and international organizations, Aung San Suu Kyi is still imprisoned and will be so for even longer. Just today, a court in Myanmar condemned her to 18 more months of house arrest - on top of the original time she has to serve - because a couple of months back, an American managed to get into her house.

Aung San Suu Kyi's case brings to mind the lyrics of Bob Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind": "How many years can some people exist, before they're allowed to be free? ....Yes and how many deaths will it take till he knows, that too many people have died?"

How longer will she have to suffer under house arrest? She's been arrested for 20 years now - how many more? How many human rights violations does the junta have to commit to realize that they've done enough and that they should stop? How many more people have to raise their voice against the injustices of the junta?

The answer in the wind says "no more." No more years in house arrest, no more human rights violations, no more voices. Aung San Suu Kyi's plight must end NOW. But do the winds we feel here are the same as the winds felt in Myanmar? Let's hope so. Let's hope that the junta can hear this answer in the wind.

Chris Brown is Sorry

2009-08-06T14:25:00.000-07:00

20- year old hip- hop artist, Chris Brown, has released a video apologizing for violently abusing his then girlfriend, the singer, Rihanna.

Sadly for him, he has a lot to be sorry for. According to the report filed, Chris Brown strangled Rihanna and hit her so severely that she bled from the mouth and endured several bruises.

The case highlights the prevailing problem of violence against women, and in particular domestic and dating abuse, even in developed and democratic countries like the United States. In United States, a woman is raped every 6 minutes and battered every 15 seconds. In most cases, the perpetrator knows his victim and has witnessed or personally experienced abuse in the past - Chris Brown was no exception, he saw the effects of domestic violence in his own family.

While the United States has a federal law, the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, it has not legally committed itself to the United Nations' Convention on the Elimination Against the Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), putting it in a league of nations that includes Afghanistan, Iran, and Sudan. Although the United States has signed CEDAW, America is not bound by international law to respect women's rights, until it ratifies the convention.

"But shouldn't the world feel guilty about what's happening in Congo today?"

2009-08-06T08:40:00.000-07:00

This article in 'The New York Times' is an extremely disturbing, painful, and altogether shocking read about the rape "open season" that is targeting men, women, and children in the Congo today.

Contributed by Pruittiporn Kerdchoochuen

Symbol of Unhealed Congo: Male Rape Victims

Jehad Nga for The New York Times

Clockwise from top left, Kazungu Ziwa, Shabani Lufuno, Ngabu Bita and Matata Badoda. All are Congolese men who were recently raped and agreed to be photographed.

By Jeffrey Gettleman

Published August 4, 2009

GOMA, Congo -- It was around 11 p.m. when armed men burst into Kazungu Ziwa’s hut, put a machete to his throat and yanked down his pants. Mr. Ziwa is a tiny man, about four feet, six inches tall. He tried to fight back, but said he was quickly beaten down.

“Then they raped me,” he said. “It was horrible, physically. I was dizzy. My thoughts just left me.”

Click here to read the article in its entirety on The New York Times website.

Law & Order: Gaza

2009-08-01T01:55:00.000-07:00

Not all of the havoc, destruction, and the humanitarian crisis in general that plagues Gaza is directly caused by Israelis and the Arab- Israeli conflict. And not all Gaza (or, for that matter, Palestinian) institutions have completely gone to bust either. Despite the odds against them (the daily strain of war and lack of basic human needs like water, enough food, and adequate shelter; just to name a few), The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), a Palestinian NGO based in Gaza City, continues to document and monitor domestically- born abuse.

Contributed by Shahla Naimi
Trumbull College, Yale 2012

Press Releases
Ref: 93/2009
Date: 26 July 2009
Time: 09:00 GMT

Decision to Impose Traditional Robes and Veils on Female Lawyers in Gaza Is Illegal

Chief Justice of the High Court of Justice, Head of the Higher Justice Council in Gaza gas issued a new decision concerning the clothing of lawyers. PCHR believes that this decision constitutes a violation of the law and an unjustified intervention into lawyers' affairs. It also undermines personal freedoms and women's rights through forcing female lawyers to wear traditional robes known as "Jilbab" and veils (Hijabs).

The decision was issued on 9 July 2009 by Counselor 'Abdul Ra'ouf al-Halabi, Chief Justice of the Higher Court of Justice and Head of the Higher Justice Council, and it will enter into force on 1 September 2009. The decision orders male lawyers to wear a special uniform when appearing before courts, which includes: A vesture of black cloth known as the robe; a dark tuxedo; a while shirt; and a black necktie. According to the decision, female lawyers have to wear black cloth known as the robe; a dark suit (Jilbab, tuxedo or coat); and a scarf covering the hair.

According to the decision, male and female lawyers must wear such clothing when appearing before all regular courts.

PCHR believes that although it was based on the provisions of the Palestinian Basic Law of 2003, the Lawyers' Clothing Statute of 1930 and what it calls "common righteous norms, as mentioned in its preamble, the decision violates the constitution and the law and undermines women's rights and personal freedoms ensured by the constitution for the following reasons:

1. The Lawyers' Clothing Statute of 1930 is the legal instrument in effect concerning the clothing of lawyers, which is specifically prescribed and not open for any interpretation or what is called "common righteous norms," which is a loose clause that has ideological implications not included in the law at all.

2. The clothing of lawyers is united for both women and men without any discrimination; it includes according to the Lawyers' Clothing Statute of 1930: A vesture of black cloth; a dark suit; and white top and tie.

3. Accordingly, assigning a special uniform for female lawyers violates the Lawyers' Clothing Statute of 1930, constitutes a form of discrimination against women and undermines personal freedoms ensured by the constitution.

4. According to the Lawyers' Clothing Statute of 1930, lawyers have the right to plead without wearing the specified clothing in offices of judges and arbitrators, before district courts or before courts of investigations of suspicious deaths. So, imposing special clothing on lawyers when appearing before all regular courts violates the Statute.

5. Deciding the clothing of lawyers is not of the authority of Chief Justice of the High Court of Justice or judges, as article 26 of Professional Lawyers Act #3 of 1999 prescribes that a lawyer must appear when pleading before a court in the clothing decided by the Bar Association's bylaw. Accordingly, the clothing of lawyers is of the authority of the Bar Association. So, the decision by the Chief Justice of the High Court of Justice/ Head of the Higher Justice Council in Gaza constitutes an illegal and unjustified intervention of the Bar Association's affairs.

6. PCHR reminds that the Higher Justice Council in Gaza is unconstitutional, a fact emphasized by human rights organizations since 2007. The Council was established by the Government in Gaza in violation of the constitution, and its mandate derogates from the authorities of the Higher Judicial Council, which had been already established in accordance with the constitution.

7. Imposing a special uniform on female and male lawyers in the Gaza Strip reinforces the state of fragmentation, which means that two kinds of clothing for lawyers, one in the West Bank and the other one in Gaza, even though the unification of the Bar Association in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip has been an important national achievement in the past years.

Click here to see the same announcement on the PCHR website, its original source.

The Magic School Bus

2009-08-01T01:14:00.000-07:00

by Shahla Naimi
Trumbull College, Yale 2012

I went out to dinner with Americans and Palestinians Thursday night at a restaurant 20 minutes north of Nablus to celebrate the arrival of a new bus bringing children from refugee camps to a small school in Nablus.

The bus does not allow kids to eat inside, but has trays for food and drinks. Some of the kids are illiterate and the vast majority do not know English, but there is a “STOP” button should a child need to exit the bus. Yet, the kids wait for the bus in the hot sun for hours, excited at the chance to go to school.

We, the local Palestinian and American teachers and staff members of the school, did not bother to hide our enthusiasm as we traveled outside of the city for dinner, taking the same bus that carried our new students. We hardly ever leave the city, and never before with Palestinians. But we left. And we had a wonderful dinner, laughing and bonding.

By the time we finished dinner it was 9 PM: it was finally dark enough for the driver to turn on the neon blue lights that line the bus’ inner rows – something we were all eagerly awaiting. It did not disappoint and, for a few minutes, we all sang and danced (hunched over) in the tiny (and not very tall) bus to the roaring sound of the radio. Jamila*, an extremely well- educated Palestinian woman in her 30s, forgot her nervousness, about the 3 times her mother and father called telling her to come home, and she sang along with the music. She sang. He sang. We all sang together right until we approached an Israeli military checkpoint.

And then we stood and clapped. We smiled and continued louder than before, expressing happiness as almost an act of defiance against the restrictions.

We passed 3 checkpoints during our drive.

Two soldiers at the first smiled and clapped. The second set of soldiers looked confused, not registering why this bus of Americans and Palestinians were so happy. The third set simply looked irate, wanting to wave us by as soon as possible to get rid of us. But we continued for that half hour dancing and singing, not caring what the world thought.

Yes, most of the women did not strip loose their coverings and shake it in the aisle, but they did shake their shoulders and widen their smiles. We respected one another while letting loose a little bit, something we all desperately knew the others needed.

Humans have innate rights to basic food and shelter, security and the pursuit of happiness. And they have the right to fulfill the pursuit: to latch onto it at 9 PM at night in the dead of the night in a city where there are no lights illuminating the road, where the young sports teacher remembers who killed his father.

And, in all that happiness, there was the moment when that sports teacher, Ibrahim*, became quiet. Here was this young, lanky, 25-year- old sports teacher, who lines his 5-year- old kids up in a line holding hands and leads them to a room where they can be together and have juice, sitting in a bus with cheering Palestinians and Americans. And for what reason? For what reason but to refuse to give up their right to happiness despite the occupation of their homes? Ibrahim stood and danced, he sang and clapped- but he did not forget that only last year that clapping, smiling soldier killed his father in his home.

He did not forget, and so he remembered what his kids go home to and the dangers they face. But what can he do for them but to tell them he is there- there to throw a soft ball at them and teach them how to catch it? What can he do when he knows what he goes home to – a home without a father?

Happiness is here. It is evident with every car horn celebrating a wedding or young mother having her first child. But still, the occupation remains. The reminder is everywhere and it always pops up; always creeps into the bus and reminds this young man that although a soldier may smile and clap he is there for a reason. Why, the young man wonders, does he himself have to go through the checkpoint in the first place? Why does he no longer have a father?

*All names have been changed.

Yezidi, Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker, Kurd, Mother, Father, Sister, Brother- HUMAN

2009-07-28T11:44:00.000-07:00

photos and article by Pruittiporn Kerdchoochuen

The demonstration held on July 15, 2009 by the Council of Yezidis in Germany and co-sponsored by my employer, the Society for Threatened Peoples (Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker), outside of Oldenburg in Lower Saxony, was part of a last minute effort to rally support for a Yezidi family threatened with deportation, as well as to raise awareness on the issue in general. Yezidi is a Kurdish religion of Indo-European roots, and most of its followers are Kurdish- speaking originally from northern Iraq. The family of 4 had moved to Germany over ten years ago to escape the oppression and lack of opportunities they face as an ethnic and religious minority in Syria. The 2 children, the oldest having been 3 when the family left Syria and the younger having been born in Germany, speak German, attend German schools and call Germany their homeland. Now that their 10 year visa is up, they are faced with deportation back to Syria, and thus to routine discrimination by a state notorious for its use of torture and mistreatment of minorities.

The demonstration brought together the Yezidi community, their friends and supporters, and human rights activists in the area. Little children, teenagers, parents and grandparents were all present, clad in everything ranging from traditional headscarves to Chucks and low riding jeans. For me, the rally emphasized the "human" in human rights. It served as a reminder that, in the end, we are not merely fighting for some intangible ideals, but for real people: for our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers...

To see more of Pruittiporn's photos of the protest, check out the album by clicking here!

Some people are gay. Get over it!

2009-07-25T14:09:00.001-07:00

No, Princess Diana was not a closet lesbian - but that doesn't disqualify her from being a gay icon.

LONDON, UK - At the National Portrait Gallery in London, 10 famous homosexuals were each asked to choose 6 ‘Gay Icons’ who were inspirational to them in their struggle for dignity, respect, and equal rights regardless of their sexual orientation.

The result?

Some of what you would expect. Homosexual icons: Ian Roberts, a professional Australian rugby player; W.H. Auden, the British poet; Harvey Milk, the assassinated San Francisco mayor; and Virginia Woolf, who is known to have had a lesbian lover despite being married.

One man, Peter Tatchell, is depicted with his mug shot from a police station, underneath which the police officers in charge have stuck on the label “QUEER TERRORIST,” in big white letters, as part of Tatchell's criminal description. He was arrested for holding up a banner that said, “Charles can marry twice! Gays can’t marry once,” at the wedding procession in Windsor, England for the newlyweds, Prince Charles and Camilla Parker.

Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer of the United States army, a Vietnam war-veteran and a Bronze Star recipient, is one of the less well-known yet highly respectable and indisputably heroic gay icons in the exhibition. After being discharged from the army for admitting she was a lesbian, she filed a lawsuit in a civil court, which ruled both her discharge and the ban on homosexuals unconstitutional. The colonel then returned to the National Guard until her retirement in 1997. She was one of the only accepted openly homosexual officials in the United States army, before the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

But other ‘Gay Icons’ include straight people: CNN reporter, Christiane Amanpour; South- African president, Nelson Mandela; English rose, Princess Diana; and renowned Pulitzer Prize winning author, Maya Angelou.

You don’t have to be gay to be a gay icon. In the fight for LGBT rights, two groups have lost the dignity that makes one human: the homosexuals because of their sexual orientation, and the heterosexuals who have allowed their fellow man to be judged so arbitrarily – not by the content of his character, but by the gender of his partner. The ‘Gay Icon’ exhibition highlights the “human” in human rights: the fight for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights (LGBT) does not only concern the LGBT community itself, but also those who are not judged by their sexuality and discriminated against accordingly – those with the most power to change the status quo.

Click here to visit the website for the exhibition 'Gay Icons.' The exhibition is on at the National Portrait Gallery in London until October 18, with reduced admission for students.

Viewpoint. Twist.

2009-07-23T11:47:00.000-07:00

by Shahla Naimi
Trumbull, Yale College 2012

On Rafidia Street in Nablus, they are 4 or 5 guys basking under the trees in dark green uniforms and red-green hats casually laying down and carrying guns. They do not smile; they do not talk to you.

On Benihana Street in Jerusalem, they are young, attractive guys and girls in dark green uniforms holding backpacks, who haven’t undergone the emotional development that college instigates that makes someone keen to constantly ask questions. They laugh and hold hands, drink iced coffee and eat ice cream.

One maintains order in a land of people called Arabs.

One maintains order in a land of people called Palestinians; this is the other that gets discount prices at concerts:

50 NIS.
40 NIS for students and soldiers.

In a café in Jerusalem called Change, a young man told me that soldiers are normal, that they protect the people of Israel.

At An-Najah University in Nablus, a young woman told me that the Palestinian Authority is an unwelcome puppet, “But who cares anyways?”

Viewpoint. Twist.

The government of Israel cannot continue to manipulate, twist, and mold human rights to fit the image it wants and portray a biased story. In doing so, Israel casts itself as a victim when it clearly has the upper hand: it has the stability, power, and resources to determine and enforce how well- respected human rights are in its territory, and the Occupied Territories. The Oslo Peace Accords and every agreement before and after, should have been a matter of established human rights conventions, not power.

Human rights are non-negotiable.

(Actually) In Conversation with: Wael Abbas

2009-07-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

Contributed by Sarika Arya and Meredith Morrison

The first time we tried to interview the internationally famous Egyptian blogger, Wael Abbas (WA), he was returning from a conference on global interdependence on Sweden. A week later, back in Egypt (and with a vengeance to blog), Wael sat down with the YJHR. His style is not to complain. It is to expose, clarify, provoke and, ultimately, inspire. He's pretty good at it - especially the provoking part.

Q: Why do you blog?

WA: I blog because I am. This is going to sound cliché but no that’s not the answer. I blog because I – well I started blogging for totally different reasons but then I discovered another reason. I have a voice and I wanted this voice to be heard. I wanted to discuss issues that weren’t discussed in the traditional media about religion, society, politics, stuff like that. That’s how it started. But afterwards, I decided that I’m blogging for change. I want change in this country. At least I want to leave a little impact, make a small change in three specific areas which are: the civil society, political parties, and the media.

Q: Who accesses your blog? Is it banned anywhere in Egypt? I read an article in which the reporter indicated that some blogs are banned to certain business and publications (like news outlets), according to a "state security apparatus"?

WA: It’s banned in China, that’s what I heard, but it’s not banned in Egypt. Well, they used to use this policy before 2005. They used to block some blogs and websites. This was mostly for the radical Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood. But not anymore; sometime they block websites, but only tactically, for one day, or two days, or a few hours. Like on the 6th of April where they blocked Facebook for only one day, the day of the general strike. Other than that, they have other ways that they attack blogs to get them shut down or report them to the hosts, saying they have a lot of inappropriate material. They did that with my YouTube account, my Facebook account, my email – they’ve shut down my email several times, like five times.

Q: Why? Are they allowed to know what’s in your email?

WA: They don’t have that technology yet, but there is a technology called packet inspection – they can inspect every single packet of data that comes into or out of your computer. I think the Chinese are doing that but I’m not sure the Egyptians are doing it yet.

But this is not the only way they attack bloggers; I can tell you about other ways – they’re not only electronic. They arrest them and torture them, like the owner of the Facebook group of the strike. They target reputations; this is what they’ve been doing about me for some time, spreading rumors saying I’ve converted to Christianity or I am a homosexual or something like that.

Q: Is that what happened last week at the airport?

WA: No, what happened at the airport was a direct attack. Well, I traveled a lot in the last three years, like my passport was almost full, and I’d never been in a situation similar to this one. I took a late flight from Stockholm, and there was a short time transit in Frankfurt, then I took a flight to Cairo. In Cairo, I arrived in the airport, in Terminal 3 at around 3:00 am. So as you can imagine I was really exhausted, tired, hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten. I also took a bus right from Talberg to Stockholm for four hours. When I arrived in Cairo, I thought, “I am finally home.”

So I approached the passport control desk, and I gave them my passport, and one of them he checked my passport on the computer, and he asked me these questions: “Do they always stop you when you arrive in Cairo?” I said, “No, it has never happened before.” And he said, “But this time you’re going to have to stay for a while.” So I said, “Okay.” I thought would be five minutes or something like that. So I waited. One hour, two hours, three hours, and nobody is telling me what is going on. And they stopped other people, like people with big beards, people who came from Yemen, but they let them go after five or ten minutes until I was the only one who was staying there.

I kept asking questions, but nobody would give me any answers, until one of them told me discreetly: “Your passport is, at the moment, with State Security.” When I asked, “Why?” he told me, “I don’t know, I’m not with State Security; I’m just with passport control.”

So I waited and kept asking the officers for my passport back, but they wouldn’t give it back to me. So I decided to start a sit-in. I took a big piece of paper out of my bag and wrote, “THIS IS A SIT-IN; STATE SECURITY TOOK MY PASSPORT,” and I sat on the floor and faced people coming from the planes. And at first they were ignoring that, but then it started to piss them off, after a while one of them started trying to persuade me to end this, and then he started harassing me, saying, “This isn’t good. It’s going to end up ugly.”

I told him, “I know my rights. What I’m doing, according to the laws and institutions, is right.”

So they told me, “Just end the sit-in and we’ll give you back your passport.” And I said, “No, give me back my passport first and I’ll end it.” They brought my passport back to me after 5 minutes.

So I passed the passport control and went to the baggage carousel to get my bag but unfortunately my bag had disappeared; it had been over four hours at this point, and somebody had moved it. I asked a guy at the airport what I should do and he said to exit customs and go to Lufthansa and ask them for your bag. So I went through the customs, but they stopped me and said, “No, just wait here and we’ll get it for you.”

I waited for two hours, and he pretended they were trying to get my bag. During this time, they had my passport with them, and they wouldn’t give it back to me. And they kept talking to each other discreetly, like kneeling with each other and saying something I could not hear, until suddenly they tell me, “Okay, now we have to search your bag.” I was carrying this laptop bag of mine.

They started searching the bag. At first, I thought it was a joke – they took out every single thing that was in the bag, no matter how small, like the medicine. They kept asking me questions about the medicine and talking about the medicine. Then they took all the conference papers to a room inside, and I don’t know what they did with that, but I suspect they were photocopying the papers. They took out my camera and the laptop and put it inside.

Eventually, they brought back the papers and the camera and asked me to go inside for something similar to a strip search. I went inside and they searched every pocket of my clothes and almost every curve of my body. He took my wallet out and searched everything inside my wallet – credit cards, ID cards, driver’s license, stuff like that – and then put everything back in the wallet. This is something that is really weird for customs people to do; they’re supposed to be looking for goods.

They gave me back my passport and my wallet, but they told me they had to keep my laptop because they want to show it to this agency we have here, which is responsible for copyright software and piracy and stuff like that. But this is totally irregular. They never do this to anybody, never to me before; I’ve flown hundreds of times and they’ve never done this to me.

And I said that taking my laptop was illegal, and I know it’s illegal, and I know by customs law that I am entitled to carry one laptop for personal use, and they cannot take it away from me, and they can’t make me pay customs for it, and they’re not authorized to open it or inspect the software inside unless they have approval from a judge. But still, they insisted they are not giving me back my laptop, so I sat there for two or three hours more demanding my laptop back, but they refused. I demanded to talk to the head of customs, and, after negotiating, he told me, “We have orders from a higher entity, and we cannot give you back your laptop.”

After this, I decided that staying in the airport was useless, so I decided to leave. I met friends who were waiting for me outside, met lawyers, and we went to Lufthansa to look for the bag. And they obviously knew about my bag, they knew my full name, and the whole situation. They told me my bag was with storage in the other Terminal, in Terminal 2. So I went to this other company that is supposed to be handling the baggage, and they told me that you need permissions to go to the storage room to get your bag back.

We had to go through a lot of red tape to get permission to get my bag, and during the process there was a permission that was supposed to be from state security. This one alone took 2 hours. They claimed that they have my name on the list that belonged to State Security. This list of the names, was totally new. It was never there before, they never had reason to stop me.

I finally managed to get the permission and got my bag back and then I filed a report in the police station about the illegal detention and confiscation of my laptop, which I didn’t get back till now.

Q: Why do you think that this happened to you?

WA: I don’t know, but I have inside information from the state that says that somebody filed a report about me from Sweden that I said stuff that was harmful to the Egyptian government state. But I know for sure that there were two people from the National Democratic Party that were there.

Q: Was it something you said – what kind of stuff?

WA: I said a lot of stuff, of course. I criticized the regime and I criticized the European position on our regime. I said that it was hypocritical that they know what the regime does to the opposition but they are aiding this regime and this is totally different from their approach to the “iron curtain” or the Eastern bloc during the Soviet Era... so this is probably what pissed of the National Democratic Party.

Q: Is that what you blog about – what do you blog about?

WA: I blog about that and other stuff too. Stuff that doesn’t get enough coverage in media.

Q: Why do you think this happened this time?

WA: I don’t know. I think there is a state of panic in state security right now. I think something is going on. I don’t know why but they have arrested people in the Muslim Brotherhood – maybe President Mubarak is dying. I think they are preparing a military tribunal for the Muslim Brotherhood, something similar to what they did last year. [Last year], they sent some Muslim Brotherhood members to jail accusing them of funding an organization or something like that – terrorist attacks, an illegal organization, stuff like that.

Q: How do you find your material?

WA: In the beginning all the material I got was mine. They were like pictures I took myself, videos I took myself. But after I started gaining some credibility people started sending me their old material: stuff they shot on the street or stuff that leaked out from police stations. People sent me videos of train accidents, terrorist attacks, car accidents.

Q: How did you get into blogging?

WA: I was always interested in journalism, ever since I was a kid I was reading opposition papers. I was interested in this new experience, because it was new in the 70s. It was new in the reign of Sadat. I always felt there was something missing from this opposition in independent media. I wanted to work in media but I found out its hard, you have to know somebody in a good position in order to get a job. So I quit for a while until I saw the potentiality of the Internet back in 1994. You’re able to interact with people from other countries in long distance, you can be anonymous and discuss anything freely in censorship. It all started actually in chat rooms, then forums, then reading groups, then electronic newspapers, which I wrote articles for and sent to. Then in 2004 I took the major turn and decided to start my own blog, because there was a lot of activity in the Egyptian state and I felt like they were not getting enough coverage in the traditional media, even from the opposition. So I decided to go to these police stations and take my camera and do interviews and my own stuff and put it on my own blog. The blog enabled me to post, photos videos, and links provide technology.

Q: Have you ever been scared to blog? (Especially because of the potential consequences?)

WA: Not really.

Q: Have you ever censored yourself?

WA: Maybe when there is something that doesn’t have to do with politics or the rights of people. If it is a personal scandal of somebody I abstain from posting it.

Q: Do you censor comments from people?

WA: Yes.

Q: Why?

WA: Because they are personal and offensive. I am my own authority, I am proud of that. I will be a fascist. I would never take a government position. I keep away from that because I know that I have a fascist quality.

Q: It seems that you’re suspicious of many people, professions, and things in general – who or what do you trust?

WA: I’m not suspicious!

Q: Okay, well you seem to find faults in a lot of things. What profession do you find most admirable? Journalism?

WA: Journalism has been really a dirty job in Egypt for fifty years now. Journalism is not honest at all its only after advertising and power and stuff like that. I hate that.

Q: So then what job is honest? What about human rights activists can you find something wrong with them?

WA: Yes, of course! Of course! There are people who dealing with double standards. Like human rights who don’t recognize the rights of gay and homosexuals, and people who don’t recognize the rights of people from other religions like Bahai’s. You have people like that in your Council. Don’t write that down it will piss of [your boss]. And you have people who do it to make money, there is a lot of money in human rights. Donations. They put in their pockets.

Q: So what is the admirable profession for you? What can change the world?

WA: Any profession you do with love and honesty and you are willing to serve people with. This is the profession I respect, even if it is a garbage collector.

Q: How do you react when Yahoo, Youtube, and Facebook close your accounts?

WA: I complain against them.

Q: How does that happen? Like why does Facebook shut off your account?

WA: Google and Facebook cooperate with the regime, which I know for sure they are. Or they get false reports like people reporting me for spamming or posting violent material or abusive photos or like kinky sexual stuff. Like I have videos of torture: the police officers who shot the videos of torture took pleasure in shooting them.

Q: Why do you think this happens specifically in Egyptian society – like what is going on the police officer’s brain?

WA: We have been living under a tyrannical dictatorial military regime for over 50 years. And this has empowered and enforced the position of army officers and police officers at the same time. They have unlimited power so they feel like gods. The motto of the police used to be, “The police are in the service of the people.” But now they changed it so that now it is, “The police and the people are in the service of the nation,” – whatever the hell that means. And by the way they give courses in police academy to be arrogant or to be superior to people. They tell them not to take public transportation like the ordinary people.

The soldiers are paid very little but the police officers are very good. And they have lots of good stuff: a good pension, good health care. They can buy cars, apartments, they have touristic villages where they spend the summer with the families, they have these like five star hospitals. So they are basically being bribed to be like the guard dogs of the regime. But the soldiers of course are basically being paid pennies.

Q: What is your relationship with the American government like? We heard that you have a certain relationship with the American government.

WA: Yeah I have relations with the CIA, FBI, MI5.

Q: Are you making fun of us?

WA: Of course.

Q: So, can you be honest?

WA: [Laughs.] No I don’t have any relationships with anybody. I go on scholarships and training programs that are organized by the civil society. Nothing to do at all with any government.

Q: So what do you think about the American government? This is something of interest to us, because we’re Americans.

WA: Would your government hire people like me or pay people like me? Do you really think so?

Q: Well yeah, because you’re exposing the humanitarian face of your country. You’re an insider with access to all this material. Look, we’re basically trying to find out if you’re a spy.

WA: Is that doing any good to the American administration? Like exposing the Egyptian regime or exposing Egyptian torture? Are you planning to invade my country and am I helping you? Are you angry with Mubarak are you going to impeach him?

GIVE ME A BREAK! The US government is sleeping with Mubarak in the same bed! I get stopped at the American airports every single time that I arrive and depart there.

(Q): I mean to be honest, that might not have anything to do with your profession, but because you’re coming from the Middle East. Right? And because you’re Arab… America has a policy of discriminating against certain people so… okay clearly you don’t seem very impressed with American politics because they’re “sleeping with the regime.”

W: No, they’re very hypocritical. Sometimes they are supporting the regime. I refuse this kind of support. I consider it interference. It is hypocritical because they are supporting my country just to save face but on the other hand they are handing millions and billions to our regime.

Q: Right, but in America it would be very very rare, especially under Barack Obama, for someone to be detained for blogging. There is a pretty well respected policy for freedom of speech, at least under President Obama.

WA: I don’t think so, I don’t think so. So far, Barack Obama has not been doing anything about freedom of speech in other countries.

Q: Do you think that there is censorship in America?

WA: There is censorship in America because the media is controlled by a few corporations. There’s very little effective private media not like in the 70s. After Reagan came to power these corporations are buying all of the local stations and newspaper making them all a part of one huge network; turning into one network abiding by one policy. So censorship is very easy.

Q: We read on your blog that you basically compared Barack Obama to the Muslim Brotherhood.

WA: Well yeah, because he was, like, addressing the religious sentiment of the people not their mind, not their thoughts. So it is basically the same thing; reciting verses from the Koran and reciting the hadiths [oral stories] of the prophet. Oh my God. What the hell? Is he going to fool me like reciting stuff that? What is he thinking? What is he thinking? Yeah, there are some people who will be fooled by stuff like that but not me. Not the people like me who use their minds. Not the liberals, not the secularists, not the leftists.

Q: Well, that’s a valid point but don’t you think that some people might respond by saying that there is a religious –

WA: Fuck that. I don’t want that. I want that to be eliminated actually. I want a civil state.

Q: But don’t you think you can have a civil state with religion? You don’t think so?

WA: We can have a state with religion, but for everyone to be free to be able to practice their own religion. They are arresting Shia Muslims, because they don’t accept that there are Shia Muslims. They are arresting Christians, and they are persecuting Baha’is.

Q: So, did you watch Obama’s speech? Or did you attend it?

WA: I was there yeah.

Q: You weren’t one of the people in the back screaming “I love Obama!” where you?

WA: [Laughs] No. I was sitting next to someone who loves Obama. He is a famous actor actually.

Q: Were you appalled by him [the actor]?

WA: Everyone is free and entitled to his own opinion. He loves Obama, he was happy that Obama was there and recited verses from the Koran as if it’s adding honor to the Koran. Some people have this mentality. Some people need to be slapped in the face for thinking this way. It feels like there is this ugly old woman that men don’t approach at all, and then suddenly a man started flirting with her. (The Muslim world is the ugly old woman.)

Q: For you, what would be the ideal way for America to approach Muslim politics?

WA: I’d like America to start addressing mentality, to stop dealing with double standards, to stop aiding tyrants and dictators.

Q: What do you mean by “addressing mentality”?

WA: In the Cold War, there was a whole different approach towards the Eastern bloc and the Soviet Union and a lot of criticism in the media. I don’t see that anywhere at all in the Muslim media. Saudi Arabia is the biggest ally of the United States and the biggest funder of terrorism in the world. It is building schools in the jungles of Africa, in the jungles of southern Thailand, and the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. This is where the Taliban came from. This is where the people who explode embassies come from. From these schools. And all of these schools have pictures of the King Abdullah, the king of Saudi Arabia, and his son. The United States always yields to pressure from Saudi Arabia. Hollywood bows to pressure from Saudi Arabia- all the time, the perception of Arabs in the media. They want to sell the most movies in the Gulf countries, the oil- rich countries. So they rarely attack Saudi Arabia, and the traditions, and the religion there.

Q: Do you vote in your country?

WA: No, because we don’t have voting. We don’t have real elections.

Q: A lot Egyptians are very impressed by Obama –

WA: Because he looks like us. He is the first black guy to be president and so he is the embodiment of a dream. We want something similar here in Egypt like where anyone can be president of the country.

Q: We met a taxi driver who like Obama because he thought he was Muslim.

WA: Some people are ignorant stupid people and think he’s a Muslim

Q: So, you’re not impressed by Obama?

WA: I was impressed by Obama before he came to power, but when he started giving those stupid speeches like he thinks he’s smart, and he thinks he’s fooling people around the world. I don’t like it. I’m simple, I’m not like him. He’s patronizing people around the world.

Q: So who is your favorite political leader in the entire world?

WA: Anwar Sadat, Mahatma Gandhi.

Q: Someone who is alive? If you had to choose – someone with real power, so you can’t say the Queen of England.

WA: No, I don’t like her. I hate monarchies. How about that guy – what’s his name? The guy who was in prison? … Nelson Mandela.

Q: Okay but someone who is in power RIGHT now.

WA: NONE! Really! No country is perfect; even Sweden, even Norway, even Finland- even those countries that have those kinds of democracies because they have their own problems. So nobody is perfect. I can only choose from the dead, from the people who are no longer in power because I can see their achievements and their contributions to politics. So these are the only people I can judge.

Q: Why did you turn down a meeting with President Bush in 2008? It was an opportunity to talk to a political leader.

WA: I wanted to talk to him as a journalist, but not as an activist that he was supporting because he was not. Bush was like leaving office and he wanted to give a message like okay I was supporting these movements. He was using me, and not just me, others too! People from South America, from former Soviet Republics. All these people praised Bush, and I was expected to do that? HELL NO. I was offered to meet Rice in 2007 and I refused that. I also hated people who met with Hilary Clinton. I don’t believe in meeting with officials from any government, especially like controversial figures. I can meet with the Prime Minister or President of Israel but only as a journalist or as an interviewer. That’s it.

Q: If you had the opportunity to tell Mubarak anything, what would it be?

WA: Lots of bad things. Lots of very horrible, horrible, nasty, ugly, obscene stuff you know. I cannot think of anything rational that I would say.

Q: If you don’t believe in working through the established method of power, then how do things get change?

WA: Things are going to change if they change their ways. The government are not fighting for their rights or to do the things they are supposed to do. If we accept censorship and security then civil society must accept all of the regulations that are forced upon them.

Q: When you say no to these meetings, do you ever feel like you are missing an opportunity to tell government officials what you think?

WA: No. I can say whatever I want through the media and through meeting with other people from civil society. The governments are working only for their own interests.

Q: What’s the best way to rule a country?

WA: By the people themselves. I believe in democracy, but I believe in enlightened democracy. People should be aware first. I don’t want people to choose Mubarak. I don’t want people to choose Hamas. I don’t want people to choose Taliban. I don’t want people to choose businessmen because they bribe them. I don’t want people to choose someone because they are oppressing them. I hate people who use people, who use democracy for their own interests. I want people to be able to realize that democracy is for their own good and they shouldn’t give it up for bribe, for a promise, for anything- just because these guys are religious, or having religious sentiment. People should think before they vote.

Q: Who has influence on you? Any writers, intellectuals, or political theorists?

WA: Charles Dickens and the x-ray machine. The x-ray machine because it doesn’t provide a cure. Some people accuse me of not providing solutions. That’s what Charles dickens and the x-ray machine do. Like, Charles Dickens was like pointing his fingers at the problems of society, the problem with institutions, the British institutions, the abuse of children and women, but he never gave answers to that. But eventually the British society was able to reform itself, to reform its institutions. So, I don’t have to provide answers. I don’t have answers. There are other people to think about it. I can only point out the problem. I point it for people to solve it.

I’ll give you an example. I published a video of torture inside a police station, of a truck driver who was physically sodomized with a stick. The video was circulated for over a year and the people didn’t care, they were so apathetic. They exchanged the video as if weird or absurd, not a crime that needed to be reported. I took this video and I posted it on my blog and I made a scandal out of it, and I said somebody should do something about it. And it was taken to court and the officer sentenced to jail. So people have a problem in awareness. People don’t know what is a crime and what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. Police torture was acceptable for a long time and now it’s not because people are talking about it. And I didn’t propose a solution but it’s better now. The problem is not totally solved, but the people became aware. They came forward, and they became more use to exposing that kind of torture.

Q: What do you think is the biggest humanitarian problem facing Egypt today?

WA: The biggest is a collection of all of these. I cannot say that there is a specific main problem. There is a problem of awareness – awareness of many things –people’s awareness of their own rights: what is right to do, what is right not to do, what is right to choose, what is not right to choose. So it is, basically, awareness.

Q: Do you think it’s the same for the rest of the world as well?

WA: Maybe so. This is something that our leaders and government and media and businessmen exploited. They know how to exploit very well. This is the thing that frightens me.

Q: When did you realize you were being exploited and how?

WA: After I graduated. Well, the government was like having all this propaganda all the time on television that the youth are not doing anything, that the youth are worthless and useless, that they are only into drugs. And they never thought of empowering them. And I always thought that you have to develop yourself and gain more knowledge and gain more training and stuff. I found out I had a university degree and I spoke, like, two to three languages, and certificates, and couldn’t get a job for God’s sake. So they were telling us lies. It’s not about having qualifications, it’s about, like, being corrupt and knowing somebody who is corrupt who can get you a job. I found somebody who has less qualifications than mine and just because he knew some people he had some very good jobs. I was always very critical, even before I graduated.

Q: So you’ve always been critical of your country?

WA: Not my country. The people who are running my country.

Q: Do you think you’re more patriotic for criticizing your country and trying to improve it? Would you consider yourself patriotic?

WA: That’s for other people to call me.

Q:How would you describe yourself?

WA: Not optimistic, but still if I was not I wouldn’t be working on changing stuff. If I were pessimistic I could have stopped working altogether and left the country and emigrated and started a family somewhere else. But I’m still here; that must mean something. Even if I deny it, I do desperately hope things will change. I hope at least. There is still hope.

Q: What do you want to tell our generation?

WA: You are the problem, the United States. You guys are all studying now business and engineering and chemicals, and stuff, stuff that are really radical. But nobody’s studying literature and philosophy and these arts, these kinds of arts. This is really horrible in my opinion. People are studying things that will get them jobs and get them money. This is what your regime really wants, people that are running your country want: your regime, your government, the government you choose, the government you vote for. Your democracy! They’re controlling you! The media, the corporations, and business, the corrupt people in politics. They want you to be practical and not to think and not to criticize them, not to be philosophical, not to make your mind work. They had this is in the 70s and this made them really worried: the hippies and the beat generation, people who thought and were really critical of the government, and thought the Vietnam war was wrong, and started these sit-ins and demonstrations and Woodstock festivals, and music, and rock, and stuff like that. Maybe it sounds funny now but your government made them look like that. They made them look funny. They made them look like people who were only after free sex and smoking and LSD and stuff like that. But this is not the truth. Most people were really thinking about their country and the future of their country now. There is something really wrong, it’s odd. This is not the case now. Most people are not studying philosophy, arts. I think by studying these arts, we can change the world.

Young people should study the history of the world so as not to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. WWI, WWII, Vietnam War, and then the Iraq- these are mistakes that are being repeated deliberately because some people are making money out of it, believe it or not. Some people are making HUGE bucks out of it. So people should learn history, should learn philosophy, should make their mind work; not be like lab rats and be like cogs in a machine that only move the machine that never works, that never stop to think, that never stops to think or reflect. Maybe I am using, like, communist terminology here, but I am not a communist.

Q: So we have this blog right? It’s a human rights blog, and human rights issues actually from a creative standpoint: so we have people who submit literature, and photos, and poetry, and songs? What tips do you have for this blog?

WA: My approach was to address the young people, no matter how trivial I think they are and no matter how I think that their education or knowledge is inferior. I try to talk to them in their own knowledge. I try to attract young people in their own language and tell them that first we understand them, and second that we are interested in having a conversation with you. Don’t make them feel intimidated, don’t make them think that you are an elitist. You know, this is a problem here in Egypt because some people were speaking in classical Arabic, and they have this sophisticated language, and using these expressions all the time that young people maybe don’t understand and they don’t care to understand those issues that they are discussing. That’s why I’m using obscenity and slang language in my blog. It’s actually what provokes people to interact, and understand, and absorb what I’m telling them. Also, always try to support what you’re saying with pictures and videos and stuff like that – multimedia, it gives you more legitimacy. And never censor people or opinions – you can always censor offenses; like towards your mother and so on and sister and so on and so on.

(Q:) That hasn’t happened to us yet.

WA: Well, maybe people have more respect for your mother, and your mothers’ sexual organs. [Laughs.]

(Q:) Well, we won’t censor that. We don’t censor.

WA: [Smiles] Inshallah. [Arabic for God willing.]

No Where to Run

2009-07-21T12:25:00.000-07:00

by Sarika Arya

The girl was running into the police station. On the way back from work, stuck in muid-afternoon traffic, I noticed her through the window of my taxi: she was wearing a light pink hijab, a long-sleeve purple t-shirt, and jeans in spite of the heat, symbolizing her devoutness to Islam. She ran up the stairs into the white dilapidated police office, sliding past the men (she was the only woman there) who were hovering around outside – narrowly escaping touching any of them, not even allowing her body to brush them accidentally, in her rush to find sanctuary inside. But there is no guarantee that sanctuary, let alone justice, is what she got. In Egypt, the human rights culture is not so much of zero tolerance, but zero accountability.

According to a 2008 US State Department human rights report on Egypt, the Egyptian People's Assembly (the popularly-elected representatives of the Egyptian parliament), discharged 1,164 lower – ranking policemen for misconduct and abuse of power. The same report documents a shocking case in which a 13 year- old was electrocuted by a detective, a 15 year- old was tear- gassed by a policeman, and a human rights activist and her colleague were physically assaulted by a policeman in a courtroom where they were seeking justice for a torture victim. In fact, in this incident, one victim received head injuries so serious that he remained unconscious for about 30 minutes.

The total degeneration of civil society in Egypt poses a serious threat to human rights. Consider the most basic scenario: a woman walking on the street. Even a fully-covered girl is at risk for sexual harassment. According to the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights, 69% of sexual harassment occurs on the street and 42 % in public places (22% is on the beach and 6% at the workplace.). In 2008, the Centre surveyed 1,010 Egyptian women, of whom 83% reported they had been sexually harassed. Often times, it is those who are supposed to be upholding the law: traffic wardens, policemen, soldiers – men in uniform – who are committing this abuse. An American friend of mine in Cairo recalled being whistled at by a police officer, "I turned around, and said to him in Arabic, 'Do you have any dignity? You should be ashamed of yourself. You're a policeman." He was so shocked that this blue- eyed, blond- haired, American woman was reprimanding him in Arabic, that he was ashamed. But often times it is not as easy or even safe to respond. My two girlfriends and I walked past a group of train conductors lounging in Ramses Station, only to be whistled at, tongues clicking, men muttering "You're very beautiful," over and over in Arabic. We had another uncomfortable experience when a truck full to bursting with policemen all carrying handguns rattled down the street, clicks, whistles, and catcalls following the women who passed it. If these men hadn't been speaking Arabic, I would have thought the truck was full of sick chickens: it both looked and sounded like it anyways, what with all the clucking and purring.

When civil servants are the very perpetrators of abuse, when even the courtroom – which is supposed to be a place of justice – becomes a torture chamber, and when the elected government suspiciously receives 88% of the vote, how can human rights enforcement ever be taken seriously? The total lack of accountability manifests itself in complete apathy to and acceptance of the bleak human rights situation.

Think of this: it is not uncommon for a sexually harassed woman to blame herself for the ogling stares that make her uncomfortable, the whistles that haunt her, and even the grabbing hands that may lead to her self-imposed house arrest and isolation from the rest of society.

Respect for human rights is only as strong as respect for the legal authority that mandates those rights in the first place. While Egypt has a constitution, legal restraints that technically prevent most human rights abuses from occurring, and even pro-human rights government projects (like pamphlets that use Islam to discourage sexual harassment – particularly targeting men since, according to a ECW report, 62% of men surveyed admitted to engaging in harassment), there is still a human rights- resistant mentality, especially because this has been the norm for so long. Some even classify it as lethargy: a laziness to change one's behavior; submissiveness to human rights abuse that one can not only become accustomed to but also even profit from.

My flat mate, Meredith, and I, fed-up with being unable to walk down the streets without someone nearby whispering, "Hello Seniorita," even if we looked our grungiest selves, found ourselves eating our feelings of frustration at an Italian restaurant often frequented by expats. Shortly after the waiter took our order, Abhinav and Anna, two foreigners at the table next to us, engaged us in some friendly conversation about their lives as managers (of finance and housekeeping, respectively) for a certain world-renowned five- star hotel in Cairo. (We were asked not to reveal their names or the name of the hotel, so as not to risk their jobs or give the hotel bad publicity.) Meredith and I vented a lot about our frustration at being mistreated because of our gender, wondering what could possibly be the root cause of this problem and marveling at the limited efforts undertaken to prevent it and enforce the law.

Abhinav and Anna sympathized with us. Abhinav remembered a time when a male coworker, married and in his 40s, giggled to him about a girl's cleavage. Abhinav was shocked that in a professional workspace, high school humor was considered mature and funny. Moreover, there is no guaranteed way to deter such behavior: Abhinav's predecessor was fired for reprimanding an employee over a similar issue. As it turned out, the employee's connections (despite his lowly job) were good enough to secure his boss's immediate removal.

But Abhinav had an even more shocking story for us. Here is a brief summary of the legal status of prostitution in Egypt, as described by the US State Department report about human rights in Egypt in 2008:

“Prostitution and sex tourism were illegal but continued to occur, particularly in Cairo and Alexandria. Prostitution existed in cities and in some rural areas. Sex tourism existed in Luxor and Sharm El-Sheikh. Street children were subject to prostitution. Most sex tourists came from Europe and the Gulf.”

Despite its prohibition, like so many other things in Egypt, the weak enforcement, lack of accountability, and the social norm to operate on a who-knows-who basis, means that it continues, even on the grounds of a five- star family hotel. There, married men, pimps, and the ‘goods on sale’ gather to exchange numbers, money, and make the final deals –but all under the guise of meeting new people. Amused by our amazement, Abhinav and Anna invited us to the famous casino and then the outdoor café at the hotel to do some untraditional bird- watching, “Come see for yourselves.”

It’s high season for prostitution in Egypt: Gulf men (Arabs from the oil-rich Gulf states) flock to vacation spots in the relatively cooler northern part of the Middle East, while their wives and children jet set off for fun times in Europe: shopping at Harrods, Euro Disney, and other equally liberal family alternatives. This particular 5- star hotel in the heart of Cairo is no exception to these summer patterns. Our guides, our insiders into this forbidden world, led us to the hotel casino, usually a hotspot for prostitutes and particularly non-Egyptian prostitutes, since only foreigners are allowed into the casino (gambling is illegal by Islam, which is the main influence on Egyptian law). But the casino was dead. Meredith and I became skeptical but they told us it was early, so we decided to just wait it out at the café.

The café was full of Gulf men dressed in their traditional garb, white robes (called thobes), red and white checkered headscarves encircled with black rope, smoking shisha, and sipping Turkish coffee. The ‘Gulfies’ outnumbered the other foreign visitors who were scattered across the outdoor café and Egyptian themed restaurant and enjoying the supposedly family- friendly atmosphere, oblivious to the underground red light district that was slowly evolving around them. We sat in the center of the café. Gulf men sat close by at the tables all around us, and although it was very hot and humid they looked comfortable. We waited. It was nearly 10:30pm. Suddenly, Anna nudged us, indiscreetly nodding her head towards a girl walking by, muttering, “Look, there’s one.”

Besides us strolled no, strutted, a girl with straight, shiny, black hair extensions, which framed a powdered- white face. Her eyes were entrenched in dark eyeliner and her lips were painted a bright ruby red. She wore tight jeans with sparkles embedded on the back pockets (what we came to realize was staple clothing for most of the alleged prostitutes) and a black corset on top of a thin black see- through top. Her visibly uncomfortable high heels clackity- clacked on the cement in sync with the swaying of her hips. She was an expert. It was clear that she was using the moment walking past the line of tables occupied by Gulf men, potential customers, to show-off the commodity she had to offer: to model herself. The men engaged in this window- shopping, and we watched them, their eyes following her hungrily as the waiter seated her in full view of them. In a few moments she is approached by a Gulf man who, to the unsuspecting eye would just appear to be making conversation with a fellow hotel guest (who just has some bad fashion sense) who he happens to know. But it is just an act.

In fact, much of this society wears a costume. We learn that many hotels experience a similar prostitution problem, but there is something striking about the scenery of the hotel in question. It is beautifully crafted: under gilded terraces encrusted with the Muslim star and crescent, these men, having just returned from Saturday night prays, buy some women and indulge in infidelity. They appear to be puritanical, in their sparkling white robes, they travel from the most Islamic of states, but they betray the very traditions they enforce at home without (it seems) blinking an eye, a pang of remorse, or feelings of guilt under God’s all powerful and ever watchful being.

It suddenly becomes evident that the Gulf men next to us are engaged in a telephone conversation with a lady sitting across the aisle. The woman has pencil thin eyebrows that appear to be drawn on, straight brown hair, and a corset that is squeezing her artificially enlarged breasts – “That’s one,” whispers Anna, excitedly. Throughout the conversation, the woman is making hand gestures; it is clear they are negotiating a price. Then, the phones turn off, and the man gets up, leaving his friend at the table, and makes his way straight towards her under the guise of making friendly conversation. He has a limp: one foot drags behind him, and as he nears her table he cracks a toothy smile, wipes his sweaty brow, and takes out a wallet from his back pocket. He shakes her hand in introduction, sits down, and says something that makes her bellow with laughter. They share some shisha, shake hands again, and continue talking: a deal has been struck.

The girl will sleep comfortably tonight in the hotel. Abhinav and Anna assure us that the waiters and hotel staff know exactly what’s going on. In fact, both have unintentionally brushed shoulders with prostitutes late in the night. Anna recalled a girl knocking on her door at one in the morning, mistaking it for her customer’s. Abhinav received several phone calls from a girl using the house phones in the hotel lobby late one night, selling herself via conversation, searching desperately for a customer. Unsurprisingly, most of the hotel security are in on the business: either engaging in the prostitution themselves or receiving a small commission from the prostitutes and pimps for letting them break into the hotel market and use the hotel grounds. Moreover, it would be nearly impossible for anyone to prove prostitution was even occurring: anyone could excuse the behavior as two innocent people meeting and ‘having fun.’ It could also be very dangerous for any one individual to get involved– especially if the prostitution turned out to be part of a greater sex trafficking scheme, which the police were beneficiaries of. This is not an unlikely scenario. It remains a don't ask- don't tell policy.

A very beautiful girl, who appeared to be in her twenties, with long brown hair, a tight grey t-shirt, jeans, and a black belt with the word’s ‘Fire’ encrusted on the buckle, strides over to an overweight Gulf man in jeans, green shirt, and glasses. He is sitting with a more traditionally dressed Gulfie and a young boy who is no older than her. The Gulf man in green has been whistling at her for about ten minutes, and is thrilled that he has successfully captured her attention, giving her a greasy smile when she shakes his hand as if she were businesswoman in an office instead of a prostitute trespassing in a hotel. He handles the entire transaction: it is clear that he has done this before. Despite coming from (and probably doing his utmost to promote) a culture where men and women can’t even bump into each other on the street without making one another feel uncomfortable, he has no qualms in brushing a pudgy finger across her belt, along her hip, “Shu hada ‘Fire’?” (What is this ‘Fire’?) I notice, that despite her profession, she pulls her shirt down uncomfortably, covering her exposed midriff and crossing her arms.

She’s incredibly young. No wonder she is uncomfortable. Anna tells us it is not uncommon to see fourteen and sixteen year old girls here, trying to make a dime. A woman in an abaya, a black robe traditionally worn by more religious Muslim women, walks by. Her lack of head covering, says Anna, is a surefire signal that she is actually a prostitute. Apparently it is now fashionable for prostitutes to wear some religious symbols, as it makes them even more alluring. One woman has been wondering the café relentlessly, for over an hour, looking for a buyer. Her weight is working against her: she is obese, and it is heartbreaking to watch her, her eyes desperately searching, searching, searching, circled in sad eyeliner. She looks like a lost clown.

Meredith and I ask Abhinav and Anna, What about STDs, STIs, AIDS? “Who knows?” they say. This is a dangerous, undocumented, and unregulated world, which the law enforcement itself has no shame participating in and to some extent, even facilitating and sponsoring. On the other hand, Abhinav tells us a story about a prostitute who got married. Her husband remains unaware of her past - how? Well, the general lack of sex education meant that she could turn off the lights and do anything (effectively nothing) with her young customers, and convince them it was sex, even if it wasn't. "You would think they would naturally understand that she had cheated them," Abhinav says, "But some, especially the young and uneducated, have no idea." On another occassion, Anna got word through one of her housekeepers that there was blood on the bedsheets in a hotel room. It was revealed that the room had been used by a couple who had been married in the hotel the previous night. Anna and Abhinav assumed the woman had been the unfortuante victim of violent abuse. It was later found out that the woman's new husband had mistakently sent her to the hospital because he did not realize that bleeding was possible, and even normal, when a woman loses her virgnity.

The night is drawing to an end, and we decide to stop by the casino on our way out. It’s close to midnight now, and the gambling tables are buzzing. We run into the obese woman, and she scowls at us, embarrassed that we seem to know her true identity. But she is also frustrated: two hours ago, the casino would not have carried so much competition. But now, as soon as we enter, we see two women, clearly prostitutes, chain- smoking cigarettes on the red velvet couch at the door, waiting to snag a man looking to splurge his winnings. “Enjoy Cairo,” says the doormen, smiling at us warmly as we leave, and using the traditional Islamic salutation to say goodbye, “Masalaam,” which literally means, “With peace.”

We are overwhelmed: the society is contradictory, hypocritical, disordered, has weak law enforcement but for almost thirty years has been at the mercy of an authoritarian ruler who claims to be president of a democracy, it is at once oppressive of women, but also preaches Islam, which at one point was the foremost feminist movements in the world. As we leave the hotel and the tourist police give us the eye, probably fighting the urge to whistle at us, two appropriately-dressed young girls walking quickly with their heads bowed, not speaking, we wonder – what did we expect?

Human Rights Go Corporate

2009-07-16T00:14:00.000-07:00

by Sarah Sloan

This summer, I am working in the human rights and business section of a human rights organization in Denmark. The department works directly with companies, providing them with tools to evaluate how well they adhere to human rights standards, research about the laws and practices of different countries where they may want to operate, and advice about how to uphold human rights in countries where violations are common. Beyond that, it is up to the companies to incorporate what they've learned, to change their practices, to follow through with our advice. We don't monitor companies. Instead, we give them the resources to monitor themselves.

My work this summer has made me think deeply about the role of businesses in human rights. Corporations now operate in countries around the world, from Nigeria to Vietnam, Iran to Guatemala. Oftentimes, the countries are plagued by unstable governments, corruption, and violence. It is common knowledge that the leaders of some of these countries consistently abuse the human rights of their people. The question, then, is what role companies should play- both legally and morally- in such situations. Does working in a country with an oppressive regime legitimize the government, even empower it? Or does the company's presence open the country up, provide jobs to its people, and allow the government to be somewhat monitored? Or, if the company itself is not violating any human rights standards, does its presence even have a significant effect- positive or negative- on the country?

I honestly don't know the answers to these questions, and I'm not so sure that there's one clear answer that fits every context and situation. But the more I work here, the more I see the potential benefit of having responsible, human rights-upholding companies operating in troubled countries. A company can extend its influence throughout a particular region, perhaps even throughout a country, and its presence keeps the line of communication with the government, and with the people, open. After all, the practice of operating in countries with less than ideal human rights records is already so entrenched in the corporate world it would be difficult to completely eliminate it. I'm far from convinced by either side, but I strongly believe that the conversation
is one well worth having.

Sorcery Makes Torture A-OK!

2009-07-14T04:28:00.000-07:00

Contributed by Judd Stern Rosenblatt

After reading about the Saudi Arabian genie- harraser, Judd forwarded this shocking article from IOL, a South African newsource. (Click here to see the article on the original website.):

Banjul - A 28-year-old man accused of stealing a man's penis through sorcery was beaten to death in the West African country of Gambia on Thursday, police said.

A police spokesperson said that Baba Jallow was lynched by about 10 people in the town of Serekunda, some 15km from the capital Banjul.

Reports of penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, with purported victims claiming that alleged sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear in order to extort cash in the promise of a cure.

The police spokesperson said many men in Serekunda were now afraid to shake hands, and he urged people not to believe reports of "vanishing" genitals.

Seven alleged penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs in Ghana in 1997.

In Saudi Arabia, Even a Genie can Violate Human Rights

2009-07-14T04:07:00.001-07:00

An interesting article from the BBC News website, 'Also in the News':

Saudi 'genie' sued for harassment

A family in Saudi Arabia is taking a "genie" to court, accusing it of theft and harassment, reports say.

They accuse the spirit of threatening them, throwing stones and stealing mobile phones, Al Watan newspaper said.

The family have lived in the same house near the city of Medina for 15 years but say they only recently became aware of the spirit. They have now moved out.

A local court is investigating. In Islamic theology, genies are spirits that can harass or possess humans.

'Get out of the house'

"We began to hear strange sounds," the head of the family, who come from Mahd Al Dahab, told the Saudi daily. He did not want to be named.

"At first we did not take it seriously, but then stranger things started to happen and the children got particularly scared when the genie started throwing stones."

He added: "A woman spoke to me first, and then a man. They said we should get out of the house."

A local court says it is trying to verify the truthfulness of the claims "despite the difficulty" of doing so.

Many Westerners know the term genie from the tale of Aladdin and the magic lamp, or the 1960s American sitcom, I Dream of Jeannie.

But the BBC's Sebastian Usher says genies, or jinn, in Islamic theology can be a lot more sinister.

They are believed to be normally invisible but with the ability to assume human or animal form, and are often said to be motivated by revenge or jealousy.

There is a lingering belief in genies in the Muslim world that predates Islam, our correspondent says.

Click here to see the article on the original website.

Operation Whitewash

2009-07-12T04:13:00.000-07:00

by Fernanda Lopez (writing from Honduras),
Timothy Dwight, Yale College 2010
July 9, 2009

In Tegucigalpa, the cityscape is being whitewashed. The armed forces are whitewashing the demonstrations off the walls.

On June 28th, democratically- elected president Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales was kidnapped by the Honduran armed forces and transferred to Costa Rica. Through this act of coercive exile, and despite the violent measures exacted to conduct it, the coup-planners hoped to derive international recognition for their new regime. They called it a “constitutional succession,” and even only yesterday, perhaps the most prominent Honduran sociologist called it, a “lesson to the world in matters relating to constitutional law.” In political circles –that is to say, among aristocrats- it would be thought imprudent to utter the word “coup.” No journalist dares broadcast that utterance.

Yes, they are whitewashing the coup. First, they rationalized it: the President had been disrespecting a Supreme Court ruling which prohibited Zelaya’s plebiscite scheduled (and confirmed) for that Sunday. The question of impeachment was postulated in Congress, of course. But Congress shortly realized that you cannot plausibly impeach a president on grounds that he harbors dictatorial aspiration, if your sole evidence is that he plans to hold a non-binding poll. Worse still, if that non-binding poll asks voters one simple question: whether they would support the addition of a fourth ballot box during the regular November elections. But a proposition to impeach would be truly fatal if the ballot box in question restricted itself to questions concerning citizens’ contentment with the Constitution, their municipal governments and the state. It took one Congressional meeting, one threatening remark from the President – “go on, investigate me, but also investigate yourselves” – for the country’s legislators to overthrow the law, and pursue a more violent alternative. This they branded a “constitutional succession,” upon persuading the Supreme Court to order the ouster.

But Hondurans would not have it thus rationalized. So the coup-leaders falsified the proof. No, that is too kind – they forged it. On the afternoon succeeding the coup, all media stations stopped broadcasting cartoons and soccer-matches. Hondurans exhaled a sigh of relief; they had been kept incommunicado for hours, in a mind-numbing deluge of soap operas and week-old sports games being transmitted –the networks insisted- en vivo. It was rumored, anchormen said, that a letter of resignation had appeared, as if to miraculously to absolve the interim regime of all guilt. Congress “confessed” that President Zelaya had resigned; since he was no longer officially President at the moment of the coup, the Supreme Court suggested, Sunday’s events did not constitute an ouster. Moreover, since President Zelaya’s signature now graced a document, which decreed the creation of a constituent assembly, which would have replaced Congress, Zelaya’s conduct merited impeachment. (This begs the question, of course, of why he was not impeached.)

By then, free expression had been all but hijacked. Pro-Zelaya journalists went into self-imposed house arrest. Radio and TV stations –left and right (wing)- became heavily militarized. News networks opposing Micheletti’s interim government (such as Channel 36 and Radio Progreso 103.3) were invaded by soldiers who stormed in to disconnect their stations, taking them off the air. Fortunately for the Honduran oligarchs who control Congress their capital not only secured the backstage effectiveness of the coup, but also its undisputed acclamation in the morning papers. Their vast ownership of Congress was rivaled only by their control over most media stations and all of the major newspapers. As private spokespersons for the Honduran oligarchy, journalists broadcast condemnations of pro-Zelaya protests, and inflated the size of anti-Zelaya manifestations, dubbing the pro-coup movement the pro-“Democracy” movements, appropriating nominal constitutional ideals which they had mere hours ago overturned. Most networks and other news entities financed by these individuals had long violated their news anchors’ right to report independently. For years, they had whitewashed Zelaya reforms. They had minimized such critical reforms as Zelaya’s minimum wage increase or “Poder Ciudadano”: a Zelaya undertaking to instate pure democracy through public referendums (which were consistently overruled by the Supreme Court.) Yes, for years they had whitewashed even his crimes, distilling a long history of corruption and scandal, which they only now prosecute, in the midst of an expedient crisis.

Besides keeping citizens misinformed, the interim regime had practiced power cuts, which placed households within a world of perfect aloneness. In the days immediately following the coup, electricity was volatile, particularly whenever CNN en Español – which, like almost every other international media outlet, had not halted to declare the takeover a coup – reported on the Honduran crisis. With fighter jets flying overhead, in the midst of perfect quiet and total dark, Tegucigalpa, a city already versed in the terror tactics of the Cold War, drifted inexorably toward nostalgia. Then Congress announced that it had passed an emergency law that suspended the following articles:

Article 69: "A persons liberty is inviolable and can only be restricted or suspended temporarily through process of law."

Article 71: "No person can be arrested nor kept incommunicado for more than 24 hours without being placed before a competent authority to be judged. Judicial detention during an investigation must not exceed six consecutive days from the moment that the same is ordered."

Article 78: "Freedoms of association and meeting are always guaranteed when they are not contrary to public order and good customs.

Article 79: "All persons have the right to meet with others, peacefully and without weapons, in public demonstration or transitory assembly, in relation to their common interests of any type, without necessity of notice or special permission."

Article 81: "All persons have the right to circulate freely, leave, enter, and remain in national territory. No one can be obligated to change home or residence except in special cases and with those requirements that the Law establishes."

Curfew was set to start at 10:00 PM, to end at 5:00 AM and to extend for only the first few days. When the first 48 hours had outgrown their term, they flowered into 240: as many hours as this interim government has seized power. To feel oneself paralyzed upon sundown is nothing; it is only the skeleton of this political beast. It is quite another to recognize that one is legally a non-person come dusk. If during the day I lack the most minimal rights - to protest and to freely associate – at nightfall, I have not even a guarantee of due process or habeas corpus while under arrest. That the interim regime has conceived of these measures as “democratic” is perhaps the most terrifying “whitewash” of all. For “they are the majority,” they assure the Honduran populace. Even though the economic elite has had to resort to coercive means to recruit supporters for the coup, threatening their workers – humble mothers at maquilas, gardeners at their households – to either protest against Zelaya or to endure the wintry hunger- pangs of unemployment, “they are the majority.” This is their “majority,” whose brazen exploitation they arrogantly tout, even in the midst of popular manifestations.

But to tolerate all manner of protest would be too much, especially when pro-Zelaya organizations such as the Bloque Popular number much higher than your fabricated “majority.” So the Honduran army has restricted the transit of pro-Zelaya protesters, at one point detaining 70 buses en route to protest Mr. Micheletti’s administration just outside the capital. Last Sunday’s 60,000-person manifestation near Toncontin Airport, which had assembled citizens from all corners of the country to welcome back President Zelaya, erupted in the ugliest confrontation yet. After the army granted Zelaya supported permission to cross over into the (militarized) southern zone of the airport, soldiers shot out into the protester’s barracks, injuring several and killing two: a teenager, Isis Obed Murillo, and another citizen whose name remains unknown (the government junta has yet to disclose the person’s identity). As if that repressive standoff had not sufficed, the government unexpectedly proceeded to announce –in a national broadcast – that Sunday’s toque de queda would no longer be 10 PM, but 6:30 PM, three hours and a half earlier than had been legislated. This announcement arrived a mere half- hour before the cited curfew time, licensing all military officials and police officers to detain the protesters. Since most had remained outside the airport in anticipation of Zelaya’s landing, this 10-minute warning sanctioned and, indeed required, the incarceration of all protesters remaining from the march. This peaceful demonstration, which still numbered in the tens of thousands, was thus broken up, and its leaders detained for an unspecified period of time. In total, only 800 were detained overnight, since the penitentiaries were already filled beyond capacity.

But the protesters had left their indelible mark upon the capital. If the coup’s regime had whitewashed citizens’ freedoms, Hondurans retaliated by overwriting them onto the city’s infrastructure and façade, on Sunday’s impassioned parade toward the airport. On Monday morning, Tegucigalpa’s pedestrians and drivers awoke to a city writ democratic in spray-paint: “SOY POETA Y SOY REVOLUCION: ARTE ES REVOLUCION” (I AM POETRY AND I AM REVOLUTION: ART EQUALS REVOLUTION) or “las dificultades se rompen con el pecho abierto” (“difficulties are broken with an open chest”). This was a tamer art, for there were inscriptions that condemned. There were inscriptions in the downtown Cathedral reading, “Cardinal, We Excommunicate You.” Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez, who has justified the interim regime’s repressive conduct, had just the day prior cautioned that President Zelaya’s return would cause bloodshed. There were inscriptions denouncing Honduras’ bloody coup regimes from the Cold War. “Billy Joya,” one read, “Your Days are Numbered.” Billy Joya was an officer at Battalion 316, a virtual laboratory for Cold War torture techniques, who was recently appointed by the interim regime to a coveted spot in Micheletti’s Cabinet. There were inscriptions accusing former presidents Carlos Flores Facusse and Ricardo Maduro of treason and noted oligarchs Rafael Ferrari and Chukry Kafie of conspiracy. There were inscriptions that ventured even further: “En Honduras Libramos la Guerra Contra el Fascismo Internacional” (“In Honduras We Wage the War Against Internatonal Fascism”), even deeper “Honduras, They Piss All Over You and the Papers Say It’s Raining.” There were inscriptions, but these have all since been whitewashed. Once discerned by the authorities, they faded away with all the censorship characteristic of this regime. Tegucigalpa’s proprietors leapt to wash away all prose. Or they merely hired the Honduran poor to paint over a moment’s glimpse of freedom –of freely thought prose – which they would have read and mobilized toward, if only our rights were not so hollow, so hypocritically upheld, and then so thoroughly usurped.

Now that negotiations between Micheletti’s coup regime and deposed President Zelaya descended into political stalemate Friday morning, there is a calm hovering over Tegucigalpa. This is the tranquility that terrifies most –not the calm before the storm- but the eye of the inexorable hurricane about to turn right.

THE 99

2009-07-08T11:59:00.000-07:00

by Sarika Arya

Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and the rest of the world’s greatest superheroes are forming some modern allies with names like Noora, Wasi, Jabbar, Hadya, Jaleel (featured above) and many more – to be exact, the superhero league is being joined by 99 new humanitarian forces. ‘THE 99,’ by Dr. Naif al-Mutawa, is the first Islamic comic strip, intended to reveal the peaceful and tolerant face of Islam. Each superhero is named after one of Allah’s 99 virtues. Each character comes from a different country, each with a unique power symbolic of some attribute (like wisdom, generosity, mercy, and honesty), and none of the characters pray: this is intentional, in the hope that the story will attract children of all faiths.

In an open letter to his son published by BBC News, Dr. Naif explained how the 9/11 terrorist attacks moved him to “take back Islam from its hostage takers… I would go back to the very sources from which others took violent and hateful messages and offer messages of tolerance and peace in their place. I would give my heroes a Trojan horse in the form of THE 99. Islam was my Helen. I wanted her back.”

The heroes of the story have a special connection to the 1258 Mongol invasion of Baghdad, which destroyed the city and left the books from the great library lying in the Tigris River. In Dr. Naif’s story, some librarians escape the sacking of the city, placing 99 special stones in the river that would soak up the wisdom from the otherwise lost books. Centuries later, the 99 stones are discovered around the world by 99 heroes from 99 different countries.

Since its conception, THE 99 has come to sell about one million copies a year worldwide in several languages, has its own theme park in Kuwait, and is even being turned into an animated film. It has been covered by international press from the Guardian to Forbes Magazine, and has a special appeal to Western audiences with a love for graphic novels and Eastern readers who derive their culture values from the plot; even supremely Islamic societies like Saudi Arabia see the positive in Dr. Naif’s creation. However, Dr. Naif, as he indicates in his letter, is not yet satisfied, “… only when Jewish kids think that THE 99 characters are Jewish, and Christian kids think they're Christian, and Muslim kids think they're Muslim, and Hindu kids think they're Hindu, that I will consider my vision as having been fully executed.” The addition of Islamic inspired superheros to the international league gives more legitimacy to that cliché graphic novel lesson: Good will always triumph over evil: no matter what the religious background, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, race, or superpower the do-gooder is defined by.

Charmed Lives

2009-07-08T03:37:00.000-07:00

by Timmia Hearn Feldman
7/6/09

Addie came to the Godavari branch of the Esther Benjamins Memorial Foundation (EBMF) child refuge about four months ago; he’s nine months old now. When he was born, his fourteen year- old mother was living at the EBMF site in Hetauda. She has since been sent back to live with her family. Again childless, she now has the opportunity to make a life for herself. In the mean time, her son is leading a rather charmed existence here. Few babies are as pampered as he is. Anju, the housemother, looks after him most of the time, and when she’s not there, there are dozens of other eager arms to hold and coo over him. The apple of everyone’s eye, he is chubby and almost always cheerful. He is not leading the tumultuous life one would imagine that a child with his background would be doomed to.

He’s not alone. The other 102 children here at EBMF in Godavari may not be pampered as they would be if they were children growing up under the protection of loving and moderately affluent parents, but they are being raised a far cry from the miserable child refuges of more stereotypical third world standards. Besides being clothed and fed, they are given the opportunity to indulge in the fun of youth. Today they spent the day running back and forth, teaching each other and learning Nepali dances, buying presents for their teachers, picking flowers, and playing games. Today there was no school and tomorrow is “Teacher's Day,” a time when students perform for their teachers and give them gifts as a class. For most children, it is only celebrated at school, but the children here will return from their school celebrations and perform for the staff and teachers and give out gifts. I got to watch them practicing their dances, and couldn’t stop smiling as I sat quietly at the back of the room, and let the noise of CDs, laughter, yelling and feet moving wash over me. These children, in general, work harder than the average child of a Western family might. Cleaning, cooking, and studying almost all day, they have only a precious few hours to relax or play games, except on Saturday, when they have almost the whole day to themselves. But they are getting to experience a childhood. They are growing up around their peers, but with adult love and supervision. They are experiencing how enjoyable life can be, and they are blessed with leisure time.

However wonderful my readers and I may think this is, there remains a problem. They are forgetting that these children are all abandoned. That their futures are uncertain, and that only through education and hard work are they ever going to be able to make comfortable lives for themselves. After they graduate from whatever level of education they are able to attain, EBMF will not continue supporting them. These children will need to be fully equipped to take care of themselves.

I had a talk with one of the staff here at the refuge yesterday. Many of the students in the equivalents of eighth and ninth grade are not working hard, and their marks are falling. The staff gave them a test in math the other day and only three out of the nine passed. In the other class, about half failed an exam another staff gave. When I teach classes there are a group of, mostly, boys who do not pay attention and joke around. Or, who are certainly beginning to think that they’re too good for school. In the West we’re more than used to children in their teens getting disobedient. Most of us look back on our middle and high school careers with fond smiles and head shakes. Reminiscing about the things we did then, the things we never told our parents, things we know our parents probably did before us, and our children will do after us.

But here, in Nepal, and particularly for these children at EBMF refuges, screwing up once can ruin a life. There is no safety net. One of the boys here is already suffering the consequences of having given into the temptations of being young. He was top of his class, and given the opportunity to do vocational training. There he fell in with a group of other boys who drank, smoked pot, and generally messed around. Bishnu turned a little wild, and has the clumsily done tattoos to prove it, forever etched into his skin. EBMF found out what he was doing, and brought him back here. He’s now nineteen or twenty, and half-way through ninth grade. Though he seems to have taken this set back quite well, it must be only too apparent to him that he is older than everyone else in his class, even though many of the other kids here are several years too old for their classes, having been deprived of education in their earliest years before coming to EBMF. But luckily for Bishnu, he’s a boy. Though he will graduate school and finally be ready for higher education well into his twenties, he still has the prospect of a good life. He’s smart, very good at math and science, and wants to be an engineer. He still has a chance at succeeding. The girls aren’t quite as lucky. For boys, even if they do poorly in school, they can always get vocational training, learn a craft, and make a living. The girls only have the prospect of any kind of post secondary school education if they do well in school. Otherwise, they will most likely have to marry and become housewives, virtually slaves of husbands.

Here they have not lived under the constant threat of pain, starvation or abuse. And when children have been given the ability to enjoy their youth, they become careless, innocent, self indulgent. It is the beauty of youth, of childhood, but it could be ultimately the biggest issue EBMF will have to face in measuring its efficacy. It is so easy to forget the world out there from their positions of relative comfort. So easy to fail to study and then to fail just one test – which soon turns into two, three, four and, eventually, the course. It is easy to stare, glassy-eyed out the window instead of bending ones head over one’s text book. They are children, and teenagers, after all. But however much I wish that they were truly living charmed lives, and that this safe haven would protect them forever, there is no safety net in this country, especially for these children. And if EBMF is going to succeed in helping them attain stable futures, it is going to have to find ways of reminding these happy, well- fed and well- clothed children that they are still living on the edge of dire poverty and suffering.

Uh... China?

2009-07-07T21:27:00.000-07:00

by Oscar Pocasangre

There's something fishy going on in China and it's not the sweet and sour fried fish rolls. Over the last month or so the country's government has been surreptitiously censoring websites and blocking access to the internet and even to telephone lines in some places.

I started noticing this through the great informative tool that is Facebook (I promise I also read other news feeds!) when several friends posted on their profile status that China had blocked access to blogspot, the website the YJHR uses for its blog. That was about a month ago, but just this day I saw that many people who are doing summer programs in China were complaining that the government had blocked access to Facebook (How dare they!?) and the only way they could access it was through VPN Client software that modifies the computer's IP address and makes it seems as if it is coming from somewhere else in the world.

But for those that thought that the blocking of Facebook was the ultimate censoring scheme, there is more. Last month, the Chinese government announced that it will require that every single computer sold in China to have a special software, conveniently named Green Dam, that filters certain web-content. The Chinese government claims the software will only block "violent and obscene material," but, come on, we know better than that.

To make matters worse, in the province of Urumqi, where violent clashes are going on between the Han Chinese and a minority ethnic group that is predominantly Muslim, China has blocked internet, cell phones, and international phone calls. Fortunately though the Chinese government is being somewhat understanding and respectful of human rights (emphasis on somewhat) by allowing the foreign press access to the internet, but only from one of the city's main hotels from which the government can filter anything they find objectionable and can control what websites the journalists who are covering the ethnic clashes can visit. How very generous of them.

A Table for Tyrants

2009-07-02T05:24:00.000-07:00

Contributed by Meredith Morrison

A Table for Tyrants
by Vaclav Havel
May 10, 2009

IMAGINE an election where the results are largely preordained and a number of candidates are widely recognized as unqualified. Any supposedly democratic ballot conducted in this way would be considered a farce. Yet tomorrow the United Nations General Assembly will engage in just such an “election” when it votes to fill the vacancies on the 47-member Human Rights Council.

Click here to read the rest of the article on The New York Times website.

(Almost) In Conversation with: Wael Abbas

2009-07-02T03:31:00.000-07:00

by Sarika Arya

Wael Abbas has received awards from CNN, the BBC, and Human Rights Watch for his uncensored, honest, and humanitarian blogging, which speaks the truth about human rights atrocities committed by the Egyptian government. His posts dwell deep into Egypt's human rights abyss: exposing the most cruel and inhumane aspects of Egyptian society that are usually ignored by the oridnary people and government alike. But bloggers beware. When he posted a video of an Egyptian bus driver being sodomized with a stick by Egyptian police, Wael temporarily had his Youtube and Yahoo account suspended. His Facebook has been deactivated. His strong opinions (on his blog, he compares President Obama's tactics to reach out to the Muslim world, with the Muslim brotherhood) attract international readers and have the capacity to upset (and inspire) a nation not accustomed to practicing its right to freedom of expression. The YJHR intended to have an interview with Wael Abbas, the notorious Egyptian blogger, today (Thursday), after he returned from a workshop in Sweden. But yesterday our boss at the National Council for Human Rights in Egypt (and a friend of Wael's) notified us via Facebook chat of some disturbing news that may prevent us from securing the interview. So, for now, we are only almost in conversation with Wael Abbas.

1:58pm Fatima*:
Sarika!

1:58pm Sarika:
Yes!

1:59pm Fatima:
The blogger I told you about
Is held in cairo airport
!!!

1:59pm Sarika:
He was arrested???!!

1:59pm Fatima:
yes

1:59pm Sarika:
WHAT
why? will he be released??
what can we do?

1:59pm Fatima:
and they have his labtop

2:00pm Sarika:
oh my goodness!!! That's crazy how did you find out

2:00pm Fatima:
twitter

2:02pm Fatima:
www.twitter.com/waelabbas

2:02pm Sarika:
wait so what happens now? has he been arrested before?

2:04pm Fatima:
check the link

2:05pm Sarika:
this is uneblieavble!

2:06pm Fatima:
welcome to the reality

2:06pm Sarika:
why was he arrested?????

2:07pm Fatima:
am not sure
but they are just Harrasing him I guess
but takin his labtop is serious

2:08pm Sarika:
so this is what happens when there is no freedom of expression?

2:12pm Fatima:
yes this is the reality we are living in,

2:14pm Sarika:
!!
how can they arrest someone so famous
he is going to be released. he has to be – it would hurt the government so much

Wael's Blog (الوعى المصرى = Egyptian awareness)

*This name has been changed for privacy reasons.

One Step at A Time

2009-07-02T03:22:00.000-07:00

By Ashley Gutierrez

"The social stigma will remain. It is [still] a long struggle. But the ruling will help in HIV prevention. Gay men can now visit doctors and talk about their problems. It will help in preventing harassment at police stations." - Ashok Row Kavi, leading gay rights activist

Today, a 148-year-old colonial law in India was overturned: homosexual intercourse is no longer a criminal act. What used to be punishable by a ten year prison sentence is now legal, after Delhi's High Court deemed that criminalizing gay sex is a "violation of fundamental rights."

What a huge step for such a conservative country.

Here in Accra, where the HIV prevalence rate is 3.0%, homosexuality is unthinkable. One of the Yalies here in Ghana with me interns as a research biologist in a laboratory at the country's best university. She shared a story with me yesterday about a discussion she had with the scientists she worked with. They asked her, cautiously (as it is taboo to even speak of it here), what she thought about homosexuality. My friend respectfully replied that she saw no problem with it, that many think it has a genetic cause. The scientists were horrified. None could comprehend the possibility of such a claim; some were offended, others amused at her view.

Indeed, as Kavi notes above, it is still a long struggle. But India has taken its first step. We can only wish Ghana and many other countries will wait less than 148 years to take theirs.

In Conversation With: Ambassador (AMB) Mokhles Kotb

2009-07-01T03:08:00.000-07:00

Contributed by Sarika Arya

Ambassador (AMB) Mokhles Kotb is a former ambassador and currently serving as Secretary General for the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) in Egypt. His work has taken him on a long professional journey from North Korea to Tunisia, passing by the office of Yasser Arafat. Council members look to him as a Godfather who arrives at his office everyday at 7AM. Bright and early, he sat down with the Journal for about an hour, people running in and out of his office asking him questions, handing him papers, but all the while he remained focused, eager to share 40 years of experience and knowledge.

AMB: When you ask me your questions, you should take into consideration that I was serving as an ambassador until 2000 and the issues of human rights were not what we feel now. The issues of human rights started to emerge at the end of the last century, and did not concern many countries as they do now. This should be between parentheses.

Q: To which countries have you been the ambassador? What do you do exactly?

AMB: First of all I was in the diplomatic field for 40 years, and I served in so many countries. For example, I worked in Pyongyang, in the years of '75 to '76 with Kim Jong-il there (and in China was Mao Zedong, the Historical Chief of China), only to give and compare the life there. The government- the Egyptian authority- gave us only one day every month to go to China. It looked like a paradise in comparison to Pyongyang; this is just to give you a general idea of how our life was there. At that time I got married and had two little daughters. The problem was that there were no schools except in the Russian embassy. So it was very difficult; our life there was very difficult. My wife had to teach my two daughters until I finished work in the embassy. All the foreigners at the time were around 50% of the people and most of them were either diplomats or ambassadors, especially because there were 13 embassies and some communist ambassadors. The diplomatic community was no more than 50%; therefore, it was quite common to have a diplomatic club where you can find some billiard tables and a small place for dinner and that is it. It was quite normal that one driver from one embassy would explain the billiard game to the Russian ambassador.

After that, well… according to the tradition of diplomatic work in Egypt we should go 4 years abroad and 2 years in the country of origin, in order not to have any roots in any country. Then, I was appointed to go to Paris, then Brussels, and later I returned back for a second term to Paris. The first time I was in Paris was '83 and '84, I was in Brussels from '87 to '91, and Paris another time from '92 to '95. During this time I served as the head of the delegation in France due to the death of the ambassador. Additionally, I served in Tunisia for 7 years as an ambassador and dean of the diplomatic mission. When I came back to Egypt, I became the President of the Foreign Affairs’ Relations. Thereafter, Dr. Boutros Ghali appointed me to work in the National Council for Human Rights. For your information, Dr. Boutros Ghali was my professor at my university in the faculty of economics and political science twice: once when I was an undergraduate pursuing my bachelor and the second time when I was studying for my masters degree. After I came back from Paris, I worked in his cabinet from '84 to '87. I remember he was a candidate for the parliament in Egypt and I was his director of his campaign to be elected. I always remember when we had to go to visit these little streets and poor districts in order to meet with our constituencies. I used to work with Dr. Boutros Ghali for so many years, so when he was nominated as Chairman of the National Council for Human rights (NCHR), he proposed to appoint me as the Secretary General, then automatically the board approved his request, and I started my work from February 2004 till now.

So this was the professional part, but my experience goes back to the Egyptian defeat by Israel in 1967. At that time, I was still an undergraduate pursuing my bachelors degree at the university. Then, later, I had to do my military service, as it was the norm in Egypt for all young people. Normally, it was one year, 12 months, however, due to the prevailing circumstances, I had to stay in my conscription for 7 years, getting promoted from being a soldier to a corporal, and finally to a sergeant.

Q: Did you serve in the October 1973 War?

AMB: Yes, I did. After the defeat in 1967, Egypt had two small areas in Sinai, where I had to spend more than 3 to 4 years. It was a very hard time for me, especially because I had already gotten married and had had my two little daughters by the time when I was in Sinai. I was obliged to stay there for 25 days per month and then to come back to Cairo to stay with my family and daughters. Frankly speaking, it was a very hard time for all my generation. That is why we are all convinced of peace when we speak about it. For us, peace is neither a choice, nor a strategy, nor a principle. It comes at a price for all those who suffer in severe circumstances, and is a valid motive to struggle for. All my generation is convinced that war should never take place again, there must be peace, and they have to struggle to keep such peace and maintain stability. As I said before, “No more war.”

At this point in the interview, he showed me all his decorations and honors in his time as ambassador. Trinkets, medals, and gold stars from past presidents of America and France (among others), and a remarkable photo of him alone with President Arafat –“This is my life,” he said, as he sat back at his desk.

Q: Did you see Obama speak?

AMB: Yes, I did. Actually, we were all invited to attend his speech at Cairo University; but unfortunately, it was very difficult for everyone in the council to attend since it is impossible to have no one in the office.

Q: What did you think about his speech?

AMB: Do you want to speak very frankly?

(Q): Yes.

AMB: First of all, I noticed from his inaugural speech as well as his first speeches after being nominated as President that he didn’t mention anything related to the Palestinian- Israeli conflict; although I knew later that he had spoken on the phone with President Mubarak and with Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas. However, being an ambassador and after working in the diplomatic field, I can tell that President Obama has avoided mentioning the Palestinian- Israeli conflict; despite the fact that he has to make some phone calls from time to time to both parties.

Second, I didn’t get his point when he directed his speech to the Muslim world. I don’t understand the idea behind splitting the world into Muslim, Christian, and Jewish. He should have spoken about states and states’ relations or even international relations among states. By referring to the Muslim world, this can generate many problems in terms of differentiating between Muslims in different regions in the world like, for example, Muslims in Indonesia, in Mauritania, and in Egypt. I think from a personal perspective this is a very controversial issue.

My third observation about his speech is the path that the US will follow to solve the Palestinian- Israeli conflict. The notion of the two- state solution for achieving peace between the two conflicted parties is not a new policy, but the problem is in the course of action of the US towards Israel. We already know that the bonds between the US and Israel are unbreakable and this is what the speech has emphasized and confirmed, but on the other hand, President Obama has also mentioned that Israeli settlements have to be stopped and banned. Concerning the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas,” I noticed that nothing was mentioned about it. Specifically, whether it is a terrorist organization or not. We already know that Hamas is on the list of known terrorist organizations. Ultimately, I think that Obama is eager and keen to change and improve the world’s perception vis-à-vis the United States. He also has the goodwill to achieve such a challenging goal.

Q: Do you think that it’s good or bad he didn’t refer to Hamas as a "terrorist organization"?

AMB: Actually, this issue is very ambiguous and America must be crystal clear while determining a policy. From my perspective, I think there must be a dialogue with Hamas to reach a mid-point in order to end the segregation between the West Bank and Gaza Strip and to fill the gap between the Palestinian authority and Hamas. I think it is now time to have one Palestinian state and to reunite all Palestinians together. Hamas also has to declare its full support with the establishment of one strong and effective state that works for the benefit of the Palestinian citizen. The mutual talks between Hamas and Fatah were recently restored and negotiations have taken place between the two in the aim of reaching a final solution, which is possible in the sense of supporting the two-state solution- as long as both parties continue to be united.

Q: Do you think that peace is possible in your life time?

AMB: Definitely, as I mentioned before, all my generation has suffered a lot in the wars from 1948 till 1973. If you ever thought of visiting every single village in Upper Egypt, you might find that there is at least one who died or became handicapped in almost each family. Everyone has suffered in this period of time. That is why, we believe in peace as the real strategy and we should accept it.

Second, due to many economic problems, I think we have to save our money for our needs in order to achieve a certain level of welfare for the Egyptian population that reaches, based on the latest statistics, to 80 million citizens. Welfare in Egypt requires us to build new schools, advanced hospitals, as well as to provide more food stuff and economic assistance. Therefore, peace is not only a strategy, but it has a psychological aspect entrenched in the life of all Egyptians. Egypt still needs the incoming flux of tourists that visit the country each year and the huge amount of revenues that comes into our economy as a result, representing 9 billion dollars each year. Egypt needs stability to save such foreign income as well as the Suez Canal revenues. If we couldn’t maintain our stability, Arab labor wouldn’t be able to work in the country and send their remittances back to their families. That is why peace and stability are necessary for our lives.

Q: In the past what capacity, in your role as ambassador, did you deal with human rights?

AMB: As I mentioned before, in the past human rights were not on the list of priorities. That is why it is difficult when we talk with the Americans about such issues. Because all of your history is 233 years. For us, it is 7000 years. For us, the concept of time is very different. So we need time to struggle towards democracy, to move for democracy. We need this time. It is relative. The concept of time is very different. That’s one thing.

Also, the main problem in Egypt is mentality. The lack of mentality for human rights culture. You know? The problem is the lack of mentality to grasp the culture of human rights. I am totally aware that it is a critical issue because in the West it is easier to find a job or solve your problems than here in Egypt. The Western mind can easily comprehend the culture of human rights, and better than us.

One of our main problems in Egypt, which represents the main task of the council, is the promotion of a human rights culture. As our first step, we started by analyzing and gathering information about the actual status of human rights in school curricula and in television programs. We had to refer back to our already established independent committees to help us in analyzing the curricula that may affect the human rights culture in Egypt. These independent committees have spent only three years to purify and eliminate all the curriculum materials that may negatively affect the culture of human rights. During the three years, we have studied 100 curricula and, to our surprise, the government has accepted our study and encouraged us to proceed in our way and improve what we can change.

So, what we are doing now is changing. This process will take another three years in order to finish the 100 curricula. The process of changing consists of eliminating what is against human rights values and adding some new values like citizenship. This process is expected to be finished by the end of 2012. This study is targeting the new generation starting from the primary level passing by all grades including the elementary and secondary levels. To take effect will require another 15 years, when the coming generation grows up.

Parallel to this we have a good broadcast of radio. Because, as you know, the newspapers are not that good for the public opinion since we can only publish 2.3 million. For television, 95% of the families in Egypt have TV so it is very influential. So we have analyzed a lot of the radio and TV also to understand the problems of the human rights culture. For this, I was invited to be Secretary General of a board [relating to media] and to be President of the Committee on Human Rights and Citizenship to see what is right and what can be better. It is a very long process.

What do we target? We target the mayor of the villages. It’s not like your country where there is a mayor of a big city. No. We have 40,000 villages and each village has a mayor. So the mayor has his traditions and so on and so forth. The mayor is very important and very influential in his village. If you prepare a good mayor, you will have a good village. You will have more percentage of the people going to elections and respecting human rights and so on and so forth. So it is one of the things we target, and also it [takes] a very long time for us.

Q: Can you tell me more about what you found in the curricula that violated human rights?

AMB: In resume, we find like this, that the boys are better than the girls. This is always indirect in character. Always in the books, you have two characters: there is Samir [the boy] and his sister is Samira [the girl]. Always in this book Samir takes the hand of his sister to cross the street. Always. Always Samir. Never Samira. Always Samir and Samira go to school and come back to the house. Samira goes directly to her mother to help her wash the dishes, and so on and so forth. Never Samir is doing dish washing. Okay? So, from this very young generation, there is always this discrimination or superiority of Samir. So if you are six years old and have this character for Samir, you should, by definition, well- you will be, superior to the girl. Okay. Another thing, if we have something bad it's related to black. It means that the black dog always bites Samira. The black dog. Never the white dog. Only the black dog. So it is also another kind of discrimination.

Also, another discrimination, indirectly, is that Samir is a very good boy: he goes to make his prayer in a Muslim way, in a good Muslim way. So, always a Muslim is better than the others. So that too is discriminatory: man and woman, black and white, Muslim and others.

Q: So the idea is that if you are a boy, fair-skinned, and Muslim, you’re superior?

AMB: Well, so, this is from years of special education from ’71 of Sadat until now. We have this way, that Muslim way of Sadat, to encourage the Muslims. And so we have the results.

(Q): It’s amazing that you were able to find the seeds of human rights violations in such tiny details. It’s very small.

AMB: It’s very very important. As I told you, it was an independent high level committee they took 3 years to study this.

(Q): You know, in the states, we have similar distinctions in textbooks between boys and girls, and especially black and white. But you never think that the black dog biting someone’s hand, instead of the white one, can contribute to human rights violations in the future.

AMB: Yes, yes. Well, you can see the results.

Q: How do politics influence human rights – not only in Egypt, but also in the Middle East?

AMB: You know in the Middle East, we always need a good government, or ministers, or presidents that are very influential. Because normally, the public opinion, normally, comes after what the president says and so forth. Not the other way. Always the government influences the public opinion. Normally at least. So it is important that the government takes the important, the necessary steps, to build human rights education and human rights culture and so forth. That is very important.

The problem in the third world, and Egypt, and some other Arab countries, is the lack of human rights culture actually. This is the main problem. You can change the laws and consider or even establish some human rights legislation. Okay. But to practice it is another thing. The way to practice it is another thing. So if you have this mentality, this difference between man and woman – I’ll give you an example: If a man is in the commissary of the police and at night a lady comes and says, “I was robbed by a thief,” when he sees this lady he wonders, “Why was this woman at 12 o’clock in the streets? At midnight?” There is an idea that if she was a good woman she must be in the house. It cannot be that she is working or that she is going home: she is stuck in this world and it is possible that she will be accused. It is a problem. We need more of a human rights culture.

Q: Why do you think there is a lack of human rights culture in this part of the world?

AMB: The cultural system, educational system, the television system. All of this is a real problem.

Q: What are the challenges of being a quasi-governmental organization that does human rights work, rather than an NGO?

AMB: You know, as I told you, this lack of mentality of human rights, it affects also the work of the NGOs. And some NGOs are not doing good work, according to the public opinion. Some public opinion sees the NGOs as just taking money away from donors or something like this. Other communities and people have a lack of culture of human rights, and the thing is, it is not that all NGOs are working in the human rights field. No. We have 20,000 NGOs in Egypt: some of them are good NGOs, some of them are NGOs that are looking just to make benefits. So, in the traditional culture of the Egyptian, it is not a good way to work. There is mistrust of NGOs. The knowledge and culture of NGOs takes time. And some NGOs give bad examples, and give themselves a negative idea.

Concerning our council, it was the result of the United States and was established in a meeting in Vienna in 1993 and it must be a 100% independent of the government. The public opinion doesn’t accept this. They think this building, the NCHR, is dictated from abroad, dictated from Bush, or that it is a façade of the government so that it looks like they care about human rights- is a piece, or it is just a performance.

Q: So, if you change the curriculum you can affect people when they are very young to have a human rights culture?

AMB: Yes, yes.

Q: But, how do you change the minds of government officials and older people?

AMB: So we are working in parallel. We work with the youth and we work in parallel with others in a special training course or a special course with the government. It should be taken into consideration that we now have our fifth report. Before this, no one took the care and no one was concerned with human rights. And now that we have published this report, now we are in a dialogue with the government and the public opinion, and the government should reply according to this report.

We have a special committee headed by ministers and each minister should send his reply to his prime minister: agriculture, education, everything in all fields. And we are waiting the comment of the government now. It means that [there is] something new in the government. Something new is coming now. Something new. For five years the NCHR has been working concerning human rights. But it is not one way: the government should give reply to our concerns and observations in the report. This is something new concerning human rights that has never been done before in Egypt since these five years. So something is going in a good way – it is not a fast track as Americans always have. (They work fast, always fast.) Instead, it will take time.

Q: What difficulties have you had with the government when you give them your report, and how do you deal with these difficulties?

AMB: Well, our difficulties, if I should be very clear, our difficulties are with the public opinion, NGOs, and populations. This gap of human rights culture is our main difficulty. The government now has the report and should reply. It is very easy to work with government, but not so easy with the public opinion.

Q: You said that the government is not the problem, that the public opinion is. In working with the Council, I’ve noticed that there are some human rights issues that the Council takes a unique stance on that are more in line with the government: What is the council's feelings on the death penalty, freedom of expression, and the State of Emergency? Are certain human rights issues undermined or tabled?

AMB: It is very difficult to speak with public opinion and it needs time. Concerning what you mention, from day one we asked to finish with the emergency state and if there would be a new law against terrorists it must have this balance: it must have freedom between persons and citizens and security of the country. This has always been our position and we’re struggling to do this. Also we say to the government that we’re not too convinced to continue this emergency state, and so they should put it to an end. And according to the government, they will do this by 2010. They should present the anti-terrorist law to finish with this by May 2010 because according to the government the emergency law is only to contain terrorists, and crime organizations, or gangs. So, we told them that we should finish this. And we hope that in May…we’re waiting to see something more democratic… a new proposal to have all the means to protect human rights.

Concerning the expression of speech. I don’t know… You can go to the streets and see 15 opposition papers accusing everyone, even insulting them. So it will take some time. And also, we should have a norm for freedom of expression. It doesn’t mean that I should insult and you insult me. We are in a code of conduct, we are in a period of transformation: it will take time… we are going in the main stream of this.

Concerning the death penalty, we have a point of view in the council that we should put an end to this. But still there is opposition in the public opinion according to some organizations, Islamic organizations, and so on. So the first step is to eliminate the crime number to 2 or 3 before we finish this – I mean, according to the current law, there are 70 possible crimes that are punishable by death. Even if you’re in a gang. I know that this never actually leads to death, but it is there. But, we are in dialogue. We should change: first to eliminate these crimes by 2 or 3, before complete elimination. As you know, in your country there are many states that are struggling to eliminate it. We are struggling with you to eliminate it.

Q: What I find really interesting you are right that in the states you can see the same human rights problems: the terrorist laws, freedom of expression, and the death penalty that face Egypt also effect the USA. So there are more similarities between your state and mine.

AMB: Yes, but in the states you are a very sophisticated country, you have many rights. Here, you can go to poorer states and districts, you go to the poorer areas, and who cares about human rights issue? They want to work and eat. They do not even have clean water. Even if we receive 20,000 complaints this year, we can say 70% are complaints concerning socioeconomic problems. The population needs to work, to eat, to fetch jobs. This is the real problem for human rights. For this I say that stability and peace is a must for Egyptians and the area. For the Palestinians, Israelis, and Jordanians also we need a means to go to in order to make some progress in the daily lives of the population.

Q: Why have you devoted so much of your life to diplomacy and human rights? What’s the appeal for you?

AMB: You know, well as I told you, according to my generation we were forced to go into obligatory military service for 7 years. I have a brother who was an officer in 1956 who was shot by planes… was shot by Israeli planes. So you know, all this generation who suffered from war and problems, we need, for the sake of our population, for Egyptians, for the sake of our families, we need stability, we need peace. So I say, in every single village we know how the population suffered from this, from the war. All of us we know this. For this we are trying to work with peace. Peace is a must for us. If we have peace and stability, then the standard of life of the Egyptian will get better. So it is related. Peace is a very important base for human rights action. Because, if we’re faced with any terrorist action in Sinai, Israel, in Jordan, if a very horrible accident happens, it will directly affect the tourism in this country. As I told you the profits of tourism are 9 billion dollars. So 9 billion dollars: it will give me a job, it will give my daughters a good means of education, it will give hospitals... If you have lack of such money, how do you promote human rights in the widest idea: to give jobs, buildings, hospitals, and so on? So human rights are related in our area with stability. So when we struggle to have peace and stability, we protect and defend human rights.

Q: What have your meetings with Palestinian and Israeli leaders been like?

AMB: [I have an Israeli friend] from Tunisia. He was the head of the first Israeli commission office in Tunisia. He speaks Arabic very well! And French and so on. He is my friend. We have met many times with Israeli officials... I have met with Perez… I have met many Israelis officials.

Q: I know the in these areas have many strong opinions about the conflict. And after the Gaza war in December, their opinions became more extreme. What are the views like in Egypt, and how can we make them more conciliatory to peace?

AMB: As I met with the Israelis I met also with the Palestinians: Arafat, Abbas, I met with many of the leaders. When they had problems they came to the headquarters in Tunisia and all of them, including Arafat, were convinced of peace. And I can say this, in the name of God, all of them want peace.

The problem with this is that Arafat and the others have some difficulties in the camp: they have some extremists here, and at the same time they are faced with the problems with Israelis. This is a real problem: when you have a good Israeli leader, and then something goes bad. But we have many steps to solve the problems. And when you put the problems of Israelis and Palestinians side-by-side, if you go into the details, 95% of all the problems (concerning settlements, Jerusalem, and so on), 95% of the problems have been discussed and have a good resolution. But sometimes one comes likes this and bombs like this- like what we saw in Gaza this past winter. When Mr. Netanyahu says “I will not face the settlements,” well I know he is in his camp and facing problems from his own people. I know this. But this is a narrow view and we must look beyond this view and develop an open mind set.

Defending human rights in instability is zero. You cannot understand this in the US or in your country. Because if you have stability you have human rights: right to food, right to eat, right to go to school, right to education, right to special needs. All this you have. The Palestinian crisis will be resolved with stability. We hope with the new area, with Obama in the states, we can have a practical steps: we can convince all the sides to say and to speak.

Q: What do you think is the greatest obstacle standing in the way of protecting human rights is around the world?

AMB: Poverty: in the sense that it can lead to a lack of awareness of human rights, where people care more about the economy than greater human rights issues. What I mean is that poverty can hurt human rights when it creates other problems like lack of education and a lack of healthcare. As a poor person, I don't care about human rights: I just want to live. So these human rights issues don't matter. I fail to see the connection between human rights and poverty, and human rights abuse continues. And we also have with this, the economic crisis. We have faced a real problem defending and concerning human rights: there is a third world, the population wants to eat, they never have good schools. For us it is a dream that you have rights like you have in your country. For the citizens in the third world to have water, to eat, to go to school, hospitalization. This is a dream. This, I think is it. Poverty, economic crisis, and how to deal with these problems. It means if I am a leader I will not go on an adventure and have war with Libya and Syria. We need stability, to feed the poor...

Consider America's debate around climate change. That is very specific to a developed country. I know in America they are very proud of biogas. Yes it was very good for the climate, but there are many thousands of poor that need this wheat and rye to eat. I know this is a contradiction to live in a good environment while others haven’t a right to eat. So you must remember this in dealing with the third world: we must make this balance. We need a world more democratic. You ask for a democracy in Egypt and Sudan, but we ask for an international democracy in the organization of the world. We need, all of us, to think together for the sake of the world.

Q: Most of the readers of the blog are students with an interest in activism and human rights and are seeking to make a sustainable change: not just to go somewhere and build a well, hoping that few more people have water, but actual sustainable and structural change in government and positions of power. What message, as someone who has done this already, do you have for those people?

AMB: It’s very difficult because I am not the Messiah or Jesus Christ, or even Obama. What I can tell all this generation is to know better about the others. Americans know about America but they do not know about Egypt, Chad, Senegal- you may not even know we have the Nile here, and what that means for our livelihood. For instance, you don’t know we are one of the poorest countries in water. We are 80 million people. Normally not to be the poorest in water, we need 1,000 cubic meters of water for each citizen. We need water, we need our means to have cooperation to change our way of life, to have water even though we are 95%, to use clean power like sun and wind – to have clean electricity. So I ask our young generation to understand more: to understand the reality and life of the others in the third world. And if they have a practical idea in this dialogue with the third world, then come here and implement it. It can help. Shukraan. [Thank you.]

Palestinians on the Plane?

2009-06-30T05:38:00.000-07:00

by Mahdi Sabbagh

As I enter the gate area in order to board, I am welcomed by the El Al Airlines’ lady standing in front of the entrance. She looks at my boarding pass and Israeli passport and tells me to go towards another lady standing in front of a different line. “It’s for standard security check” she says politely. “I already went through airport security” I respond.

She laughs and says: “This is Israeli security, it’s much better!”. I laugh along and proceed to hand the other lady my papers. The lady smiles and asks: “Where did you fly from?” I reply: “New York. It’s written on the plane ticket you’re holding” “And your final destination is Tel Aviv” “Yes.” She pauses, smiles again, and asks: “Where do you live in Israel?” “I live in Jerusalem”. She pauses again, continues “Where in Jerusalem?” I respond “Beit Hanina, in East Jerusalem”. She flips through my passport, asks me to wait on the side, takes my papers and walks to an area sealed off from the main sitting lounge with movable dividers.

The gate area fills up as more and more people check in and sit around in the waiting area. The lady comes back with my passport and asks me to follow her into the small room. She tells me that they are going to quickly scan my bags. I sit on a chair awkwardly positioned between a table and one of the dividing walls, start reading the wallpaper* magazine I had just bought, waiting for them to finish up. Three El Al staff come towards me and state that they will take my bags and jacket for a security check while one of them will give me a body search. No one had mentioned a body search when I was first told to proceed to the backroom but I play along regardless, and move into a tiny cubicle. The security man starts searching me, my arms, back, legs. He then asks me to take my shirt, shoes and belt off. He runs the cold plastic beeper around my waste and pants. The fake metallic buttons on my jeans make his machine beep. The security man gives it another try but the beeping persists. He tells me to wait, goes outside and comes back with his supervisor: “His trousers are causing a beeping, I think it’s ok”. The supervisor’s dark piercing eyes glare at me and says:

“Well, if it’s beeping, make him take his jeans off!”

The supervisor exits. The security man hesitates, but says: “I am sorry but I’m going to have to ask you to take your pants off.”

I recall friends going through similar experiences in the Tel Aviv airport but I never imagined myself in such a situation and not even in Israel or the Occupied Territories… I was still in Heathrow Airport, London! I stood still not really knowing how to respond to such a command. Should I accept the situation and comply? Is ‘please, take your pants off’ equivalent to ‘can I have your boarding pass please’ in the context of an airport security check? I start unbuttoning my pants and stop at the first button. Tense, light headed and realizing the absurdness of the situation, I look at the security man and say “This is unbelievable, are you seriously asking me to pull my pants down?” He responds very calmly: “This is just my job.” I reply: “But of course this is your job, I don’t see you asking every passenger to do the same.” He doesn’t respond. I bring myself together and think of the flight I have to catch in 30 minutes now. I focus on the systematic physical movement of unbuttoning my jeans; pulling them down for a few seconds and then pulling them back up. The operation goes by in no time. I collect my cloths and proceed into the room where my bags were being scanned. First glimpse towards my bags I realize that they had also gone through a similar experience. When I was told ‘a quick scan’ I expected someone to put my bags through an x-ray machine but instead, a lady was going through every compartment of my bag, taking out clothes, books, drawing pencils, electronics, and what have you, and dumping them into a large container. She had emptied my bag completely while I was being strip-searched.

As I approach to ask what the purpose of this procedure was, I notice the other security lady playing with my Ipod. She sees me and quickly places it down on the pile of things. The supervisor appears again with my coat and informs me that I cannot carry it with me on the plane. He says I have to leave it in my suitcase that I check in New York when I first departed. Curious about why one was not allowed to take a jacket onto an airplane I ask for an explanation. He stares at me, turns around and leaves. After a minute he comes back with my laptop stating that I also have to leave my laptop, camera and cellphone in the checked-in suitcase. I fly internationally very often and am usually aware of the typical procedures, but for a moment I wondered if there was a new law preventing me from taking anything but my clothes? Surely not. There was no way I was going to leave my laptop behind!

“I am sorry but I will not leave my laptop here. My suitecase isn’t even in the terminal yet because of the delay.”

“I’m sorry that’s how it works.”

I try to stay patient knowing that nothing I say will change the stubborn Israeli security supervisor.

“I don’t see you asking any other passenger to leave their electronics or coats behind. I don’t understand why I am going through this procedure and why I can’t keep my computer with me.”

“These are the laws, either you leave it with us and we put it in your suitcase when it arrives or you don’t get on the plane.”Several arguments later, (with the supervisor, the person who turned my bag upside down, and the person who stripped me) we do not reach an argument and the lady sitting at the entrance to the gate calls on the last passengers to board.

My flight leaves in 2 minutes. Do I do what feels right, which is to question the legality of their actions, whether this is just or ethical? Do I confront them individually? Do I ask to see a higher supervisor? Do I leave my belongings in Heathrow airport and board the plane?

I decide to end the humiliation and tell them that I would rather stay behind and catch a later flight with another airline than accept their unjust conditions and leave my belongings with them. With this decision, the questioning ends, they grab my belongings, dump them into my bag, hand it to me and send me off to the terminal. As the supervisor walks me to the exit I decide to give him a piece of my mind: “This system is unbelievably unjust. I am an Israeli citizen going back home! Out of all the Israelis going on that plane, you pick the only Arab one and make him miss his flight!” He doesn’t reply and escorts me to the exit.

I find myself walking away from the gate, towards the terminal, the ‘Departures’ screens with “Tel Aviv Flight Closing” shinning in bright red.

I walk slowly but steadily, no destination in mind. Walking as far away from the El Al staff as possible was the only thing on my mind. As I approach the main terminal, a bitter taste in my mouth, I try to assess what had just happened and realize that I put myself off that plane; that out of basic principle I had decided to end the nightmare and walk away. I had succeeded in that I was able to make a decision for my own and there was nothing they could do about it. Why did they pick me out of the line of people? Are the three staff seeing sense in what they had done? Do they truly think that pulling down my pants, checking the songs on my Ipod and asking me to leave my coat behind contribute to the ‘security’ of the airplane? I decide to keep the thinking for later and to try to catch the next flight.The British Airways staff tell me the ‘misunderstanding with El Al Airways’ was not their fault but mine because I had chosen not to depart and that there’s not much they can do but put me on stand-by for the next British Airways flight to Tel Aviv, in 12 hours!

I felt humiliated and terribly alone. There was no one I could turn to and nothing I could do in order to deal with the situation. What was I supposed to tell the British lady sitting at the counter: “I decided to get off the plane because I’d rather keep the little dignity that was left in me” “I can’t afford to leave half of my belonging behind”. “They wouldn’t let me on the plane because I am Palestinian?”

Stop.

2009-06-30T05:31:00.000-07:00

by Sarika Arya

The stage is initially dark. A spotlight suddenly turns on Center Stage. The actress's first lines must be spoken, loud, screeching, sharp, clear, and strong, and, most importantly, coincide exactly with the turning on of the spotlight. This is a highly physical piece throughout, and may be subject to interpretation. The actress must have a full and powerful voice, but give off an ambience of weakness, exhaustion, and defeat: her physicality must be matched by strength in sound, since it will not be matched in strength of character.

JOSEPHINE: STOP! (Pause.) I screamed it. (Shorter pause. The lines are spoken quickly, clearly, frantically, without punctuation.) I screamed at the top of my lungs as I watched As I watched that soldier that solider take out Take out the gun slowly Slowly as if in slow motion Slowly Very Slowly We were walking We were walking to the fields Fields full of life Full of life Full of sweet life tea lives sugarcane bananas with mamma and sister working working Sweating working weaving Laughing working planting Resting working harvest harvest harvest Us walking walking THERE. (The lines have been building up to this moment, matched by the actress's physicality. Perhaps she is sitting then slowly rising, or walking in position then jumping forward, in a sudden movement, towards the audience. Creeping and then arriving. There is a pause.) STOP. (She points, accusingly, at the audience.) THERE. (Suddenly, in a whisper.) Gun. (At a normal sound level. Taking in mind punctuation now.) A big shiny black gun. And a boy. A soldier. Three. There were three. Pointing at Miriam, and pointing at me. And the three boys, soldiers, the men, that evil men, they destroyed Miriam and they destroyed me. But they didn't hurt themselves. They were machines. Their body had taken on the same mission as their gun. There was no separation between men and the metal. They had the same mission. One goal: capture and destroy.

(Beat. Speaking in monotone.)

I am 29 years old, and I have been raped. I have been raped again. And again. And again. And again. Another machine came to my house. He gagged me. And then he raped me. Again.

(Beat. Speaking with emotion.)

Now what? (Pause.) There is nothing left for me here. (Pause.) Everyone knows my story. (Suddenly in another moment, as if reliving a past experience.) He raped me! (Acting as someone else.) Stupid child! You spread your legs girl. You made it eaaaaasssssssy. (Still in character as the imaginary villager the actresses hisses and clicks her tongue, as if catcalling.)

(The actress, as herself now, heaves a loud, long, yet lifeless and defeated sigh that moves, shakes, and exhausts her whole body. Beat. Speaking matter-of-factly. As if unaffected by what she is saying.)

In the community, they made such fun of me that I had to leave the village and live in the forest. Today, the only thing that I can think about is that I want an abortion. I am hungry; I have no clothes and no soap. I don't have any money to pay for medical care. It would be better if I died with the baby in my womb.

(The actress is now standing in a neutral stance, center stage, with the spotlight still on her. There is a moment's silence, while she looks out into the audience. Her body remains completely still, highlighting the fact that she closes and opens her eyes – just once, without moving her head, and then – BLACKOUT.)

This monologue was inspired by an Amnesty International report on sexual and reproductive rights around the world and a true story from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The report can be viewed by downloading the PDF providing 'extra information' on this website. The story of Josephine is located on page 8.

Breaking Down Walls: On Past and Present-day Slavery

2009-06-30T05:24:00.000-07:00

By Ashley Gutierrez

As co-Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Journal of Human Rights with Sarika, it is hard to find words to describe the excitement of seeing this blog come alive. A very special thanks to Oscar Pocasangre for his hard work in creating this; our wonderful, wonderful contributors; and everyone else who has helped that I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting - I look forward to working with all of you next school year.

I am writing from West Africa in Accra, Ghana where I am spending ten weeks of my summer. It is a country alive with such rich, rich culture and traditions, a nation inhibited by unusually friendly, respectful and perpetually smiling people. It is amazing to see, especially given the country's rough history.

Last weekend, I visited Elmina Castle, which the Portuguese built in Cape Coast, Ghana in 1482. It's a magnificent structure - straight out of the movies, with a drawbridge and cannons and tunnels. Its splendor is a direct paradox to the revolting undertakings of the past behind its walls. Elmina is the biggest slave castle in the world having administered the largest slave trade in history - in fact, the ancestors of most European Africans and African Americans today were probably shipped from that castle. I saw the dungeons where hundreds of Africans were locked for months, as they waited for the ships that would take them to Europe and its colonies. It was heartbreaking. Hundreds of slaves were crammed in these dungeons - in a space that was meant to barely fit half the number of occupants. They were fed once a day, locked in absolute darkness, and were not provided toilets or any sort of sewage system. The women were raped by soldiers, priests, and the guests of European governors. Any complaints meant being shackled and starved. People died of disease and despair daily, and their bodies were discarded indifferently. Those who survived the grueling months were those that were shipped away for trade - they were, after all, the strongest ones having survived such an ordeal. Survivors were led to a door that led straight to a ship, as the castle was situated right by the ocean: infamously called the "Door of No Return." No one has ever escaped in the history of the slave trade in that castle. Not one.

Today, less than 150 years later, Ghana is the model of democracy in West Africa and the first African American President of the United States of America is scheduled to tour the same castle in two weeks. Indeed, society has improved by leaps and bounds since the days of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Or has it?

In this very country, one does not need to look far to realize that the internal trafficking of children is one of its biggest challenges. Many Ghanaian children are trafficked from their home villages everyday to work in the fishing industry for cheap labor. This is only one of countless human injustices in this country, in this continent, in this world.

In the same way the incredible architecture of Elmina Castle masks its unspeakable inner workings from years past, are we also blinded by outwardly progressive fronts from real issues of modern day slavery? The difference between physical walls of structures like Elmina and metaphorical walls that stand erect worldwide, is that the latter are harder to break down - because most people do not know they exist.

Israeli views on Iranian Elections

2009-06-29T03:33:00.000-07:00

One of the most popular newspapers in Israel, Haaretz, is publishing Israeli opinions on Iranian elections. This reporter writes on how the election protests have suddenly made Iranians appear more human and humane to Israelis ordinarily jaded by news of Iran's Holocaust - denial and nuclear agenda.

Which Iran would Israel bomb?

By Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz Correspondent

Suddenly, there appears to be an Iranian people. Not just nuclear technology, extremist ayatollahs, the Holocaust-denying Ahmadinejad, and an axis of evil. All of a sudden, the ears need to be conditioned to hear other names: "'Mousawi' or 'Mousavi,' how is it pronounced exactly?"; Mehdi Karroubi; Khamenei ("It's not 'Khomeini'?"). Reports from Iranian bloggers fill the pages of the Hebrew press. Iranian commentators - in contrast to Iranian-affairs commentators - are now the leading pundits. The hot Internet connection with Radio Ran (the Persian-language radio station in Israel) is the latest gimmick. And most interesting and important is that the commentary on what is taking place in Iran is not being brought to the public by senior intelligence officers, but via images transmitted by television.

Click here to read the full article on the Haaretz website.

Remembering the Stonewall Riots

2009-06-29T03:27:00.000-07:00

40 Years Later, Still Second-Class Americans

By Frank Rich
June 27, 2009

LIKE all students caught up in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s, I was riveted by the violent confrontations between the police and protestors in Selma, 1965, and Chicago, 1968. But I never heard about the several days of riots that rocked Greenwich Village after the police raided a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn in the wee hours of June 28, 1969 — 40 years ago today.

Click here to read the full article on The New York Times website.

At a Peace Rally for Iran on June 25th, 2009

2009-06-28T14:56:00.000-07:00

by Kenneth Reveiz

NEW YORK - June 28, 2009

I found out about the rally through an old high school acquaintance’s Facebook status:

“PEACE RALLY FOR IRAN NEW YORK Candle Light Vigil for NEDA and all those who have been so BRAVE in IRAN. Please come and support them. Wednesday, Jun 24 - 7:00pm New York Metro Union Square NYC www.freeiranbracelet.org”

The website sells, as the Live Strong campaign did, bracelets. It plans on “donating the proceeds to Reporters without Borders, who have continuously put their lives at risk in various countries throughout the world, so that the truth can be shown to all the citizen’s [sic] in the world.”

After work—still dressed in suit and tie—I took the subway to Union Square and watched as, at around 7:10PM, under a slowly graying sky, scores of Iranians and non-Iranians stretched columns of green across the plaza. Green, of course, is the color of Islam.

“This is solidarity for Iranian people,” one woman explained in a British-schooled accent to her daughters, who were dressed like twins but weren’t twins. The shorter girl held an unlit candle, a perfect white circle.

At the edges of the expanding display of color, a bearded man held a large sign. It read “DEATH TO DICTATORS,” around which words he had pasted black-and-white computer-printed pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, among others I did and didn’t recognize.

I was surprised to find opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi on the poster. In fact, the bearded man was speaking to a tough-looking, white-haired police officer, complaining that he had been “pushed away” from the general demonstration. The others—one woman was near tears: “This is hurting! This is not our message!”—had been incensed by his “message of violence.” Claiming he had every right to be there as they did, it was determined that he should stand a little off to the side.

He spoke to a young woman with a tape recorder, explained that all those pictured on his poster were “basically the same,” explained that Mousavi was a hard-line dictator, no different from Ahmadinejad. I had heard one student call Ahmadinejad a “monster,” an “inhumane form of human being,” as “not deserving any kind of respect,” and “not part of Iran anymore.” I wondered if this man felt the same way about Ahmadinejad as she did, and still thought the comparison to Mousavi valid, I should have asked. In any case he spoke into the recorder with conviction, gently affirming his opinion, answering questions with the self-assurance of a serene and special truth.

An older, visibly distressed woman tried to interrupt the interview. “So aggressive—why is he so aggressive?” she asked after he and the reporter ignored her. Her husband cautioned her to not “entertain him.” I realized that, with black pen, he had scribbled into the eyes of his dictators.

There had been other rallies, in front of the United Nations building, at Union Square. This is what one tall, bespectacled redhead told me as she stretched a paper bag filled with pins to the crowd of at least a hundred.

One pin read, “NEDA Your voice will never die,” referring to a girl who was shot dead, allegedly by a Basij soldier. Videos and pictures of the brutal killing of the Iranian—now a martyr—circulate all over the Internet. “Neda” is Farsi for “voice.” A computer graphic of a dove, whose ruptured heart had plummeted centimeters below its body, accompanied the words.

The other pin read “WHERE IS MY VOTE?”

Sure enough, at the center of Union Square, which slowly grew darker, was, surrounded by a perimeter of young, white roses, a perimeter of white candles slowly being lit, which itself held down a banner, green and large: “WHERE IS MY VOTE?” with a splatter of blood; above the words were pictures of a brutalized Neda and more words: “Rest in Peace;” “Free Iran.”

As I walked back to the subway a man drew, with a compass, inky circles into a notebook.

Happy One Month Anniversary!

2009-06-28T01:29:00.000-07:00

by Sarika Arya

About one month ago, the Yale Journal of Human Rights blog was born. While I crafted its first piece (FAQ: The Yale Journal of Human Rights), Oscar Pocasangre handled the web design, and through word of mouth, emails, and a lot of persistence we expanded our audience and recruited more contributors. Now, through a massive group effort – far beyond just Oscar and me – the blog has combined creative elements with academia and politics, making it a legitimate and engaging forum for human rights discussion not just for Yale students but for all sorts of people around the world -- college students, professors, human rights experts, former politicians and government officials, and even a national organization in Egypt have all sent us their best wishes and encouragement. Congratulations to all our contributors! We are in a truly happy relationship with our little web space that is making a lot of noise; so happy one month anniversary, baby, and happy reading to our followers!

Although the blog is still in its beginnings, here are some interesting facts after just one month:

407 different people have visited this blog 1,625 times.

The average time spent on the website is 3 minutes and 57 seconds.

Unsurprisingly, though interestingly enough, our map shows 0 visits from China; however, we know people have accessed the blog from China through a proxy server based out of the U.S.

In order from greatest to least visits, the countries that most frequent this site are: the United States, Egypt, the United Kingdom, Peru, Israel & the Occupied Palestinian Territories, El Salvador, Denmark, Germany, France, and Canada.

On average, 60.93% of the visits we receive everyday are from new readers.

Aw shucks, this is just great.

A very special thanks to: Oscar Pocasangre (our resident web designer and Internet mastermind) Max & the Timothy Dwight Blogspot, and Meredith Morrison for getting the ball rolling and maxing out on the publicity work.

The Danish Touch

2009-06-28T00:23:00.000-07:00

by Sarah Sloan

I’ve been in Copenhagen for a few weeks now, and the thing that strikes me most is that it's a city that makes sense. Everything about it is considered and planned, designed with its citizens' best interest in mind. It seems engineered to keep people healthy and safe and the environment clean. Beautiful and well-kept public parks encourage people to go outside, and a well-run public transportation system makes the whole city easily accessible. Not only is it physically convenient to bike- there are paths and lanes everywhere- but also financially convenient: cars here are taxed at nearly 200% of their value. Grocery stores here simply do not provide bags; you are forced to bring your own.

The longer I’m here, the more I think about what human rights means in developed countries. It’s easy to focus on blatant abuses in war-torn and destabilized countries, but what about the more subtle abuses in Europe or the United States?

In my opinion, Denmark has excelled at upholding some of the rights from The Universal Declaration of Human Rights that are often overlooked or deemed less important than others. The Declaration guarantees the right to rest and leisure, the right to an adequate standard of living, and to just and favorable conditions of work. In this vein, Danish law states that no employer can expect anyone to work more than 37 hours a week. Working more certainly happens, but there cannot be a base assumption that it will. The Danes clearly respect life outside of work; in fact, they are required to take 6 weeks vacation. What’s more, fathers get 2 weeks off immediately after their child is born, and mothers can get up to a year off for maternity leave, which they can divide with the father: 6 months and 6 months, 7 and 5, etc. Of course, taxes are extremely high here (sometimes over 60% of one's income) but as a result, the gap between rich and poor is much less obvious here than it is in the United States. I have yet to see a truly rundown part of Copenhagen.

While the Danish system is far from perfect, I can't help thinking that the United States could learn from its example.

A Hard Truth to Learn

2009-06-27T13:35:00.000-07:00

by Timmia Hearn Feldman

We people with a sense of “Western guilt” generally feel it is necessary to volunteer in the “developing” world, believing that such generosity will clear our consciences. So many before me have wanted to travel to parts of the world where they feel as though they can actually do some good. There is a self- sacrificial allure in abandoning all the hard won comforts of the West and roughing it in countries where poverty is normal and accepted, where we imagine starving children on the streets. We romanticize the idea of facing the horror and reality that we know exists in the developing world. Years of reading tales of poverty that we have never personally known weigh on our minds, and so we venture abroad.

When we step off planes in those fabled countries of poverty and natural beauty, we expect something to happen. We expect to find excitement. Perhaps children reaching out to us with scraggy arms, whose lives we can change with a smile, or a gift of clothing, or an English lesson. We hope to see parts of life we’ve never imagined. We think the poverty will shock us. We expect every moment of our stay to confirm our beliefs that the West has got life right. Children begging on the streets with bones sticking out of their skin, lost children needing love. But, perhaps, what ends up surprising us most, is how normal life seems, even within the context of such poverty.

Yes, some of the things we see strike horror into our hearts, but somehow it isn’t what we imagined. It’s not romantic. It’s just there.

I didn’t know what to expect when I came here to the Esther Benjamins Memorial Foundation (EBMF) refuge for street children, children whose parents are in jail and children who have been trafficked. But it wasn’t 103 relatively well-fed happy children in quite nice clothes. It wasn’t children who decidedly don’t need me, who play football (soccer) and cricket on their afternoons off and get pocket money. Here, I have met girls who are vain about their appearance and boys who are cheeky and make jokes about me behind their hands and smiles. I won’t lie that I expected to be able to make a lasting impact. But if I’ve learned anything, it’s that life is just never going to be that simple, and that, alone, I do not have the kind of power to reap change in my wake.

A few weeks ago I went to the house where two of the EBMF children lived before coming here: a shack on the side of the road; a shack made of wood and mud and tin. Nirmaya and Rajkumar were both terrified on their journey to see their families, though they said nothing. When we arrived a scattering of people stood and squatted around the hut. A number of skinny children with unkempt hair, an old couple, the man with only two teeth and legs that looked like gnarled trees, and the woman without a shirt, but with a torso so withered and wrinkled that is somehow didn’t look revealing. A few young women stood around the edge. At the very center of the group sat their older sister’s uncle. The only one who looked well fed looked up only momentarily as our party approached. Nirmaya burst into the tears when we got out and stood in front of what was once her home. Her family just stared at her and her little brother, the two of them dressed in clean western clothes. Their mother wasn’t there. Their older sister went to fetch her. She came, an old looking woman with a withered face, bare feet and a belly extended by age or malnutrition. She didn’t even look at her son, but stared at Nirmaya. Silence. Then Nirmaya started yelling at her. I don’t know what she said, it was in Nepali, but it was clearly an accusation. I know that one of their older sisters was trafficked once, then reunited with her family, and trafficked a second time. No one knows where she is now. I also know that their father had died since they had last been home.

That kind of scene, the one that tears at your heart and makes you want to pull these children into your arms is what we expect when we go to volunteer for abandoned children. But that was one painful moment among so many mundane ones. When I first met Nirmaya, I thought she was a bully, and, to be honest, she is. She has no qualms pushing and bossing around children many years her junior. She grows furious if she isn’t the best at sports (which, as she storms off, instead of practicing, is generally true). There is a hardness in her eyes which knows the meaning of hatred and revenge. And who can blame her? She is stunning, with hard features, and glittering eyes out of which real intelligence and knowledge shines. About thirteen or fourteen, she hasn’t been willing to take life lying down like most of the girls here. I admire her for her spunk, but at the same time, I don’t know how to help her. I don’t know how to show her to trust, to love, to care. She has all the essentials in life: food, a warm safe bed, clothes and an education. What else can I give her? It is here, at the point where children are no longer holding out dirty skinny arms for food and clothing that the real work, the real ability to help a child do more than merely survival, exists. And it is here that there is no obvious solution.

In Nirmaya’s particular story, there has been a change since we visited her family. There is something subtly different in the way she smiles. She no longer plasters a hard smile on her face when she sees me, instead, actual happiness creases the corners of those eyes. Something changed back in front of her mother’s hut. Something changed in the moment she burst into tears and I, instead of trying to shush her like the other EBMF staff, pulled her close to me and held her, even as her shoulders remained stiff against me. Something changed as we rode back in the rickety car, as she stared out the window with hot tears in her eyes, and I reached over and squeezed her shoulder. Behind the fake, hard smile she flashed, there was something else. Gratefulness? I don’t know, but it was something. I don’t know how to gain more of Nirmaya’s trust, except to be especially kind to her and hug her as often as possible.

The thing about poverty, about terrible situations and past suffering, is that people have a streak of optimism that keeps them going. No matter how much the kids here at EBMF have suffered, they are, after all children, and children just want to laugh and have fun and be loved. Yes, we have children here who’ve been in jail, who’ve been sexually abused by fathers and strangers, and children who were found begging on streets, but one wouldn’t guess it by looking at them. A surprising number of them do have scars, but that is hardly noticeable. What shows more is their smiles, their laughter, their cheek, and their independence. Here, I am not needed. They already have a full staff, and do their own cleaning and help with cooking. I came to EBMF to help, to make an impact, to change lives. I arrived with a bravado common of Westerners in their power to right poverty and give to those less privileged. And now, every night I teach a lesson. I play with the younger children sometimes during the day. I try to give as much love as possible. Here, I’m learning the hardest lesson I’ve ever had to learn, and the most essential: that to help is never easy. That trying to fight for human rights is more than having good intentions. Far far far more. Time moves differently in the developing world. Things always happen late, even lessons in school begin slowly. Punctuality and accuracy are not common. For all the good will and desire of the children to not be lazy, and for the fact that they never complain when given extra classes, their motivation for swift learning is low. Their openness to new ideas is limited.

Of course it is. Any child would be like that. But because I came here to help, I feel like it should be different. Now that I have set aside my tarnished romantic images of poverty and aid work, I have to settle for making less of an impact than I’d hoped: for working according to the slow time here, not battling with it. Like any person who cares about human rights, I have to learn that I cannot save the world. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth trying my hardest to help the individual.

The Journal Remembers Michael Jackson

2009-06-27T13:17:00.000-07:00

The Journal would like to pay tribute to Michael Jackson (August 29, 1958 - June 25, 2009) by posting our favorite Michael Jackson lyrics. These words continually give us the determination to strive for a better world by first bettering ourselves. We thank him for using music to remind us of this responsibility that we have to ourselves and to our world:

Gonna make a change
For once in my life
It's gonna feel real good
Gonna make a difference
Gonna make it right

As I turned up the collar on
My favorite winter coat
This wind is blowin' my mind
I see the kids in the street
With not enough to eat
Who am I to be blind
Pretending not to see their needs

A summer's disregard
A broken bottle top
And one man's soul
They follow each other
On the wind, ya' know
'Cause they got nowhere to go
That's why I want you to know

I'm starting with the man in the mirror
I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make a change
Na na na, na na na, na na na na

I've been a victim of
A selfish kinda love
It's time that I realize
There are some with no home
Not a nickel to loan
Could it be really me

Pretending that they're not alone

A willow, deeply scarred
Somebody's broken heart
And a washed out dream
(Washed-out dream)
They follow the pattern of the wind, ya' see
'Cause they got no place to be
That's why I'm starting with me

I'm starting with the man in the mirror
I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make a change

I'm starting with the man in the mirror
I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make that change

I'm starting with the man in the mirror
(Man in the mirror, oh yeah)
I'm asking him to change his ways, yeah
(Change)
No message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make the change
You gotta get it right, while you got the time
'Cause when you close your heart
(You can't close your, your mind)
Then you close your mind

(That man, that man, that man)
(That man, that man, that man)
(With the man in the mirror, oh yeah)
(That man you know, that man you know)
(That man you know, that man you know)
I'm asking him to change his ways
(Change)
No message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself then make that change

(Na na na, na na na, na na na na)
Ooh, oh yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
(Na na na, na na na, na na na na)

Oh no
Oh no, I'm gonna make a change
It's gonna feel real good
Sure mon
(Change)
Just lift yourself
You know, you got to stop it yourself
(Yeah)
Oh, make that change
(I gotta make that change today, oh)
(Man in the mirror)
You got to, you got to not let yourself, brother oh
Yeah
You know that
(Make that change)
(I gotta make that make me then make)
You got, you got to move
Sure mon, sure mon
You got to
(Stand up, stand up, stand up)
Make that change
Stand up and lift yourself, now
(Man in the mirror)
Make that change
(Gonna make that change, sure mon)
(Man in the mirror)
You know it, you know it, you know it, you know
(Change)
Make that change

Man in the Mirror - MJ, Spring 1988

EXCLUSIVE: In Conversation with Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali, Former Secretary-General of the UN

2009-06-25T04:54:00.000-07:00

-- Contributed by Sarika Arya and Meredith Morrison

Today, the two of us sat down with Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali (DR. BBG), the 6th Secretary General of the United Nations (January 1992- January 1997) and the current President of the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) in Egypt. The three of us were alone on the 11th floor of the NCHR building (once the former headquarters of the Egyptian Communist Party), in his office: an intimate square room adorned with medals, certificates, books, a beautiful wooden desk, and golden curtains that drape a window overlooking the Nile River. Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali wore an off-white linen suit, squinted his eyes, thinking hard before he answered every question, and despite his calm, soft spoken nature and 5' 5'' stature, was still able to command the room with his well-articulated and sharp opinions. In this historical, political, and all together human rights-y setting, we talked about Barack Obama, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the best part of being Secretary General.

Q: How do you define human rights?

DR. BBG: I believe it is related to the essence of men and women – by the fact that they exist, they have basic rights. And these basic rights, which correspond to their nature, their personality, we call them human rights. By the way – human rights is a continuous process; it means every year we may have new technological inventions and new problems, which are different – like the problem of climate – and this asks us to take into consideration drastic change and the fact that this change asks us to have new human rights which correspond to this new change in the public life, in the climatic life.

Q: What are the challenges of being a quasi-governmental organization that does human rights work – rather than being an NGO – as far as the NCHR is concerned?

DR. BBG: This was decided by the United Nations, which met in a summit meeting, which was held in Vienna in 1993 and then later in other meetings, in which they asked the different member states to create national commissions to take care of and promote human rights, to promote the culture of human rights, and to assist the governments. And those commissions have only an advisory opinion. They cannot intervene; their intervention is solely in declaration.

Q: Do you think human rights are a top priority for governments? If not, how can that change?

DR. BBG: I think it depends on governments. Certain governments, for them, it is a priority; other countries have other problems. For example, illiteracy, which is, in certain countries, 50% of the population, or deep poverty – so the priority will be to overcome this illiteracy, to overcome poverty, and only then they will move to a second step, which is to protect human rights. So it depends on different governments, and it depends on different periods.
During the Cold War, the United Nations was not paying attention to human rights, and they began to pay attention to human rights and the relationship between human rights and democracy only after the end of the Cold War. But because of the Cold War, it was very difficult to make a relation between democracy and human rights, so we had more than 50% of the countries who were members of the United Nations, which did not have democratic systems, and the United Nations was not involved in promoting democracy. Because if you remember Article 2, Paragraph 7 of the Charter, it mentions that the United Nations is not allowed to interfere in the internal affairs of member states.

Q: What do you think is the relationship between democracy and human rights?

DR. BBG: Oh, there is a big correlation: we cannot have human rights without a democratic system, and we cannot have a democratic system with the protection of human rights. They are integrated together. Democracy is the system which will protect human rights.

Q: How do politics influence human rights – not only in Egypt, but also in the Middle East as a whole?

DR. BBG: I believe this is not limited to the Middle East, or to Egypt; it is seen in all parts of the world. If you have a military coup d’etat in Country A, he will not pay attention to human rights; he will just pay attention to how to reinforce his position after the military coup. Politics is related to democracy; democracy is related to human rights; human rights and democracy are related to economic development. So there is a kind of implication between those three different concepts.

Q: In your opinion, what is the greatest humanitarian concern facing Egypt today?

DR. BBG: I believe that you have many problems. First, you have a very high proportion of the population who are illiterate, so this is a concern. Secondly, that a high proportion of the population is very poor; this is a second concern. And a third concern is that the population, the 80 million Egyptians, are concentrated in only 4-5% of the territory; 95% of the territory is a desert. So how can we accomplish improvement? We need additional water and food. There is no rain in this part of the world, so this is related to the Nile Basin, and the possibility of having better cooperation between the different countries of the Nile Basin.

Q: What do you think is the greatest obstacle standing in the way of protecting human rights around the world?

DR. BBG: Again, you have not one obstacle; it depends. Supposing you have a military coup – the effect, the absence or the end of the democratic regime, is a basic obstacle here. In another country, you may have, suddenly, a terrible earthquake, and this would be the main concern. In a third country, you can have a new disease. Today, you can have the economic crisis. So you have not one obstacle. It depends on the period; it depends on the country; it depends on many elements.

Q: Can you recall an interesting story during your time as Secretary General, in which you learned something about human rights – positive or negative?

DR. BBG: I believe that what was important was the conference that was held in Vienna in 1993. There, for the first time, we were able to discuss the problem of human rights, to give a new dimension to human rights, and to show the importance of the relation between democracy and human rights. Because before there was a kind of division: democracy was related to the internal affairs of the state, so the United Nations was not allowed to intervene in the internal affairs of the state, and you had many countries which were not democratic countries. Change happened only in 1993, when we were at the end of the Cold War, and when we were able to show the profound relation between democracy and human rights.

Q: What was the best part about being Secretary General of the UN?

DR. BBG: It means you are able to succeed in an operation, like to put an end to apartheid in South Africa, and to find a solution to civil war in Mozambique or in El Salvador. This gives you a real satisfaction, that you have been able to achieve something. You may certainly have a disaster, like in Yugoslavia, and like the genocide in Rwanda, and then it is a failure. So the life is composed of success and failure. And what is important is in the case of the failure, you must still be an optimist, and in case of success, you must not exaggerate the importance of this success.

Q: What did the genocide in Rwanda teach you about the tension between intervening in the internal affairs of a country and protecting human rights?

DR. BBG: It taught me that the international community was not interested to intervene, and then that you have two kinds of conflicts. You have what I call the orphan conflicts, where the international society is not interested to intervene. Take the case of Somalia, a country which disappeared, which is a failed state, since 1990, and we are now in 2009. And you have another country, where suddenly everybody pays attention; in Yugoslavia, for example. So the real problem is that you have a kind of discrimination at the world level, between a dispute which attracts the public opinion, which obtained the intervention of the international community, and a dispute that doesn’t interest the international community, in which the international community is not ready to intervene to solve this dispute. So here again you have a kind of discrimination concerning the attitude of the international community concerning protecting international disputes, where disputes which obtain the mediation of the international community, the intervention of the United Nations, and other disputes, which, unfortunately, don’t obtain the attention of the international community and don’t obtain the intervention of the international community.

Q: Why do some cases get international attention and others don’t? What is the difference between a Yugoslavia and a Somalia?

DR. BBG: I believe that there still is a discrimination, that they pay attention to what is going on in Europe, and they pay less attention to what is going on in Africa. Still, there are, in the public mentality, first class countries and second class countries.

Q: What is your feeling about President Obama? Do you have faith in him to make progress in the Middle East peace process?

DR. BBG: I cannot give you any answer before one year.

Q: What were your thoughts on his speech that he gave in Cairo?

DR. BBG: I was there, and I was very much impressed by the speech, but as I mention, it is only a speech.

Q: How do you see the peace process moving forward, as far as Israel and Palestine are concerned?

DR. BBG: I am pessimist, maybe because of my age, because I have spent 50 years of my life trying to solve this problem, and I believe that this problem will not be solved during this generation. I have published a book, which is now adapted, with the president of Israel – Shimon Peres – and at the end of the book, which is a conversation of 20 hours, I mention: like Moses, and like Sadat, I will not see the Promised Lands.

Q: What would you recommend that we do, as students who study this and put all of our time into this?

DR. BBG: I believe that it is very important to pay attention to foreign affairs, because we will be confronted in the next years, in the next 10 years, in the next 20 years, by new events – what I call globalization – where the local problem will not be solved at the local level; it will be solved at the international level. So you who represent the young generation, you must pay attention to foreign affairs. Foreign affairs is what happens in Guatemala and Somalia, what happens in Mongolia. And try to open the window so that your country, the United States, will be more involved in international affairs. This is not only for the United States, but for all of the member states, because tomorrow, certain local problems will not be solved at the local level, but will be solved at the international level. So if you want to avoid that the solution will be imposed on you, then you have to participate in the solution of this problem, and the solution of this problem is an international solution. And to be able to be able to participate in an international solution, you need to pay attention to foreign affairs. You need this kind of education. The time that you spend here for one or two months is already a first step to help you pay attention to what is going on in Africa, in Egypt, in India, in different parts of the world. And this is my message to the young generation.

It's Something

2009-06-25T00:47:00.001-07:00

by Timmia Hearn Feldman

“Marco.... Polo.... was ..... born....” Jaya begins giggling before she can finish reading the sentence. I’m helping her with her English homework, and like most of the girls here, she dissolves into embarrassed giggles at every inadequacy she finds in herself. Particularly when it comes to lessons. This is the first time I’ve worked privately with Jaya. She’s in class eight, one of the girls who is so shy and embarrassed to speak before the large class, that, were we in a western culture, I would grow most impatient with. However, here, where most women are married by their early twenties and never question the physical abuse of their husbands, I have nothing but worry and patience for this behavior. And though women’s rights are taken serious here at the Esther Benjamins Memorial Foundation (EBMF), the directress and assistant directress both being virtual feminists, there is still Nepali culture at large, not to mention the girls pasts, to contend with.

Jaya might be as intelligent as she is sweet, but I have no way of telling as I help her pronounce words and understand what the sentences mean. Although I have a shrewd suspicion that she could understand if only she would stop dissolving into embarrassed giggles, we make incredibly slow progress. Like most of the students here, she wants me to tell her exactly what to say, and doesn’t really understand the concept of writing a sentence of her own creation. All the students have that problem, but it is exacerbated in the girls by their tendency to doubt themselves. Teaching Jaya at this point feels like banging my head against a wall. Nevertheless, convinced that we’ll get somewhere eventually, I read the little excerpt with her for what must be the fourth time, trying, still trying, to show her how she can find the answers to the study guide questions within the text. In congruence with the mission of EBMF, I am determined to help Jaya and the other girls here gain confidence in themselves, and fully understand that submitting to abuse and second class treatment is never right.

Still, despite the decidedly modernist and progressive stand taken here on the rights of women, a full 45 out of the 65 girls here (and hence almost all the girls above the age of ten) were rescued from circuses. Now, to say that they were trafficked into circuses and were rescued sounds something like a joke. In fact, before coming here, when I explained to friends where many of the children were rescued from, they thought it was funny, and tended to assume it was some bleeding heart nonsense about rescuing kids from “bad” situations. However, in the circuses which these girls were trafficked into they were literally slaves. Woken at the crack of dawn, they would work cleaning the circus and trained for hours before being fed a small amount of food. Performing in generally three shows a day, with virtually no safety measures, the girls were never even skilled at their acts, and frequently suffered injury and illness, with no treatment. Their young bodies were displayed more as sexual objects than anything else, sometimes performing at the dead of night for an all male audience of drunken businessmen. Additionally, an unstated number were sexually abused by the circus managers. I say unstated here because their files give nothing away. Those who have been abused have only ever said it in secret. Having been sexually abused is a mark of shame in a society where a girl's purity and modesty are prized so highly. A society where marriage is a girl's purpose in life and the shame of sexual abuse would jeopardize her forever. Many of those girls came from backgrounds of sexual abuse by their own fathers and uncles. Again, stories that will never be told. It is no wonder these girls laugh behind their hands. No wonder they are always embarrassed to speak up in front of teachers. No wonder they tell me they are fine even when obviously crying.

Jaya was once a circus girl. I don’t know how many years ago she was rescued, but I don’t need to look at her file to know that the memories still affect her. Once girls come to an EBMF refuge site (there are three different sites) they are provided with safety, and at least some degree of encouragement. But they are still dealing with teachers who call them stupid in front of their peers, with memories buried deep and painful, and with the constant pressure to always act politely and pretend to be happy. I went to Jaya’s school a few weeks ago, to see the quality of English education, and though what I found didn’t surprise me, it saddened me.

Their teachers hardly know more English than the students. They teach from text books which ramble on about the average weight of camels and the various steps to reviving a person by mouth to mouth resuscitation, but scarcely bother to teach new vocabulary or to mention grammar. To make matters worse, though the students are far better behaved in class than average American students, they are so thoroughly disrespected by their teachers that my first impulse was to shove the teacher out of the room and take over myself. In the second lesson we sat in on, the teacher spent several prolonged minutes asking us how it was possible that we were teaching English to the EBMF students when they were so, “hopeless and stupid.” I responded coldly that they were certainly far from hopeless, and made sure to tell my two students in her class that she didn’t know what she was talking about and that they were both quite good at English, which, as a mater of fact, was true. But one cannot expect a student to perform well in the face of such discouragement. Now, as I work with Jaya, she keeps apologizing to me, between giggles, for being so poor at English. I tell her, rather sternly, that she should stop doubting herself and simply concentrate on her studies.

It isn’t just in the realm of the classroom that these girls find room for feeling inferior. Though it is true that they are friends with the boys, and speak to them face to face without flinching, it is also true that many of them, particularly the circus rescue girls, have none of the self confidence or self possession that all the boys and the girls who come from other backgrounds have. I went on a trek with eight students a few days ago, and as night fell on our one night away from the refuge one of the girls began to cry, another, who was sharing my tent, begged me to come to sleep early, because she was too afraid to go alone. Ghosts, they said, might attack them. The boys, though they, too, believe in ghosts, are not afraid. To them, life is still under their control. In fact, in all the boys over twelve, there is an arrogance that comes with knowing that, no mater what, they are dominant in this culture. Though they don’t exactly talk down to the girls, and are generally respectful to me during class, there is something in their manner that is not simply the cockiness of any boy, but instead a feeling of definite superiority. Though, like the girls' insecurity, instead of being infuriating individually, it is maddening on the whole. The five boys who come from circuses are proud of the gymnastic abilities they picked up. Two of them have gone on to win medals in gymnastic competitions in Kathmandu. They are not embarrassed to talk about their time in the circus. Their stories are ones that can be told. But the stories of Jaya can never be told. No matter how much I believe that truth is preferable to lies, nor how passionately I want stories of human rights abuses to be told so that the causes can be found and eradicated, the mouths of these girls, most of them young women by now, are sealed forever by a culture that teaches them to look pretty and be polite. Here all my western convictions that talking through painful truths and being allowed to cry is healing and necessary for true recovery from trauma, are of no more use than my knowledge of the Boston Tea Party. I’m learning, slowly, and certainly painfully, what so many have learned before me: that I will never really know the impact of my work here, never know if the genuine love I feel for some of the children who I’ve developed personal relationships with, will effect them in any real way. Never know if my English lessons will do more than frustrate them for a few evenings. Never know if all our talk and laughter and comparisons of culture will do more than make them shake their heads at the strangeness of the west. Never know if my love of being here is anything more than a selfish amazement of the beauty of the east, an infatuation born in so many westerners before me. But, without any certainty, I will keep trying. I bend over the little text book with Jaya, reassuring her that she isn’t “very bad” at English. Encouraging her. Pushing her to think for herself. Refusing to feed her answers. Over an hour later, snack time arrives. I usher a mentally tired Jaya from the room, drained myself. It may not be a success story, but it’s something, I tell myself as I drink my over-sweetened tea.

A Day in the Life of the Ombudsman Unit

2009-06-24T09:40:00.000-07:00

by Sarika Arya

om⋅buds⋅man – noun, plural - men pronunciation [om-buhdz-muh n, -man, -boo dz-, awm-, om-boodz-muh n, -man, awm-] an ombudsman is a person who acts as a trusted intermediary between an organization and some external constituency while representing the broad scope of constituent interests (Wikipedia).

At the National Council for Human Rights in Egypt, the Ombudsman Unit is known for its hands-on approach to human rights violations. Every day the office is total mayhem and excitement, as it receives human rights complaints via telephone and email. But its most powerful and effective tool are the trips that the Mobile Unit takes around the country. While the council's headquarters are located next to Tahrir Square and Garden City, two posh areas of Cairo, the Unit organizes weekly excursions to the poorest, dirtiest, and most marginalized parts of Egypt, to uncover the players in Egyptian human rights violations; namely, the victims.

The Unit's centerpiece is its little van. The van is cramped tight with human rights experts, has an AC-system that chooses to stop working during excruciatingly hot (plus 95 degrees Fahrenheit) weather, is littered with falafel wraps, juice boxes, and human rights complaints papers. It looks remarkably like the Scooby-Doo mobile. On the outside, its markings, "المجلس القومي لحقوق الإنسان" (The National Council for Human Rights) attract a lot of stares, especially as the van rocks and rolls through muddy dirt paths (they can hardly be called roads) into what one Unit member, Vivian, called, "the heart of poor Egypt."

The people here are confused. The Unit unloads from the car, sweating from the heat, downing water, but everyone is in high spirits, anticipating the day ahead: this is the best part of human rights work, getting to see the faces and mix with the personalities behind the reports that you read in the office. People sense the Unit's good-nature, and while they may have initially felt uncomfortable approaching these urbanites – men and women in jeans, slacks, and blouses, accompanied by two Americans speaking English (me, and another Yalie, Meredith Morrison, BR '11) – some of these people, in their traditional garb (headscarves and long loose jelebiyas for men), hesitantly come closer:

"Who are you?"
"We're from the National Council for Human Rights."
"So you are someone from the government?"
"No."

This is among the first questions that the unit deals with: the potential complainers are ashamed of their situation and nervous that they will be punished for discussing their issues. Moreover, as Vivian explained to me, these people generally find a haven in the Muslim Brotherhood, whose religious ideology appeals to them because, quite simply, although they may know little about politics of the organization, they believe that those who are pious must be good. The Brotherhood, opponents of President Mubarak, are found to spread rumors about the Egyptian government's authoritarian grip, abysmal torture record, disdain for the poor, and denial of the freedom of speech -- unfortunately, many of these rumors have legitimate foundations and are actually facts.

After the Unit reassures the worried passersby that the clipboards, official-looking documents, pens, and nice clothes are not, in this case, indicative of government representatives, they get down to business:

"Do you have a human right complaint you would like to report?"
"What is a human right?"

For many people, this is the first time they have heard "human" and "rights" strung together. The term is not exactly self-explanatory, and public schools here do not usually include in their syllabi a comprehensive overview of human rights. This is a world phenomenon that is seriously undermining human rights progress: people are not aware of their rights, so they do not know that instead of being ashamed, scared, or hesitant to ask for welfare, healthcare, or escape from abuse and torture, they should be confidently demanding it for themselves and others. Even as an elementary and middle school student enrolled in public school in the United States of America, a country that likes to think of itself as the greatest champion of human rights, I did not find human rights to be a part of the curriculum. And the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights is not a difficult concept to teach to an 8th grader. The Ombudsman Unit may benefit by allowing young Egyptians or other foreigners to accompany them on their travels. There is no better education than being on the scene yourself, directly interacting with people, and knowing that your presence alone, as someone willing to take the time and meet those in society who are often ignored and forgotten, makes a difference.

In any case, for Egypt's poor – those most vulnerable to violation – human rights are an unknown concept. So the Unit makes it simpler for them to understand exactly what they are concerned about:

"Well, do you have any problems?"

This question is usually answered by a sarcastic smile and a dark laugh. Problems? Yes, they have problems: a man selling fruit on the side of the street looking for welfare to support his three children, a woman in a similar situation who cannot even remember how many children she has (after struggling for a bit, she counts 9), another woman looking for medical care on behalf of a husband diagnosed with cancer, many unemployed looking for jobs so they can buy some food and live another day. Slowly, the people, initially suspicious, warm up to the Unit, and even tell their friends to come and share their troubles too. After about twenty minutes, the van is surrounded. Additionally, unit members dot the street are working with different groups of people: writing down contact information (some, who are illiterate, take out little pieces of paper with their phone numbers written down, or present pieces of jewelry embedded with their names, tokens to help them remember how the letters and numbers are formed), and reassuring people that miraculously, somebody does in fact care about their troubles. One overeager man, who initially told us he had nothing to share, suddenly becomes excited by the prospect of having photos taken of him on a digital camera, begins leading the whole affair. He is a busybody gathering people up and down the street, ordering them to line up and give their complaints, and pausing every so often to make sure he was being photographed. "Sarika, continue taking pictures. Please. Give him some entertainment - amuse him, " said Hagar, one of the women working with the Unit, who at this point had several people hassling her for complaints.

There are definitely more serious difficulties along the way. Meredith had an interesting experience in the first town we visited. A woman who discovered her American nationality angrily exclaimed, "All these Americans come in here and get in our business, writing reports that make us look bad – people shouldn't talk with an American here!" Another woman, refused to speak unless it was in private, under an isolated bridge, a distance away from the crowds: she did not want her community to know she was complaining, both out of fear and shame. One woman who seemed severely uncomfortable with married life began sharing her story with Meredith but was quickly hushed by her sister-in-law, who led her away from potential solace, support, and help.

This type of report, a complaint about an abusive husband, is extremely rare. Most have to do with the violation of social or economic rights: the need for welfare, medical care, jobs. I began to wonder, why no one yet had complained about crime, abuse, torture, political and civil rights issues that I had read about at the office: 2 women are raped in Egypt every hour, yet none of the women we had talked to reported sexual violence.

Vivian clarified my confusion, "These people are so afraid to talk to us even about little medical issues: they can't even tell us about their bad eyesight and how they desperately need glasses but cannot afford them, without getting scared. They are afraid, because they do not trust authority. Often times, the police come into these areas and make the situation worse: arresting the wrong people, or hurting the people who are living here. I mean, Sarika, these people are smart. Very smart. It surprises outsiders when I say this, but the poor are able to see through anyone. They grew up on the streets, and they can catch a liar. No one can trick them. It is hard to get these people to trust you. And if they can't even tell you that they need new glasses, what is the likelihood they're going to tell you the other stuff?"

Even the most conservative parts of society are included in this human rights survey. At one point in the day, we ended up in a farming village at the village chief's headquarters. We sat outside: the women of the Unit on one side of a table, the men, the chief, and his co-leaders, on the other side. The men smoked, we were served Arabic coffee and chai (tea), and every time a new man joined our group the chief would shake his hand and kiss him once, on either side of the cheek, as is tradition. The meeting was prearranged and the most orderly relaying of complaints the Unit had dealt with all day. On behalf of the entire town, the authorities of the village thoroughly discussed each complaint, which they had neatly compiled in a folder: the school was 3 kilometers from the village with no transportation making it impossible for children to attend, farmers did not receive fair payments for their produce, and there a general lack of availability and access to resources like adequate farming equipment, medicine, and social services. At times, the men would leave the table, whispering quietly and urgently among themselves, while the women remained, quietly sipping chai, trying to stay cool, and diligently copying down the complaints. In these moments especially, it felt like we were participating in some shady, underhand, mafia dealing, but it was just tradition: human rights are universal, but human rights enforcement however is dependent on culture. As we were leaving, the chief (who we later found out had two wives) insisted we stay for lunch. It turned out to be less of an invitation and more of an order, for when we politely declined, he was severely offended. So we joined him on the floor of a small room, eating cheese and bread, and sipping a traditional, Egyptian, sugary "licorice" drink (which had the appearance of a soda but couldn't possibly be, since anything even as simple as a Pepsi would be beyond this family's budget) while he recounted his family history.

The most moving part of the day, however, was in the second town we visited. As the Unit disseminates throughout the area, Vivian and I venture into a market off the side of the main street, which was not so much a street as a slab of mud littered with trash and animal feces. People are everywhere in the crowded market, living with the animals and even slaughtering and selling them right there with their bare hands. It smells like human excrement and pollution, and the heat is becoming nearly unbearable as the afternoon sun hit its peak. As we pass a beggar, Vivian turns to me with a bittersweet smile, "Look at that Sarika: a beggar begging among the poor." Instead of approaching the men on the street who are hard at work selling their goods (broken plastic toys, beef, leather, and fruits), Vivian eyes the old men and women, the children, and the young adults who hovered at the back of the markets, lurking behind stalls, and in the darkness of shade. One woman, after sharing her complaints, refers us to her friend ("You want to meet someone with troubles?" she says, "Well that woman has troubles."), the woman's friend advises us to keep walking – and pretty soon, as had happened earlier, through word of mouth, people become aware of our presence in the area. The usual crowd forms in front of the van, and each Unit member is again halted in their tracks by humble and cautious human rights complainers. But Vivian pushes on, searching, and finally – "Sarika. Here." It was like Vivian morphed into a human rights excavator, trying to uncover the darkest and cruelest secrets of her society. She finds one embodied in this old woman.

Vivian pulls me behind one fruit stall, disregarding the stares of the fruit sellers who could not fathom why two well-dressed women would want to venture into the most hellish part of the abysmal town. There, sitting on a mud rock, next to an abandoned shop that sold bicycles and some starving goats, was a very old woman in a beautiful abaya, a long dress, draping her wrinkled body. Her hair is covered, her teeth were falling out, and when Vivian greeted her with a warm, "Salaam alaiykum" (Peace be upon you, a typical Islamic greeting), the woman whispered such a weak, hoarse, and soft response that we had to sit down next to her, in the dirt and animal droppings, just to hear. While we talk, a little boy barely 3 years old ran around us barefoot, drinking soda from a plastic bag with a straw, and occasionally whacking the already dying goats with a wooden stick. The woman looks mildly interested as Vivian explains to her what the work of the Ombudsman Unit. When she finally decides to tell Vivian her troubles, it does not seem that she is doing so out of faith in the Ombudsman Unit's work or a feeling of hope that her situation would change. Instead, quite simply, this old woman just needs someone to talk to. She needs someone to give her back some dignity by listening to her and sympathizing, just so she can feel a little more human – a little more justified in her unhappiness, and not as though she is an animal who deserved no better.

Herein lies the Ombudsman Unit's greatest contribution to society: they are a group of well-educated, articulate, and determined people who are passionate about human rights and compassionate towards suffering from human rights violations. I asked Vivian what was the most difficult experience she had working with the Unit, "Once, a sick man asked me to get him medicine – he needed health care that the government hadn't yet provided. I called his house a few weeks later, and his daughter picked up the phone. He had died. I always feel so sad and guilty about this. I know I shouldn't, but I always wonder, what if I had worked a little bit harder." Despite such devastating setbacks, Vivian understands the power of an open ear, "Even if we cannot help everyone. We can listen. That's all people really want: someone from outside of their community to listen and sympathize. You have to make them feel, remind them, that you are a human being just like them; that you are not special because you have a job and a roof over your head. You just have to be human with them."

This old (she could not recall her age) woman at the back of the market found an audience in us. Her health is nonexistent: poor eyesight, zero dental care, malnutrition, weak bones, and it sounds like she may have a respiratory issue too. It was as if most days, she sat on this little mud rock hoping that someone would notice her: she seems to have given up on a bigger goal of being saved or lifted out of poverty a long time ago. Despite this, she offers us her chair and asked if we would like anything to drink. This had happened several times throughout the day. Apparently, hospitality is still a way of life for the most desperate in society. While their human dignity has been robbed, they are still able to respect the dignity of others: even if in the past, this respect has not been reciprocated and they were, instead, humiliated. She wants to show us her living arrangements. There are none. We walk down a small alley with clothes hanging from wire and doors in front of us and to the side. There is one bathroom where a goat and some dying chickens were tweeting bleakly, obscuring a small hole in the ground that apparently served as the toilet. The bedroom has crusty walls and one bed. This is all shared by three families, each made up of 6 to 7 people.

On the way back to Cairo, Vivian told me that sometimes she felt like she had "two lives." Reentering the main city and traveling between the two worlds of extreme poverty and extreme abundance can throw a person off. But it's worth it: the Ombudsman Unit will process the complaints back at the council, addressing each one individually, making the government aware of their findings, and following up on the situations with potential resolutions. The number of complaints and the difficulty any human rights organization has in moving the government to act will undoubtedly cause time lags and prevent many cases from being solved. However, while the solutions may be hard to come by, the Ombudsman Unit has won in some degree: little by little, with its efforts to increase awareness and start a dialogue, a human rights movement and culture is emerging in Egypt.

If you would like to get involved in the Ombudsman Unit and the work of the National Council for Human Rights, email your interest to Jumana Shehata (jumshehata@gmail.com).

Twitter Solidarity

2009-06-24T08:29:00.000-07:00

If you're on twitter, set your location to Tehran & your time zone to GMT +3.30. Iranian security forces are hunting for bloggers using location/timezone searches. The more people at this location, the more of a logjam it creates for forces trying to shut down Iranians' access to the internet. Please copy & paste & pass it on.