Human Rights - The Orange Room

METALLICA

Human rightsHuman rights refers to "the basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled, often held to include the right to life and liberty, freedom of thought and expression, and equality before the law."[1]
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."[2]


The idea of human rights descended from the philosophical idea of (natural rights) that are provided by God[3]; some recognize virtually no difference between the two and regard both as labels for the same thing while others choose to keep the terms separate to eliminate association with some features traditionally associated with natural rights.[4] John Locke is perhaps the most important philosopher that developed this theory.[5]

Numerous states, organizations, & groups are guilty of violating human rights.

As Lebanese, Lebanon would be the obvious example; many would argue that we have an ongoing de-facto slavery in Lebanon, highly based on skin color but not restricted to it.

Abuses of human rights exist in virtually all states, some just hide them better than others.
Think of the treatment of prisoners in Abu Ghreib or Guantanamo, most of whom have never been charged of any crime. The restrictions on free speech in most third world countries especially those with no truly democratic systems (China, Syria, Iran, etc..), the ethnic and religious discrimination in Israel.

Examples are not hard to find.

Solutions on the other hand are.
We can sit and accuse groups and states of human right abuses, but at the end of the day, unless we do something about those abuses, there is no reason for the offender to stop.

What can we as concerned individuals do to help stop human right abuses?

lebanesecanadian

And by popular demand, I think it's appropriate to highlight Zimbabwe as the first country in this thread as it has, under the iron rule of Mugabe, both a history of obscene human rights violations and even more disgusting fresh news from reuters:

Zibabwe's slaveryZIMBABWE: Slavery has been 'legalised' say rights advocates
18 Jun 2007 18

24 GMT
Source: IRIN

HARARE, 18 June 2007 (IRIN) - Slave wages and the deaths of about 10,000 Zimbabwean farmworkers as a consequence of the government's land-redistribution policy are some of issues highlighted by rights groups in a recent report published on the plight of the country's one million farmworkers.

The change from predominantly white farm owners to mainly black farmers brought about by the President Robert Mugabe's fast-track land reform programme, launched in 2000, had not improved the lot of farmworkers and was condemned by human rights lawyers in a recent statement, The Legitimisation of Contemporary Forms of Slavery - The Case of Farm Workers in Zimbabwe.

"Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights [ZLHR] joins like-minded Zimbabweans in condemning, in the strongest of terms, the treatment and conditions which Zimbabwean farm workers have had to, and continue to, endure," the ZLHR said.

It called on the government and farmers to "be cognisant of the harsh and ever-deteriorating economic environment present, and the need for the workers to survive," a sentiment echoed by the General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ).

"The main problem is that farmworkers have, for a long time, been treated with contempt by their employers. They are viewed as belonging to rural areas whose people do not need much money to subsist, but the bottom line is that they are workers just like those working in offices, and deserve the respect due to employees," GAPWUZ deputy secretary-general Gift Muti told IRIN.

Although GAPWUZ secured a wage hike in May this year, most farm owners kept paying their employees the old salaries. Under the new wage structures, the highest paid farm workers, timber plantation workers, should be paid a monthly wage of Z$300,000, (US$3.65 at the parallel market exchange rate of Z$82,000 to US$1), those in horticulture should be getting Z$200,000 (US$2.43), while general labourers involved in the production of maize and wheat should earn Z$96,000 (US$1.17) a month.

Less than a dollar a month wages

In terms of the old salary structure, which is still being adhered to, a general farm worker earned Z$30,000 (US$0.36) a month - enough to buy two loaves of bread at current prices - and far below the country's poverty datum line, estimated at Z$3.5 million (US$43).

Zimbabwe's seven-year recession has created an unemployment rate of 80 percent, and an annual inflation rate of more than 3,700 percent - the highest in the world.

Earlier this year farm workers and a joint parliamentary committee on agriculture and labour blamed the poor wages on the failure of GAPWUZ to sufficiently represent their interests.

Mulandu Bauleni, 44, who works on a maize and wheat farm in Mashonaland Central Province, told IRIN: "In the last three years, we have not been visited by any representatives of the unions and our views are never sought when negotiations are being carried out. I fail to understand how they can succeed in ensuring good wages for us when they don't understand the plight we have."

Bauleni said his two children were supposed to be in grade two and four respectively, but were no longer in school because he could not afford to buy their uniforms or pay the fees of Z$25,000 (US$0.30) per term. "Sometimes I think God has condemned us to a life of poverty. My parents were virtual slaves on white men's farms before the blacks took over. Now it seems worse for me, and I don't have any hope for my children or their own offspring getting out of the trap," said Bauleni, who was wearing tattered overalls, his only clothes. 'Life is getting worse' The farm Bauleni works on was taken over by a senior government official of the ruling ZANU-PF party in 2001. He is still living in a shack and the family survives on two meals of maizemeal porridge per day, sometimes supplemented by fish caught in the farm's dams or streams by his children. Bauleni said his employer had told them he would not adopt the May wage increases because of the drought. "But that is a lie. His crops are irrigated and the dam is half full, despite the poor rains. Besides, we have helped him get high maize and wheat yields, and there is evidence that he is getting lots of money from our sweat, since he has bought a new car and two tractors."

On a nearby farm, Joyce Muzondo, 30 and a single mother, said they worked long hours but were not paid overtime and sometimes went for months without receiving any wages.

The workers got no sick or maternity leave and many were leaving farms in search of better paying activities, such as illegal gold panning, beer brewing and prostitution.

Samual Rundori, a tobacco and maize farmer in Mashonaland Central Province, who was given 400 acres by the government in 2003, admitted that some new farmers were treating their workers like captives, but defended the low wages he was giving his employees.

"It should be realised that, as new farmers, we are operating under difficult conditions. Whereas the former commercial farmers had large pieces of land, our plots are smaller and we don't have adequate infrastructure for money-spinning farming," Rundori told IRIN.

"Besides, we are finding it difficult to access loans from banks that require us to produce collateral security, which we currently don't have, while at the same time we have to repay the government for the inputs it has been giving us."

The government began issuing 99-year leases in 2006 and said farmers would be able to use them as collateral, but most banks are rejecting them, arguing that the leases don't guarantee repayment in the event of default because the land remains state property.

10,000 farmworkers may have died

A report on human rights violations incurred between 2000 and 2005, Adding Insult to Injury, by the Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum and the Justice for Agriculture Trust, both non-governmental organisations, said the government's land-reform programme had cost the country billions of US dollars, and as many as 10,000 farmworkers may have died as a result of being displaced by farm invasions.

A survey examined 187 formerly white-owned commercial farms over a six-month period between 2006 and 2007, of which 94 percent had been parcelled out to new owners.

Researchers found that about one percent of displaced farmworkers and their family had died, which, if "extrapolated to the entire population of one million farmworkers and their families, 10,000 people could have died after displacement from the farms."

The report estimated that the total financial losses incurred by the commercial farming sector as a result of the land redistribution amounted to US$8.4 billion and that about 1 in 12 Zimbabweans had suffered at least one human rights violation, while "many experienced multiple abuses". The survey suggested that "a plausible case can be made for crimes against humanity having being committed during these displacements", and identified the perpetrators as war veterans, ZANU-PF members and police officers, as well as parliamentarians, officials from the presidency and other government representatives. "These finds point to an organised seizure of land planned by officials, not a spontaneous seizure carried out by landless blacks, as government claims," the report said.

Abufijli

As a start I think we should all realise that the fight against human rights violations in this world is based on superpower interests, there are exceptions to this rule.

For me to support governments or organisations in their quest for better humane treatment for the world population I need to see that their quest is in good faith and is not based on oil, power and $$$$, unfortuantely I do not ever see this happening on our current world. A good example is Zimbabwe, where human rights abuses is rife. Yet we do not see superpowers head over heels in spreading democracy, unlike their quest for Iraqi, Afghani and Iranian freedom.

I do not have faith in anybody to act fairly and objectively on this issue.

Abu Ruman

Abufijli

I'm glad the bugger committed suicide, he was there to take a photo and forgot all about his human side. Disgusting.

Abu Ruman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abufijli

I'm glad the bugger committed suicide, he was there to take a photo and forgot all about his human side. Disgusting.

I can only try to imagine the abyss of insanity he fell into.

Who wouldn't commit suicide after seeing such maliciousness.

Human beings truely are animals.

Mey

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abufijli

I'm glad the bugger committed suicide, he was there to take a photo and forgot all about his human side. Disgusting.

It was this photo that helped raise awareness, imagine how many people this photo has touched, the photographer has took us all there to see with our eyes the suffering of the people.

As for the subject, Human Rights MUST be adopted in every constitution, and any law in the constitution that violates Human Rights should be discarded.

Human Rights if applied are a solution to all the world problems.

However, as Abufijli said, it is being abused and used only for political purposes by super powers, however we as advocates of human rights must always fight to raise awareness on those basic rights.

Always correct people, always point out how they are violating the basic rights of other human beings by what they are advocating, it is by this that we raise awareness.

The Human Rights Charter must be read and understood by everyone, I take it as my own bible, and many others should.

If only you think about it this way, read every item and think hard about it, about its applications, about how far are we from the ideal world that this charter draws, and we will know how valuable it is.

Abu Ruman

Quote:

Exclusive: U.S. Troops Discover And Rescue Orphan Boys Left Starving, Chained To Beds

(CBS) It was a scene that shocked battle-hardened soldiers, captured in photographs obtained exclusively by CBS News.

On a daytime patrol in central Baghdad just over than a week ago, a U.S. military advisory team and Iraqi soldiers happened to look over a wall and found something horrific.

"They saw multiple bodies laying on the floor of the facility," Staff Sgt. Mitchell Gibson of the 82nd Airborne Division told CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan. "They thought they were all dead, so they threw a basketball (to) try and get some attention, and actually one of the kids lifted up their head, tilted it over and just looked and then went back down. And they said, 'oh, they're alive' and so they went into the building."

Inside the building, a government-run orphanage for special needs children, the soldiers found more emaciated little bodies tied to the cribs. They had been kept this way for more than a month, according to the soldiers called in to rescue the 24 boys.

"I saw children that you could see literally every bone in their body that were so skinny, they had no energy to move whatsoever, no expression on their face," Staff Sgt. Michael Beale said....(continues here)

Stella

This is going to be the saddest thread I see, however it is a great occassion to raise awareness and uncover here some countries/regimes which constantly abuse human rights, and oppress their people. I will try to gather something about North Korea.

However as a note to Abufijli, do not trust the governments, you are wise if you do so, but do trust and appreciate the work of the human rights activists/individuals/NGOs worldwide who are working hardly to make this world a more better and just place.

Abufijli

A child detained at Guantanmo Bay...

Quote:

Who are the Guantánamo detainees?

Canadian national: Omar Khadr
Full name: Omar Khadr
Nationality: Canadian
Age: 19

"Young enemy combatants are treated in a manner appropriate to their age and status." Letter from Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Butler to Amnesty International, July 2003.

Omar Khadr was taken into US custody when he was 15 years old. The US government has said that all detainees are "treated in a manner appropriate to their age and status". If this is true, then the case of Omar Khadr indicates that an "appropriate manner" involves torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment as well as denial of any form of justice.

Perhaps because the USA is one of only two states that have not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which recognizes that children need special safeguards and care, it feels free to trample on the human rights of juveniles in its "war on terror".

Omar Khadr is one of at least four and possibly nine of the current Guantánamo Bay detainees who were aged under 18 when detained. In April 2003 the US authorities revealed that children as young as 13 were detained in the prison. Reports of torture and attempted suicide by juvenile detainees undermine the claim by US authorities that they are receiving "special emotional and physical care". Contrary to international standards the Pentagon has defined child detainees as those aged under 16, rather than under 18.

Lieutenant Corporal Johnson, a spokesperson for the US military, stated in 2003 that, "until we ensure that they're no longer a threat, that there’s no pending law enforcement against them, that they’re no longer of intelligence value", the children would continue to be held.

Coninue: http://news.amnesty.org/pages/torture-case8-eng