Full Coverage: Human rights

31.03.2004 BREMEN, Mar 31 (CSM) -- The impersonal white postcards bearing the return address "Camp X-Ray" stopped arriving more than a year ago. Rabiye Kurnaz took little comfort from the short, vague messages she received from her son, who has been a detainee at the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay for nearly two years, but they let her know he was alive.

31.03.2004

© Radio Netherlands

The Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday over a legal remedy known as ATCA (Alien Tort Claims Act) that allows non-Americans to sue those who have violated their rights at home in American courts. ATCA has been around as long as the United States, but the Bush administration is trying to get rid of it. Learn more.

31.03.2004 The UN Human Rights Committee declared this week that countries cannot use offshore facilities like Guantanamo to evade responsibility for human rights violations. "The Bush administration's trick of detaining people at Guantanamo won't work under international law," said Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth.

31.03.2004 Around 800 tea garden workers have died of starvation, with several surviving on wild roots and rats in the Indian state of West Bengal, where the closure of uneconomic plantations has rendered a million laborers jobless, says a rights group.

31.03.2004 Amnesty International has criticised India for using excessive force during a protest march held by the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons in the north Indian city of Srinagar, located in Jammu and Kashmir.

31.03.2004 An east India-based NGO, which works on social justice, human rights, food security, natural resource management, child rights and development alternatives seeks donations for these projects.

30.03.2004 Os 40 anos do golpe propiciaram um panorama ideológico variado, através da ótica retrospectiva de cada um. Olha-se para trás sempre a partir do presente e muitas visões – especialmente as dos que mudaram radicalmente de posição – falam muito mais do que as pessoas são hoje do que do tempo a que pretendem se referir.

30.03.2004 During his visit to Washington, Colombian president Álvaro Uribe is seeking continued U.S. investment in Plan Colombia and assurances of U.S.-backing for "Plan Colombia II." President Uribe is promoting his controversial plan to demobilize illegal paramilitary groups and highlighting recent reductions in the cultivation of coca.

30.03.2004 En 2002 et en 2003, le Canada a été le seul des 53 pays membres de la Commission des droits de l'homme de l'ONU à voter contre la reconnaissance du droit humain à l'eau. Le 22 mars, quatre ONG canadiennes, dont le Conseil des Canadiens, se sont réunies sur la colline parlementaire à l'occasion de la Journée mondiale de l’eau afin de contester cette position du gouvernement canadien.

30.03.2004 It is general knowledge that economic and social rights are preconditions for exercising civil and political rights. If one cannot survive with its income, it is much harder for them to resist pressures on him regarding ways of achieving civil and political rights. Such a person is focused on generation of income to fulfill basic needs and lacks motivation to reach rational political and civil decision on the basis of appropriate information. This is even more severe if those that provide him with income use different forms of pressures on his decision-making.

30.03.2004 'I share your dream of a Middle East replete with democracy and human rights for all,' writes a prominent Palestinian doctor to President Bush in Grassroots' Online Journal, 'but why not set a better example?'

30.03.2004 Children as young as 7 and 8 are going missing in large numbers throughout Afghanistan, and no one is sure how many or where they are going. Agencies concerned with children surmise that some are being abducted as slave laborers or beggars, while others are being used to ferry drugs across borders.

30.03.2004 The European Union’s proposal for a common European asylum system violates international human rights, according to a group of leading NGOs. Refugee and human rights organisations across Europe are jointly calling on the EU to scrap one of the key elements leading to the proposed system.

29.03.2004 Alors que s'ouvre au Congrès colombien le débat sur la nouvelle loi anti-terroriste, Amnesty International met en garde contre l'effet d'affaiblissement des droits humains et de la règle de droit que pourraient entraîner en Colombie les mesures proposées.

29.03.2004 WASHINGTON, D.C., Mar 29 (OneWorld) - On the eve of a meeting this week of Afghanistan's major international donors, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) active in the war-battered country are calling on wealthy countries to devote more attention to human rights, security, and the growing threat posed by opium production.

29.03.2004 En 2003 au Canada, les femmes représentaient près des deux tiers des personnes qui travaillent au salaire minimum, alors qu'elles constituaient un peu moins de la moitié de l'ensemble des employés. D'après Statistique Canada, une femme sur 20 travaillait au salaire minimum, contre un homme sur 35.

29.03.2004 At the end of the two-day Global Forum on Internet Governance, it was agreed that the current system seems to be working well, but the question was how to better coordinate the work of specialised bodies and ensure the involvement of all stakeholders.

26.03.2004

Afghan schoolroom

Two years of (often misdirected) aid is not enough to transform a failed state into a viable government, argues this measured analysis of progress and weaknesses in the nation-building exercise in Afghanistan, in the run-up to next week’s donor meeting in Bonn, Germany. Amnesty International makes similar arguments in a letter sent today to all donors.

26.03.2004 A gathering of civil society groups from around the world heard Zimbabwean groups complain that African governments and regional organizations are not speaking up loudly enough about the political situation in their country, as well as sharp criticisms of World Bank development formulas.

26.03.2004 « Combien de femmes doivent mourir à Vancouver avant que le Premier ministre prenne action ? Combien de fois va-t-on tolérer l'impunité pour le viol et le meurtre de jeunes femmes comme Pamela George ? Le gouvernement fédéral va-t-il ignorer longtemps le meurtre d'Anna Mae Pictou Aquash ? Avec le budget proposé en mars 2004, le gouvernement Martin se complait dans l'inaction et la négligence », affirme Patti Doyle Bedwell, présidente du Groupe de travail sur les femmes autochtones de l'Association nationale des femmes et du droit (ANFD).