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ISSUES & FORUMS
Human Rights Issues:
Human Rights convenants were written and implemented in the aftermath of the Holocaust and the revelations coming from the Nuremberg war crimes trials, the Bataan Death March, the atomic bomb, and the other horror stories from across the globe. A whole lot of people in a number of countries had a crisis of conscience and found they could no longer look the other way while tyrants jailed, tortured, and killed their neighbors.
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." -- Albert Einstein
US Quietly Breaks UN Treaty
By Leslie Griffith
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
On Friday, at a United Nations meeting in Geneva, the United States broke a series of legal promises. Keeping those promises would have proved extremely embarrassing to the United States government by pointing out that human rights abuses are being committed here at home and at US military installations abroad.
In 1994, the United States Senate ratified the International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination Against Women, promising to provide reports every two years on racial discrimination in the United States. The reports were to include anywhere in the world where the US military is in charge. In other words, the United States military, no matter where it was on the globe, agreed to report discrimination. That now includes Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.
The treaty is the "supreme law of the land" under the US Constitution, article 6, clause 2. Every nation that signed the treaty (one hundred seventy-seven) was charged with giving a national report on such basic areas of discrimination as health care, education and prison terms. According to the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute and the National Lawyer's Guild, the United States on Friday presented a "Shadow" report to the United Nations Committee, never mentioning Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo or the behavior of US corporations working under US military contracts.
Instead, US officials presented facts on the federal level explaining (for instance) how much money was given to education, how much money was supplied to prisons, etc. Only four states: Oregon, Illinois, New Mexico and South Carolina, were mentioned, and officials in those states who were contacted by local activists say they never received any phone calls of inquiry by government officials.
At least one hundred human rights groups were represented in Geneva on Friday, anxious to hear what the government had to say about racism here at home and abroad.
According to the founder of the Meiklejohn Institute, Ann Fagan Ginger, her organization's independent report - also delivered in Geneva on Friday - provides statistics on racism toward Katrina victims, as well as discrepancies in life expectancy and other health care problems among African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Native Americans. In regard to US military interrogation centers, Wayne County [Michigan] Circuit Court Judge Claudia Morcom, (retired) representing the Meiklejohn Institute, told UN officials in Geneva what the world now knows.
The basic racism practiced by the US military in both Abu Ghraib and in the detention centers of Guantanamo includes torture, degradation and illegal detention of hundreds of prisoners in these two facilities, based on race, nationality, ethnicity and religions of those arrested.
Meiklejohn founder, attorney Ann Fagan Ginger, wrote, "There is no way any US citizen will be safe, even if Caucasian and native born, if the United States government can treat human beings as the US military has treated the men it sent to those two facilities."
If only someone were listening.
To view report: http://www.mcli.org/MCLI_Report_to_CERD.pdf
Action Report:
"Workers Rights are Human Rights"
Organized by QC Federation of Labor and PACG
On December 10th, on a cold Saturday morning, approximately 80 people turned out for this event at the Laborer's Hall in Rock Island in commemoration of the 58th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The many co-sponsors of this event included ACLU, NAACP - Dav and RI Chapters, PAX Christi, Churches United, Davenport Civil Rights Commission, LULAC Council 10, Working Families Win, QC NOW, QCI, SAU Amnesty Int'l, and the Scott County Democrats. The 30 articles on Human Rights were posted for all to see.
Speakers included local legislators, community leaders and individual workers who shared personal testimony as well as proposed policy surrounding the issue of workers rights as it pertains to the 23rd article on Human Rights. Our own Dick Fallow facilitated this event.
Three of the television stations (4, 6 and 8) covered the entire event which ran over 45 minutes and yet we still managed to collect almost 50 hand-written letters which called on federal legislators to support the Employee Free Choice Act. Thank you Amanda Elkins and Amnesty Int'l for facilitating the letter writing action.
Thank you to everyone who particpated in this event! Your contributions were invaluable!
A special thanks to Melissa Peterson for her dedication and hard work in making this a first class community event, and thank you to the QC Fed for sponsoring it!
"Human rights are our common heritage and their realization depends on the contributions that each and every one of us is willing to make, individually and collectively, now and in the future."
-- Louise Arbour, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
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