Human Rights

Howdy! This is my page dedicated to links and information on human rights issues the world over. If you're interested, you might also want to visit my Tibet page.

Amnesty International USA - Founded in London in 1961, Amnesty International is a Nobel Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with over one million members worldwide. Amnesty International is dedicated to freeing prisoners of conscience, gaining fair trials for political prisoners, ending torture, political killings and "disappearances," and abolishing the death penalty throughout the world.

I send AI $12 a month to help Amnesty work to free Prisoners of Conscience; people who have been imprisoned by the governments (that are supposed to represent them) for speaking out. Prisoners like Ngawang Sangdrol, who was just released after serving 10 years of a 23-year sentence for singing Tibetan Independence songs. (For more information on Tibet, see my Tibet page).

"The Bush administration has sacrificed human rights in the name of national security far too often since the horrific attacks of Sept. 11. By suggesting in word and deed, as Attorney General John Ashcroft has done repeatedly, that national security may require compromises on human rights here at home, the U.S. government has diminished its moral authority to criticize blatant human-rights transgressions by allies, including those who might be responsive to U.S. pressure to improve their human-rights records."
--William F. Schultz, Excutive Director of
Amnesty International USA

Foreign Policy in Focus' page on Human Rights; lots of really good reports on situations around the globe, including a nice report (a little dated though) on the sources of the Sri Lankan conflict. Also, check out How to Debate China without China Bashing.

Human Rights Watch - one of the most successful international human rights organizations in the world, HRW is currently pursuing campaigns to establish the ICC (International Criminal Court) to try war criminals, pushing for legislation to ban the use of child soldiers, and researching the circumstances surrounding the atrocities in Chechnya and Kosovo. I just bought their book documented human rights abuses in Tibet, Tibet since 1950: Silence, Prison, or Exile.

"Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment in all circumstances because of its cruel and inhumane nature. The cornerstone of human rights is respect for the inherent dignity of all human beings and the inviolability of the human person. These principles cannot be reconciled with the death penalty, a form of punishment that is unique in its barbarity and finality."

School of the Americas Watch - SOA Watch is an independent organization that seeks to close the US Army School of the Americas, under whatever name it is called, through vigils and fasts, demonstrations and nonviolent protest, as well as media and legislative work. The US Army School of Americas (SOA, renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC) in January of 2001), based in Fort Benning, Georgia, trains Latin American soldiers in combat, counter-insurgency, and counter-narcotics. Graduates of the SOA are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America./p>

Random thoughts - someone's homepage, where i fought a poem lamenting the sorrows of war and a link to a Gore Vidal essay on the juxtaposition of modern humanism (post enlightenment) and homicidal violence:

"Most of the world today is governed by Caesars. Men and more and more treated as things. Torture is ubiquitous. And, as Sartre wrote in his preface to Henri Alleg's chilling book about Algeria, "Anyone, at any time, may equally find himself victim or executioner." Suetonius, in holding up a mirror to those Caesars of diverting legend, reflects not only them but ourselves: half-tempted creatures, whose great moral task it is to hold in balance the angel and the monster within -- for we are both, and to ignore this duality is to invite disaster."
--Gore Vidal

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