Not to endorse everything he says, but the ending is particularly good, and while I think increasing global governance (yes, “One World Government”) is ultimately the only way to ensure peace and human rights to a globalized One World Economy, I’m fine being wrong if something like this can do a good enough job:
On all continents individuals and their families are forced to flee their homes on account of their sexual orientation or gender identity. While all refugees are vulnerable, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) refugees face particular challenges in accessing assistance and asylum procedures. They also experience instances of violence as a cause of flight or while in countries of first asylum. Human Rights First (HRF) highlighted many of these challenges earlier this month in a policy paper presented at a Roundtable discussion convened by the UN Refugee Agency – UNHCR – on Asylum Seekers and Refugees Seeking Protection on Account of their Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. HRF’s paper includes a comprehensive set of recommendations directed at UNHCR and States.
Human Rights First welcomes the statements issued after the Roundtable by the U.S. Department of State and UNHCR on the need to improve protection of LGBTI refugees.
In its statement, UNHCR recognized that laws which criminalize same-sex relations in many countries – whether they are enforced or not – pose difficulties for LGBTI refugees, and that these refugees face heightened risks of discrimination in urban settings and refugee camps. In response to these concerns, UNHCR stated it will revise its policies to recognize the particular vulnerabilities of LGBTI refugees, dangers that exist at every stage of the displacement cycle. UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Ms. Erika Feller, also reiterated UNHCR’s commitment to undertake this task during the Agency’s Executive Committee meeting held last week in Geneva. Similarly, UNHCR called upon states to recognize the needs of people persecuted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The United States welcomed UNHCR’s efforts in this area and acknowledged that LGBT individuals “face serious threats in countries of asylum, where they may be isolated and reluctant to seek help.” The U.S. went on to positively affirm that “ensuring LGBT refugees receive the protection and assistance to which all refugees are entitled is a priority.” In addition, it stated its commitment to support UNHCR as it integrates LGBT issues into its protection policies and tools, including the Age, Gender and Diversity Framework. This is used by UNHCR and its partners to identify priority needs and corresponding responses.
These statements are consistent with a number of recommendations put forward by HRF in its policy paper presented at the UNHCR Roundtable. The paper, and Human Rights First’s related press release, urges that LGBTI refugees be recognized by UNHCR as persons with specific needs, and that UNHCR issue practical guidance to ensure LGBTI refugees are able to access services, support and asylum procedures on the basis of equality and with dignity. Many of these points also follow recommendations presented by a number of refugee protection and gay rights groups to the U.S. Secretary of State in March.
What happened in Geneva this month was a significant step forward in the effort to better protect and serve the needs of LGBTI refugees, but more work is needed to ensure implementation of reforms on the ground. In the coming months, HRF will continue to both monitor progress toward this end and will continue to advocate for safeguards to protect LGBTI refugees.
The first trial of a former Guantanamo detainee in a U.S. federal court began in New York City this week. With jury selection completed, opening arguments will begin Monday for Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani.
I went to the jury questioning and it was just another day at court, with a second terrorism trial happening next door. Outside the courthouse, there were no protests or demonstrations along the lines of what was staged by groups like Liz Cheney’s Keep America Safe last December after the Obama administration announced it would try the September 11 co-conspirators in a New York federal court. In fact, Cheney and Co. were bizarrely quiet about this trial.
Human Rights First staff interviewed New Yorkers on the street in front of the courthouse while proceedings began. The overwhelming response was nonchalance, or confidence. Far from the nightmare scenarios predicted by those who oppose civilian trials for the 9/11 defendants. Watch the video released yesterday:
If you didn’t already know the trial was going on, you’d never know that anything was different at all in the Southern District of New York courthouse and in the immediate vicinity. Sure, security was tight, but it always is. Observers had to pass through the usual metal detectors and check in their cell phones. It was business as usual.
In fact, although most New Yorkers don’t realize it, there are now two major terrorism trials going on in the downtown Manhattan courthouse. In addition to Ghailani’s, there’s the case of four men charged with planting what they thought were bombs outside two Bronx synagogues, and planning to fire missiles at military planes. That trial, which hinges on the role of a government informant, has been going on for five weeks now without any safety incidents.
As this trial gets underway, you have to wonder what all the fuss was about. Civilian courts have convicted 400 terrorists since 9/11. Military commissions, 4. The trial itself has caused no disruption in lower Manhattan and is running smoothly.
I will be headed to Guantánamo later this month to witness the military commissions trial of Omar Khadr. Instead of taking the subway to the proceedings, I’ll be flown down and escorted by U.S. government officials to a facility that has cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build and an additional $125 million every year to maintain. This doesn’t seem to add up.
Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; and pure love without power is destroyed.
Reinhold Niebuhr
I’ve commented before (http://oneutah.org/2009/08/14/thoughts-on-leadership-a-flawed-process-undermines-the-outcomes/, http://oneutah.org/2009/09/07/…http://oneutah.org/2009/12/20/… and http://oneutah.org/2010/07/25/… about Adam Kahane’s writing and ideas. Kahane is one of many people working on creating better models for public deliberation. His approach – grounded actually in corporate processes – asks us to engage in creating scenarios for social change; those scenarios must begin with present reality and can go in many directions from that. He describes using this approach in a variety of settings, applying insights from other authors like Joseph Jaworski and Otto Schwarmer.
This weekend’s New York Times article was a wake up call to Microsoft and the entire Information and communications technology industry about the dangers of complying with government actions aimed at limiting freedom of expression and stifling dissent.
To date, the most publicized repression has been censoring web content or surveillance of Internet users. The Russians took a different tack, using anti piracy laws to crack down on independent non-governmental organizations and non-violent government critics. Microsoft has a vested interest in anti piracy enforcement – piracy is rampant in Russia. But targeting human rights activists and news organizations for enforcement is clearly aimed not at protecting Microsoft’s intellectual property, but at crippling political opponents and curbing basic freedoms. And Microsoft’s representatives in Russia cooperated in those proceedings, providing the legal pretext and evidentiary basis for raids, criminal and civil charges and penalties that effectively closed down the targeted organizations.
One of our human rights colleagues in Russia was a victim of this practice, and we reached out to Microsoft to try to find a solution, both to this specific case and to the wider pattern of abusive enforcement over the past several years. Microsoft’s recently announced policies to address several of these concerns.
Importantly, Microsoft will undertake an independent investigation of its Russian anti piracy team and its role in collaborating with Russian authorities. We encourage Microsoft to ensure that the individuals and civil society groups targeted for selective enforcement are interviewed as part of this review. We have also recommended that Microsoft maintain headquarters level oversight of its Russian anti piracy efforts to ensure that its responses to future Russian anti piracy investigations do not facilitate repression. As our letter to Microsoft CEO Steven Ballmer points out, and as our Russian colleagues have cautioned, local representatives will likely remain vulnerable to pressure from Russian authorities to collaborate in politically motivated proceedings.
Our Russian human rights colleagues would welcome a working relationship with Microsoft. As defendants in these cases, and targets of potential abuse, they are well positioned to advise on risks and development of new policies. Microsoft should make every effort to consult with them as it develops new practices and procedures to respond to the concerns. The Global Network Initiative can also play an important role in helping Microsoft and other companies at risk to develop strategies to address government abuse of intellectual property laws to curb dissent, and to respond to such demands appropriately.
We welcome Microsoft’s commitment to extend access to its free software problem. But as the New York Times story makes clear, without Microsoft’s continuing leadership and engagement, civil society will remain at risk of selective prosecution. We have recommended that Microsoft join with Human Rights First to host consultations with Russian civil society for the purpose of obtaining their insights on the best way forward.
Two years ago, Human Rights First joined with Microsoft and other stakeholders to launch the Global Network Initiative. We believed that companies could not “go it alone” in confronting government demands to curb online speech. Russia is not alone in using technology and selective prosecutions to crack down on civil society. We now know that these threats can come from many places, and that companies need to work in partnership with civil society to address them.
Opposition is mounting to the “Burn a Koran Day” scheduled for September 11th in Florida. President Obama today condemned the event, urging Pastor Terry Jones to cancel. General David Petraeus said it could harm our troops, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called it unrepresentative of Americans. Attorney General Eric Holder called it “idiotic and dangerous,” and the Vatican has called the planned demonstration “outrageous and grave.”
Condemning this event is a start, but it’s critical that we don’t lose sight of the big picture. There have been too many incidents of vandalism and anti-Muslim activity in recent days all over the country.
We need our leaders to speak out against ALL of the anti-Muslim rhetoric that is pervading our political discourse. Former President George W. Bush and members of his administration spoke out for tolerance and freedom of religion during his presidency.
They could make a difference by speaking out now. Will they?
Human Rights First launched an open letter to former President Bush last week. Here’s what we-and over 9,000 of our supporters-have to ask of the former president:
Dear President Bush,
During your presidency, you stood up repeatedly against bigotry and hate and urged all Americans to do the same.
In 2002, you said, “America rejects bigotry. We reject every act of hatred against people of Arab background or Muslim faith. America values and welcomes peaceful people of all faiths-Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, and many others. Every faith is practiced and protected here, because we are one country.”
Thank you for your leadership and your principled opposition to bigotry.
Right now, there’s a dangerous wave of intolerance sweeping the country. It began with the debate over the “Ground Zero Mosque,” but it is no longer only about an Islamic center in Manhattan. There are anti-mosque rallies taking place around the country, reports of arson and gun shots at a mosque in Tennessee, the Internet is filled with bigoted speech, and a church in Florida is planning a Koran burning on September 11th.
To stem this tide, people must speak out in favor of the American values of tolerance, diversity, and religious freedom. Your words will have added weight.
Please lend your voice to the defense of American values.
Last week, the United States government transferred an Algerian national, imprisoned for the last eight years at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, back to his home country.
Normally, such transfers are a cause for celebration by the prisoners involved. But the reaction of 35-year-old Abdul Aziz Naji was markedly different: he was terrified. That’s in part because the Algerian government has a bad track record for its treatment of anyone arrested on “security grounds.” In fact, the U.S. State Department reports that in such cases, Algerian authorities still use torture to elicit confessions. A recent decision from the European Court of Human Rights reached the same conclusion, blocking a transfer to Algeria from France.
Naji also argued that he was afraid of local fundamentalist groups terrorizing him into fighting for their cause. In fact, he’d fled Algeria as a teenager precisely because he’d been attacked by extremists. As a result, Naji begged the U.S. government to allow him to remain in prison at Guantanamo rather than be returned to Algeria. But the U.S. government ignored that; it sent him to Algeria anyway.
Although Naji is now back home, reportedly under Algerian government surveillance, there are still another five Algerians left at Guantanamo Bay who are afraid to return home due to fear of mistreatment. Still other prisoners, from countries such as Tajikistan and Morrocco, have similar fears. And terror suspects arrested by U.S. authorities and sent to another country for interrogation and prosecution, under current U.S. rendition policy, face a similar risk.
The U.S. government’s actions in Naji’s case don’t bode well for any of them.
Under international law, the United States isn’t supposed to transfer anyone to a country where they’re likely to face torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. That’s exactly what Naji fears will happen to him if he’s arrested in Algeria. But he did not get an opportunity to make his case to any sort of neutral U.S. arbiter. Although the Obama administration said that the Algerian government had promised not to torture Mr. Naji upon his return, Naji never got a chance to explain why he’s skeptical of that promise, and why he’s still afraid.
Unfortunately, despite the requirements of the international Convention Against Torture, Naji’s treatment complies with official U.S. policy. U.S. officials have insisted that they can send a prisoner or terror suspect to a country that’s known to torture prisoners so long as that country provides “diplomatic assurances” — essentially, an official promise — that the person will be treated fairly. Perhaps the U.S. obtained such a promise from authorities in Algeria. But what are these “diplomatic assurances” worth?
As the United Nations and many other international experts have recognized, not much. According to Manfred Nowak, the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on torture, “diplomatic assurances are unreliable and ineffective in the protection against torture and ill-treatment and such assurances,” and are usually sought “from States where the practice of torture is systematic.” They’re also not legally binding.
Thus Maher Arar, for example, a Canadian terror suspect (who turned out to be innocent) rendered to Syria by the Bush administration, was brutally tortured under interrogation there, despite “diplomatic assurances” provided to U.S. authorities by the Syrian government.
Nowak and Martin Scheinin, the U.N. Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism, last week protested the United States’ return of Naji to Algeria.
Although Naji was never charged, tried or convicted of anything by the United States, his imprisonment for the last eight years, supposedly on security grounds, suggests he’s likely to be a target of interest to the Algerian authorities.
Indeed, after he was returned home on July 18, his lawyers reported that he had disappeared. He was presumably held and interrogated in secret detention by Algerian security forces.
Then on Monday, Reuters reported that he’d been returned home and was “resting.” An Algerian prosecutor said he’d been treated lawfully.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that Naji had been indicted on terrorism-related charges and placed under “judicial supervision.”
Whatever Naji’s status is now, it could change at any time. Even though the U.S. never charged him with anything, Algerian authorities could go a different route. Or they could detain him for questioning and torture him in prison. Now that the United States has released him, it no longer has any authority to determine his treatment.
But the U.S. doesn’t have to follow suit for the other Algerian detainees still imprisoned without charge at Guantanamo, who similarly face repatriation against their will. Human Rights First has called on the Obama administration to back up its professed commitment against torture by systematically providing a hearing before a neutral arbiter before returning anyone in U.S. custody to a country where he fears persecution. The United States should stop relying on the “diplomatic assurances” that have proved utterly ineffective in the past.
Mark Penn has published a fairly interesting set of polling around the views of Americans on various constitutional questions (Poll slide show here).
In his write up at HuffPo, Penn writes the following bit of alarming interpretation on two questions in the poll:
In another contentious area, respondents rank protecting national security as slightly more important than protecting civil liberties by a margin of 44 to 39. And while 31 percent disagree, 56 percent of Americans can see circumstances in which the police should be allowed to violate civil liberties for national security — giving support for the so-called ticking time bomb exception when extraordinary means might be sanctioned to secure needed information.
Wait, what? Now, torturing someone is a violation of their civil liberties, but there are a lot of civil liberties violations that are significantly less severe than torture, and this strikes me as (at minimum) an extremely sloppy polling question on which to base an inference like Penn makes.
On Monday, Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) announced she would not support foreign aid for Afghanistan until she was assured that the Afghan government had put an end to corruption.
“I do not intend to appropriate one more dime for assistance to Afghanistan until I have confidence that U.S. taxpayer money is not being abused to line the pockets of corrupt Afghan government officials, drug lords, and terrorists,” said Lowey, who heads the House State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee. Lowey was responding to recent reports that more than $1 billion a year are flowing out of Afghanistan to elite Afghans outside the country, and that Afghan authorities have derailed corruption investigations of politically powerful Afghans.
Lowey’s statement is an understandable expression of frustration. But cutting off foreign aid now is absolutely the wrong approach for the United States to take in Afghanistan.
After several visits to Afghanistan in the last few years, Human Rights First issued recommendations to the Obama administration last year specifically recommending that the United States help train Afghan investigators on evidence collection and documentation and help Afghan prosecutors provide fair prosecutions. Current plans do just that, in addition to working with Afghan officials on improving their own detention facilities and their judiciary.
Lowey’s frustration is understandable, not only because of the Washington Post‘s recent news stories, but also because of this report prepared for the State Department last year that reviewed a broad range of Afghan institutions and concluded that corruption is rampant and growing. Not surprisingly, thirty years of war has undermined the development of reliable and legitimate institutions, and of a judicial system able to keep corruption in check. But to keep Afghanistan from returning to Taliban rule or simply descending into chaos, the United States has an obligation to help the Afghan government develop and enforce laws that reduce corruption and improve government transparency. Given the recent reports that Afghanistan has some $3 trillion worth of natural resources it’s eager to exploit, transparency will be critical to make sure the proceeds of those riches don’t just get shipped out of Afghanistan like the billion dollars a year flying out of there now.
Although our NATO allies should and will be helping in this effort, the necessary “nation-building” isn’t going to happen unless the United States commits to funding carefully-targeted programs designed to improve governance and reduce corruption. Continued funding can be made contingent on the acceptance and participation of Afghan leaders and institutions with this anti-corruption agenda.
Lowey is right that US aid to Afghanistan should be spent wisely, and not indirectly fund warlordsto provide security or corrupt officials to spread as graft. But the State Department and the military’s Joint Task Force in charge of detention facilities in Afghanistan are just beginning their work to improve local government enough to allow the U.S. military to transition out of there. Cutting off the funding that will allow that to happen would not only undermine the development of legitimate government institutions in Afghanistan, but would make the United States’ goal of eventually leaving the country that much more elusive.
Last week, YouTube partnered with WITNESS, an international group that uses video to promote human rights, to begin a series of blog posts that will demonstrate and explore how film has become an integral facet of the worldwide human rights initiative.
Last week Saturday’s blog post kicked off the start of the series, and featured the full-length version of “For Neda,” a documentary on citizen reporting. The title of the documentary is a reference to Neda Agha Soltan, the young Iranian woman whose death by a sniper during the 2009 Iranian election protests was captured on camera and quickly distributed across the internet.
First, on Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee passed a bill to stop the Obama administration from purchasing a new prison that could house detainees now at the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay under lock and key here in the United States.
Then on Friday, just as the Memorial Day weekend got underway, the House of Representatives voted to stop the president from transferring any of the Guantanamo detainees to the United States for any reason – including a trial.
But then on Saturday, the Washington Post reported that actually, only about 10 percent of the 240 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay when President Obama took office were “leaders, operatives and facilitators involved in plots against the United States.” The majority were merely low-level fighters. About 5 percent of the prisoners couldn't be categorized as anything at all.
The report was based on the findings of the administration's Guantanamo Review Task Force, provided to the administration last January. Those findings were never released publicly, and only sent to select committees on Capitol Hill last week. The administration reportedly didn't share the information earlier because, in the wake of the failed Christmas-day bombing attempt, members of Congress had displayed little to no interest in closing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
Last week's events reveal that many members of Congress continue to show little interest in the real facts about Guantanamo and the detainees held there. How else to explain the stubborn refusal to allow any of them to touch United States soil, even to stand trial, regardless of whether there's any reason to believe that they're actually terrorists?
The Obama administration's task force that deemed most of them low-level foot soldiers was made up of more than 60 career professionals — including intelligence analysts, law enforcement agents and prosecutors. They reviewed capture information, interview reports, CIA, FBI and NSA records, as well as files on the detainees' behavior since their imprisonment. Notably, the Bush administration hadn't even bothered to look at much of this evidence, the task force reported, so last year was the first time it had been systematically compiled and reviewed. Senior officials from six different agencies, including the defense department and Homeland Security, approved the task force's findings.
Still, that seems to be having little impact on the 282 lawmakers who voted to ban them all from coming to the U.S. for trial. Many persist in portraying all of the 180 remaining detainees as “the worst of the worst,” as former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld called them.
“We can't stop every terrorist from coming to the United States but we can stop the ones that are coming from Guantanamo,” said Rep. Randy J. Forbes, the Virginia Republican who offered the House amendment prohibiting the movement of detainees to the United States.
Meanwhile, a long list of retired military leaders have said that keeping the Guantanamo Bay detention center open threatens national security, rather than improving it.
While members of Congress blow hot air about threats they imagine from suspected terrorists confined in Supermax prisons on U.S. soil, they continue to ignore some very real national security dangers that they have the ability to do something about. As the New York Times pointed out over the weekend, Congress has failed to streamline its oversight of national intelligence and refused to prohibit or even adequately regulate companies' use of toxic gases that could easily be weaponized by terrorists for use in a future attack.
It's high time for lawmakers to stop posturing around imaginary threats, which prevents the federal government from bringing actual terrorists to justice and releasing those who don't deserve to be in prison. That – coupled with tackling tangible threats to homeland security that loom right here in our own country – would be the real way to enhance U.S. national security.
The White House is calling the maneuver "a multi-layered effort to target illicit networks trafficking in people, drugs, illegal weapons and money.” But in practice, beefing up border enforcement under existing federal programs has only drained our government resources, has put into serious jeopardy our commitment to due process under the law, and has presented serious human rights implications.
For example, Operation Streamline, an existing Department of Homeland Security program, was instituted in 2005, and mandates the federal criminal prosecution and imprisonment of all people who cross the U.S.-Mexico border unlawfully.
On April 12, Eduard Chuvashov, a federal judge of the Russian Federation was gunned down in front of his apartment building in Moscow in a contract-style killing. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev denounced the killing as “cynical” and vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice. Police officials stated that the murder may have been an act of retribution for the sentences Judge Chuvashov handed down against neo-Nazi skinheads convicted in violent hate crimes that targeted Russian minorities.
Mossville, Louisiana is an historic African American community in the southwest part of the state. Like too many similar communities around the country, it is surrounded by 14 industrial facilities that release millions of pounds of toxic chemicals annually. Mossville residents point to studies by governmental and private sources linking the pollution from these facilities to their exposure to dioxins, noxious odors, and unhealthy air and water quality throughout the community. And they have documented how the burdens of toxic pollution and environmental hazards are disproportionately visited upon Louisiana communities that share their racial complexion.
A safe and healthy environment and freedom from discrimination are basic human rights that everyone should enjoy and that all governments should protect. Yet Mossville residents’ efforts to seek relief from their government-both state and federal-have yielded only excuses and inaction.
