Human Rights for All
An umbrella group for human rights activists at Lose the Label.
FRIDAY: National Day of Student Action for Burma
The U.S. Campaign for Burma is organizing a day of action for this Friday. Here's the description:
We are asking every student in the country to organize their campus this Friday, October 5th in support of the people of Burma!
Wear a red shirt, organize speakers, booths with information, concerts- whatever you want this Friday to show support for the half a million peaceful protesters in Burma (Myanmar), a country in Southeast Asia ruled by a ruthless military regime. Burma’s monks, who wear red and maroon colored robes, have led the protests this past week.
Monday Open Thread
- Burma --- just chilling. Unrest continues. Clampdown continues. Here's hoping they overthrow. What a sorry excuse for a government.
- Speaking of sorry excuses for government, Zimbabwe is running out of bread.
- And we have a triple --- Vladmir Putin announces he may become "premier" when his term as "president" ends.
Hmmmmmmmm....remember when Bush said "freedom is on the march"?
Thursday Open Thread
- 9 killed in Myanmar today. This article provides some background on why the country is so backward economically and politically.
- Democratic presidential debate yesterday.
- Bipartisan Senate vote endorses kinda-partition of Iraq.
- Another aid agency pulling out of Darfur, citing attacks on workers.
- China lends Congo 5 billion dollars for construction projects.
Police Brutality (or, Sometimes the World Makes Me Want to Purge)
So this is probably getting around by now, but I want to post this anyways.
Very recently, a UF student-Andrew Meyer, was arrested and tasered by UF police at a John Kerry speech in Gainesville, FLorida. After having his mic cut, Meyer was dragged from the mic by the police, while yelling "why am I being arrested?!" and "help me!". As the police dragged him from the auditorium, he began to resist the officers (All 5 of them) and so they threw him to the ground and tasered him. I linked two videos below, and you can hear the taser go off, as well as Meyer's screams of pain.
White House has a Freaking Manual which Details How to "Deal" with Pesky Protesters
It seems that the White House has a manual that's issued to Secret Service Agents and White House organizers on how to deal with protests within the President's visual plane. This is not a manual on how to deal with security breeches, but how to deal with people smuggling in signs (look out for folded cloth!) or any other anti-whatever paraphenalia and effectively remove them from the President's sight, and into "free speech zones." It gets worse. Just read the article.
Bush, Torture, Guantanamo
This is a very long post, but if you want to get the main point just read the bolded excerpt below the fold.
I started writing this in response to a response President Bush gave to a question at a press conference this morning.
Re: Generation Gap -- jakethorn's Offspring post
Okay, so I've been struggling with these things for a long time. The generation gap of the 60's, the generation gap today, activism, etc. My parents used to be major hippies, and whereas I feel my mother has kind of lost touch (yay mercedes! marble bathrooms for all!) my pop is really still in tune with it, and understands my frustration with the current 'way of the world.' I spoke to him at length about the 60's. The few things that hit me (and that I wrote down) went as follows:
Genocide 2011
In 2008, President X campaigned on a platform of A, B and C. Never talked much about genocide, except to express anger over Darfur to score points with the base. Never made any serious commitment to “never again,” cause what is that besides a phrase everyone says but no one means?
But now it’s 2011 and yesterday some lurid reports came out of _______. A couple days ago, there were massacres in the north, ___ on ____ violence. A couple villages massacred---the men and boys being immediately executed, women and girls taken out and raped, then executed. Unknown number of dead. Possible government involvement. It appears as a little paragraph in the global roundup sections of major newspapers.
Demonstrations of U.S. Torture Tactics
Amnesty International UCSB chapter is going to be demonstrating waterboarding and stress positions as used by U.S. military personnel at places like Guantanamo Prison. We won't be doing the things for the length of time and with the same intensity, though because we don't want anyone to get hurt, obviously. We'll only do enough to show how it works and why it qualifies as torture. I tried waterboarding tonight for about 5 seconds ---it sucks--- I can't imagine doing it for 2 or 3 minutes.
Child Soldiers
This is my attempt to summarize one of the most depressing and horrifying issues in the world.
From Amnesty International:
With new weapons that are lightweight and easy to fire, children are more easily armed, with less training than ever before. Worldwide, more than half a million children under-18 have been recruited into government armed forces, paramilitaries, civil militia and a wide variety of non-state armed groups in more than 85 countries. At any one time, more than 300,000 of these children are actively fighting as soldiers with government armed forces or armed political groups.
Outsourcing Torture: 7 Victims of "Diplomatic Assurances"
This is what Russian detainee Rasul Kudaev said his interrogators at Guantanamo told him:
"If you don’t tell us the truth, we’ll send you to Afghanistan, and if after Afghanistan anything is left of you, you will be sent to Russia where you will be tortured, you will have no fingers left."
Florida, you get the nice guy award for today
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/24/sexchange.firing.ap/index.html
LARGO, Florida (AP) -- City commissioners early Saturday made final the firing of a city manager who is seeking a sex-change operation, despite pleas from dozens of impassioned supporters to save his job.
After a six-hour hearing, the commissioners decided to fire 48-year-old Steve Stanton after his announcement that he planned a new life as a woman. The move came after the commission voted 5-2 last month to suspend him with pay.
Commissioners contended Stanton was being fired because they lost confidence in him, not because he wants to be a woman.
Broken Technology
Good morning, everyone. My post today is intended to wake you up to some pretty serious technology issues. The language might get a little technical, but I've tried to keep it as simplified as I possibly can. The story starts after the jump.
Human Rights Watch report on China protests, repression
Very interesting read today over at Human Rights Watch about China. If you have five minutes, definitely worth a click. Here's the jist.
(Hong Kong, March 14, 2007) – China’s annual session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing has been marred by increasingly violent crackdowns on protesters, petitioners and rights activists across the country and a surge in house arrests of activists, Human Rights Watch said today.
Oxfam plea to Blair over Africa, Geldof criticism of China
Cool...
The charity says donations from rich nations have fallen since the prime minister's Commission for Africa report two years ago sought more aid.
Campaigner Bob Geldof criticised European leaders for losing interest in Africa since the Gleneagles agreement.
He said if wealthy countries broke their promises over Africa it would "kill the poor" on that continent.
A small victory, but an important one.
Last night, I succeeded in doing something that I've been trying to do for the past 2 months. It may seem minor to you, but it's a big deal for me.
My home computer can now turn itself off automatically, without me pressing the power button. Furthermore, it can now save the contents of its memory and turn itself off, both on my command and automatically after 45 minutes, so that when I press the power button it will restore itself to the same point it was at when I last used it.
This is a big deal for me because my home computer is roughly 10 years old, and runs Ubuntu Linux.