Lat/Am Daily » Human Rights

Farinas ends hunger strike

Peter Krupa — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 11:32:19 +0000

Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas ended his hunger strike yesterday after 134 days. Farinas decided to end his strike after the Cuban government said it would release political prisoners rounded up in the “Black Spring” crackdown of 2003. Get well soon. [link]

Log in the eye

Peter Krupa — Tue, 04 May 2010 03:23:47 +0000

Central American immigrants move north through Mexico via freight trains.

While Mexicans are justifiably outraged over a new law in Arizona that criminalizes illegal immigrants, this might be a good time to recall that they themselves aren’t too great at treating unwanted guests with decency and respect. Amnesty International recently released a hair-raising report on the gauntlet of rape, theft, and abuse that immigrants from Central America have to endure in Mexico on their way to the US of A. Here’s one incident from the 48-page report:

On 1 March 2008, a Salvadoran couple, Marta and Juan (not their real names), were passing near the INM post at Huixtla on the Tapachula-Arriaga road, Chiapas state. Three uniformed municipal policemen stopped them and stole their money. Then, three armed men arrived and took Marta away. One of the policemen told her husband to disappear, but he scoured the area looking for his wife until the following day, when he made his way to the shelter run by Father Solalinde in Ciudad Ixtepec, Oaxaca state. He filed a complaint with the PGJE in Tapachula. Father Solalinde told Amnesty International that later, when Marta was located in El Salvador, she confirmed that the armed men had blindfolded her and forced her to walk for a day before repeatedly raping her. After five days in captivity, Marta woke alone. Traumatized, she made her own way back to El Salvador, reluctant to pursue a criminal complaint against the perpetrators. The Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants raised the case with the Mexican government which offered to provide Marta with a visa to file a complaint, but she refused to return to Mexico. To Amnesty International’s knowledge, no further efforts were made to identify the perpetrators.

It’s estimated that six out of 10 migrant women passing through Mexico are sexually abused. Many other migrants are kidnapped or killed by criminal gangs, often with the complicity of the local police and municipal authorities. And pretty much none of the perpetrators are ever brought to justice: Illegal immigrants are afraid to go to the authorities because they themselves are breaking the law, making them sitting ducks for criminals.

Which, by the way, will be one of the nastier side-effects of the Arizona law.

This is not to say that two wrongs make a right, but that maybe Mexican civil society (which sounds like it does great work on this issue, by the way) could use the Arizona controversy as a teachable moment to whip up a little empathy and understanding for the plight of the migrant on Mexican soil.

(Original image courtesy wetape)

Another Google product still in beta

Peter Krupa — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 03:21:42 +0000

Google appears to be rather proud of its new-found freedom of expression spine. It just released a snazzy new product mapping out the countries in the world whose governments have requested information be removed from one of the company’s products (Blogger, YouTube, etc.).

Unfortunately, in order for numbers to be useful, you need some sort of baseline, and Google’s map doesn’t give us one. Maybe if you combine it with data on the number of people in each country who use the internet?

For example, Argentina has a population of about 40 million, only 28% of whom are connected to the internet. Google in Argentina has received 42 requests to remove information from one of its products, which breaks down to about 0.38 complaints per 100,000 internet users.

Though the raw numbers make it look worse, Brazil is about the same as Argentina, with 0.40 complaints per 100,000 internet users. But Germany beats everyone, with 3.1 removal requests per 100,000 users.

In the end, I’m not really clear on what Google’s trying to tell us. That Germany has greater internet restrictions than Cuba? Or that Brazil’s government is the only one in the world that gives enough of a damn about Google to file legal challenges against it?

The power of interactive mappy-thingies for promoting human rights causes is indeed great, but this is where the engineers should have maybe consulted with a social scientist.

Rape victims taking Mexico to court

Peter Krupa — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 02:55:01 +0000

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights will hear a case against Mexico next week. Two indigenous women from Guerrero state say they were raped by soldiers in 2002. Since the Mexican state has taken no action toward solving the crime and bringing the rapists to justice, the case has made it to the Court.

One woman, Inés Fernández, says she was raped by 11 soldiers in front of her four children because she didn’t answer their questions. Fernández does not speak Spanish. The second woman, Valentina Rosendo, says she was raped by two soldiers while she was washing clothes in a river by her home.

In a press conference, the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center, the Me’phaa Indigenous Peoples Organization, and Amnesty International Mexico stated that there is sufficient evidence for the international court to convict the Mexican authorities for failing to provide the two women with access to justice.

The victims, their family members, and the witnesses all say they’ve received multiple threats demanding that they stop pursuing the case before the Court. Meanwhile, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) says that complaints of military abuse have skyrocketed in the last five years.

Unclear on the concept

Peter Krupa — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 14:43:08 +0000

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa is actually going to do it: He’s ordered his foreign ministry to prepare a report on human rights abuses in the United States, in retaliation for similar reports released regularly by the U.S. State Department.

Correa had threatened to do this when the State Department report on Ecuador was first released. Now I guess Chávez egged him on sufficiently during their recent bilateral meeting that he’s pulling the trigger.

When these reports are thorough and more or less even-handed (like the lengthy one produced by China this year) they can be pretty damn interesting. After all, from its treatment of minor drug offenders, illegal immigrants, and “illegal enemy combatants,” to its invasion of other countries and use of trigger-happy private military contractors unaccountable to domestic courts, the U.S. has a lot to answer for.

So what’s the report going to look like?

I’ve ordered the foreign ministry… to prepare a report on the human rights situation in the United States and denounce the existence of political prisoners, five Cubans who received only a pantomime, a monstrosity of a trial.

The Cuban Five? Really? You have to go and beat that old, worn out drum? The poor, innocent Cubans who were also international spies? Aside from being tenuous, it’s not even Ecuador’s fight, and it completely misses the point of human rights reports, which is that they criticize countries for the way they treat their own citizens. Like, you know, when they jail journalists for insulting government officials.

Color me disappointed.

Martyr’s anniversary

Peter Krupa — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 02:27:08 +0000

Wednesday is the 30th anniversary of the assassination of El Salvadoran Bishop Óscar Romero by right-wing thugs. They shot him to death while he was saying mass. Tim’s El Salvador Blog has been doing a bang-up job during the last week or so blogging on the upcoming anniversary.

Of particular note is a recent post on a lengthy article published on ElFaro.net interviewing Álvaro Saravia, one of the very few people involved in Romero’s killing who is still alive. The article is kind of intense:

That’s how I was expecting to find one of the murders of Bishop Romero: Fat, tan, wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Instead I found a gaunt old man, thin, with scarred and withered skin. His face was hidden behind a grizzled beard, and there was a rancid odor about him. He looked so small.

“And why do you want to talk now?

“For my children. Even they look at me like I’m Hitler.”

Álvaro Saravia denies being the trigger man and blames the son of a former president. Then for some reason, since the story was published on ElFaro.net, the site has been down. Huh. Tim was good enough to grab the content from the Google cache and drop it into a PDF. It’s 24 pages of good stuff.

Gang documentary wins award

The chilling effect

Peter Krupa — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:51:47 +0000

It started with a rumor posted on popular anti-Chávez site NoticieroDigital.com that several government ministers had been murdered. Now there is talk in Venezuela of “regulating the internet,” whatever that might mean. I’ll believe it when I see it (and when I do see it, I’m going into the web proxy business).

Frankly, the rumors that started the uproar deserve to be investigated. Veiled threats of violence against government officials (and actually, threats of violence against anyone) are not protected speech anywhere in the world. But the proper response in that case is to send some detectives to knock on doors. Instead, Chávez goes on a general televised rant against the media:

Around 3:45 he states, in reference to an analyst who spoke to television channel Globovisión:

Whoever makes a statement must present proof for what they’re saying, both the one who says it, and the one who lets it be said and spread. They know they’re committing a crime that is punished with prison anywhere in the world.

When journalists and editors are required to bear the burden of proof on pain of imprisonment, it silences speech. This is the reasoning behind New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. Everyone has different libel laws and different standards for acceptable speech, but I would never practice journalism or publish information in a country where I could go to jail for making a mistake.

Neither would anyone else, and that’s just the point. Whether or not anyone ever actually goes to jail is irrelevant. Speech is silenced. The chilling effect is in, and not coincidentally, on another Venezuelan news site – Noticias24.com – comments have been turned off. Just in case.

Glass houses

Peter Krupa — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:29:02 +0000

Incensed at the recent State Department report wherein the U.S. wags its finger at the rest of the world for not respecting human rights, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa has gone ahead and stated the obvious:

In the continent’s latest assertion of independence from its overbearing northern neighbour – Ecuador has already closed down a US airforce base in the country – Mr Correa hit back at what he termed the US government’s propensity to issue reports on other countries’ “progress” in advancing human rights while ignoring abuses committed by itself.

“What if Ecuador makes a report about human rights abuses in the US?” the president asked.

“In that country there was legalised torture – or has the US State Department forgotten that?”

This is a very, very good idea. Peru’s foreign ministry could express concern over Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and its implications for the “progress” of U.S. democracy; Chile’s state department could warn its citizens not to travel to Washington, D.C., because of its extremely high murder rate; and Guatemala could release a long, detailed report criticizing the U.S. for allowing torturers to remain in impunity.

(Original image courtesy Agencia Brasil)

Mexico’s Supreme Court rules against human rights commission

Peter Krupa — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:23:34 +0000

Supreme Court building.

Bad news for human rights in Mexico. The Supreme Court ruled today that the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) can withhold information related to ongoing investigations from the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) if it so chooses. More specifically, the ruling upheld Article 5 of the Attorney General Act, which states:

[The PGR] will provide information to the National Human Rights Commission when requested in the exercise of its functions, as long as the information doesn’t put ongoing investigations or the safety of individuals at risk.

Emphasis mine. Of course, the PGR itself gets to decide what “risk” means. I imagine they like to err on the side of caution. This means it will be basically impossible for the CNDH to intervene and stop human rights violations in progress, as most of the bad ones (forced disappearance, unlawful detention, torture, etc.) take place during the “investigation.”

The court’s vote in the ruling was split, 7-4. There is no reaction yet from the CNDH.

(Image used courtesy of Thelmadatter via Wikicommons.)

Criminal

Peter Krupa — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 20:29:51 +0000

Violent toys and video games are now illegal in Venezuela. The law – called the Law for the Prohibition of Violent Video Games and Toys (Ley para la Prohibición de Videojuegos Bélicos y Juguetes Bélicos) – was passed in November and went into effect on Wednesday.

So what does it say, exactly?

The law prohibits “the manufacture, import, distribution, purchase, sale, rental, and use of violent toys and video games.” The all-important definition paragraphs of the law (published along with the rest of the law starting on page 2 of the December 3, 2009, edition of La Gaceta [PDF]) read as follows:

Article 3
1. Violent video games: Video games or programs that can be use on personal computers, arcade systems, video game consoles, portable devices or mobile telephones, or any other electronic or telephonic device, that contain information or images that promote or incite violence and the use of weapons.

2. Violent toys: Objects or instruments that in form mimic any kind of weapon used by the National Bolivarian Armed Forces, weapons of war used by any other nation, citizen or state security forces, as well as those that, though not promoting war, establish the kind of game that stimulates aggressiveness or violence.

No word yet on how Venezuela’s arbiters of justice plan to deal with the scourge of rubber bands, sticks, Space Invaders, spit wads, baseball, Madden NFL 2010, Wii Boxing and finger guns currently plaguing the nation. The punishment paragraphs muddle things further:

Article 13. Those who in any way promote the purchase or use of violent toys or video games as defined by this law will be punished with a fine of between 2,000 and 4,000 tax units.

Article 14. Those who import, manufacture, sell, rent, or distribute violent toys or video games will be punished with 3 to 5 years in prison.

Emphasis above is mine. “Promoting” could include everything from advertising a game console that plays violent video games, to posting on a chat forum, making a statement on television, or telling your friends about a violent video game. In short, it’s the kind of “chilling-effect” law that can be interpreted into applying to just about anyone.

The bitterly hilarious subtext to the whole thing is that the one really “promoting” violence and war in Venezuela is Hugo Chávez. Forget toys, he’s setting up peasant armies and arming them with real guns. He’s spent US$4 billion since 2007 on high-tech Russian weaponry like Su-27s and tanks. And he’s constantly posing for photos holding weapons, like it’s the coolest, manliest thing ever.

Venezuela has the second-highest murder rate in the world, and fully 91% of those murders don’t even get investigated. These are real problems. Banning Pac-Man is not a solution.