Human Rights

Katrina, Four Years Later: Expert Fired Who Warned Levees Would Burst

There's another floater. Four years on, there's another victim face down in the waters of Hurricane Katrina, Dr. Ivor van Heerden.

I don't get to use the word "heroic" very often. Van Heerden is heroic. The Deputy Director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, it was van Heerden who told me, on camera, something so horrible, so frightening, that, if it weren't for his international stature, it would have been hard to believe:

Posted in Human Rights, katrina

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 25, 2009
4:25 PM

CONTACT: Human Rights Watch (HRW)
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Email: hrwpress@hrw.org

Honduras: Rights Report Shows Need for Increased International Pressure

Widespread and Continuing Abuses Documented by Inter-American Commission

WASHINGTON - August 25 - The finding by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of widespread abuses in Honduras should compel the international community to take firm action, such as targeted sanctions, to resolve the country's ongoing crisis, Human Rights Watch said today.

The Commission released a report on August 21, 2009, showing a pattern of serious violations under the de facto government, including excessive use of force, arbitrary detention, sexual violence, and attacks on the media, as well as several confirmed deaths and possible "disappearances." The Commission also documented an

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Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.

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Posted in Human Rights, honduras

Haiti Hurricane Devastation Remains One Year Later

Until the summer of 2008, Orlande Noel supported his family of eight by operating a trucking business in Gonaives, Haiti, a town of around two hundred thousand people.

Then four huge tropical storms and hurricanes slammed into Haiti in 30 days. Massive mudslides and flooding roared down the deforested mountains into Gonaives. Tens of thousands of homes were destroyed and people were trapped on rooftops for days.

Posted in Human Rights, poverty, Haiti

Healthcare Reform Fraud: A Repugnant Act of Faith

Being lied to and taken advantage of is something many of us have gotten used to over the years as we work ourselves silly trying to be responsible citizens in these United States. But many of us were also raised to believe in a god and trust there is a higher being that loves and heals and knows the truth about what justice is and how compassion works. And most of us who were raised into any sort of community of faith believe that caring for and comforting the sick is among those things that a caring and loving God would have us do for one another on this earth.

Posted in healthcare, Human Rights, religion, singlepayer

Clinton Presses Congo on Rape Epidemic

GOMA, DR Congo - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday offered US help to punish perpetrators of soaring sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo as she paid a lightning visit to its war-weary east.

Leaving aside her government jet for a small UN plane, Clinton became the highest ranking US official to tour the desolate lakeside town of Goma to highlight a rape epidemic afflicting tens of thousands of women.

Clinton offered personal comfort to two rape survivors, one of whom was violated when she was eight months pregnant with the fetus ripped out.

Posted in Human Rights, women's health, women's rights, Congo

Big Powers Faulted for Abuse of Geneva Conventions

UNITED NATIONS - When human rights groups accused the United States of violating the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of prisoners-of-war (PoWs) in Iraq and Afghanistan, the administration of former President George W. Bush either displayed arrogance or feigned ignorance of the implications of abusing humanitarian laws.

Posted in Human Rights, international law, rule of law

Tel Aviv Murder Reflects Israeli Fears

Why is the murder of gays in Israel different from all other anti-gay violence? That's the question I asked myself after a gunman killed two and injured fifteen at a gay youth center in Tel Aviv. As the father of a young gay man, I was horrified. As a Jew, I was appalled.

Posted in glbt, Human Rights, inequality, Israel/Palestine

Femicides of Juárez: Violence Against Women in Mexico

Juárez is nicknamed “the capital of murdered women.” The border city of 1.5 million inhabitants draws tens of thousands of young women from small, poor towns with $55-a-week jobs in maquiladoras operated by such wealthy major corporations as General Electric, Alcoa, and DuPont. According to Amnesty International, more than 800 bodies had been found as of February 2005, and over 3,000 women are still missing. These mass murders of women have been dubbed a “femicide” by the popular media, which is defined as the systematic killing of women due to their gender.

Posted in Equality/Justice, Human Rights, inequality, women's rights

Farm Workers’ Union Sues California Agency Over Rules on Heat Safety

The United Farm Workers union sued California's occupational health and safety agency on Thursday, accusing it of doing too little to prevent farm laborers' deaths from heat illness.

The lawsuit, filed in state Superior Court in Los Angeles, says 11 farm workers have died from heat illness since California adopted regulations in 2005 aimed at stopping such deaths. It says that the regulations are too weak and that the safety agency has too few investigators and inspects too few farms, where laborers often work in heat exceeding 100 degrees.

Posted in agriculture, Human Rights

As Judge Orders Release Of Tortured Guantanamo Prisoner, Government Refuses To Concede Defeat

On Thursday, in a long-anticipated ruling (PDF), Judge Ellen Segan Huvelle granted the habeas corpus petition of Mohamed Jawad, an Afghan teenager seized after a grenade attack on a jeep containing two U.S. soldiers and an Afghan translator in December 2002, and ordered the government to transfer him to the custody of the Afghan authorities, who have already stated that he will be released on arrival.

Posted in guantanamo, Human Rights, preventive detention, rule of law