Posts Tagged ‘USA’
December 15, 2016
On 13 December 2016 Human Rights First convened its annual Human Rights Summit: American ideals. Universal values, at the Newseum in Washington D.C. in the context of International Human Rights Day. During the Summit Human Rights First awarded the 2016 Roger N. Baldwin Medal of Liberty to anti-slavery activist Janvier Murairi Bakihanaye of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Murairi was selected for his work on behalf of vulnerable rural populations to combat contemporary forms of slavery in the mining sector in the DRC. (The Roger Baldwin Medal is given in alternating years by the ACLU to US citizens). 
It also presented the 2016 Beacon Prize, awarded annually to an individual or organization whose work embodies the best in the tradition of American leadership on human rights, to Marilyn Carlson Nelson, former CEO of Carlson Inc., in recognition of her pioneering leadership in the fight to end modern slavery.
Source: Human Rights First Hosts Annual Human Rights Summit | Human Rights First
Posted in awards, HRF, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: anti-slavery, Beacon Prize, Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, human rights awards, Human Rights First, Human Rights Summit, international human rights day, Janvier Murairi Bakihanaye, Marilyn Carlson Nelson, Roger Baldwin Medal, slavery, USA, Washington DC
December 14, 2016
A bit belatedly here is the ‘news’ that on 17 November 2016, Andrea James and Glenn E. Martin, leading human rights defenders working to reform the criminal justice system in the United States, received the 2016 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. “Andrea and Glenn are precisely the moral leaders our country needs to solve one of our most pressing human rights problems here at home: a broken criminal justice system that unjustly targets communities of color and the poor,” said Kerry Kennedy, President of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. “This is the civil and human rights issue of our time. Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights is proud to recognize Andrea’s and Glenn’s remarkable achievements with this award, and to partner with them moving forward on this important work.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in awards, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: Andrea James, Criminal justice, Glenn E. Martin, human rights award, human rights lawyers, incarcerations, law reform, prison, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, USA
November 7, 2016
The University of Michigan’s 2016/17 Wallenberg Medal has been awarded to civil rights lawyer and social justice activist Bryan Stevenson. He is the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, an organization he founded in 1989 that focuses on social justice and human rights in the context of criminal justice reform in the United States. EJI litigates on behalf of condemned prisoners, juvenile offenders, people wrongly convicted or charged, poor people denied effective representation, and others whose trials are marked by racial bias or prosecutorial misconduct. Under Stevenson’s direction, EJI has handled hundreds of cases and spared the lives of 125 death row prisoners. Stevenson’s arguments have convinced the U.S. Supreme Court that juveniles in non-homicide cases may not be sentenced to life without parole. He is creating a memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, to commemorate the more than 4,000 persons who were lynched in 12 southern states between 1871 and 1950.
Stevenson is a professor of law at New York University, where he prepares students to consider the legal needs of those in resource-deprived regions. He has been a visiting professor of law at the U-M Law School. He wrote the prize-winning book “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption” and has won numerous awards and honors, including Reebok Award (1989), the Gleitsman Award (2000). the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship Award Prize, the ACLU National Medal of Liberty, the Olaf Palme Prize for international human rights (2000), the Gruber Prize for International Justice (2009) and the Ford Foundation Visionaries Award.
Raoul Wallenberg was a 1935 graduate of U-M’s College of Architecture. As a Swedish diplomat Wallenberg saved the lives of tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews near the end of World War II.
NOTE: There are at least two other awards with Wallenberg in the title:
- Raoul Wallenberg Prize (Council of Europe )
- Raoul Wallenberg and Civic Courage Awards (USA), and there is
- the Raoul Wallenberg Institute (Lund, Sweden)
Posted in awards, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 2 Comments »
Tags: academic, anti-racism, awards, Bryan Stevenson, Criminal justice, death penalty, Equal Justice Initiative, human rights award, human rights lawyer, Michigan, profiles, USA, Wallenberg Medal
September 12, 2016
Three women Nobel Prize laureates will discuss peace, gender issues and human rights when they participate in a panel discussion on 14 September 2016 at Quinnipiac University, Connecticut, USA.
Shirin Ebadi, the first female judge in Iran, Leymah Gbowee, a leader in Libya’s movement towards democracy and interfaith understanding, and Tawakkol Karman, a journalist who was a leader in Yemen’s movement toward democracy, will take part in the discussion which takes place at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, 14 September at Burt Kahn Court at Quinnipiac University, 275 Mount Carmel Ave. The event is free and open to the public.
Source: Nobel Laureates Hold Human Rights Panel at Quinnipiac University – Hamden, CT Patch
Posted in awards, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Iran, Leymah Gbowee, Liberia, Nobel Peace Prize, panel, Quinnipiac University, Shirin Ebadi, Tawakkol Karman, USA, women human rights defenders, Yemen
July 5, 2016
I have long argued that we should take another look at the possibility of using the suspension clause when members of the UN Human Rights Council go too far (see e.g. in the case of persistent reprisals https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2014/03/13/zero-tolerance-for-states-that-take-reprisals-against-hrds-lets-up-the-ante/in the reprisals ). On Wednesday 29 June 2016, the two leading human rights NGOs, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have urged UN member-states to suspend Saudi Arabia from the UN Human Rights Council over the killing of civilians in Yemen and repression at home. It will be a long shot but worth seeing how it works out: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Amnesty international, HRW, human rights, Human Rights Council, Human Rights Defenders, UN | 3 Comments »
Tags: AI, death penalty, HRW, Human Rights Defenders, International humanitarian law, Libya, lobbying, reprisals, Saudi Arabia, suspension membership Council, UN Human Rights Council, USA, Yemen
May 30, 2016
Being a leading politician and human rights defender does not always go together well. Patricia Murphy (“Patt”) Derian was one of the exceptions. She passed away on 20 May 2016 at the age of 86. She was an American civil rights and human rights activist, who served under President Carter from 1977 to 1981.
After Jimmy Carter won the election, he nominated Derian to be Coordinator for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs and elevated the post to that of Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs effective August 17, 1977, and Derian served in that capacity for the remainder of the Carter administration. In this post she worked to improve policy coordination on humanitarian issues such as human rights, refugees, and prisoners of war.
Derian was a vocal critic of Jeane Kirkpatrick and of the so-called Kirkpatrick Doctrine during the 1980s, which advocated U.S. support of anticommunist governments around the world, including authoritarian dictatorships, if they went along with Washington’s aims —believing they could be led into democracy by example. Kirkpatrick wrote, “Traditional authoritarian governments are less repressive than revolutionary autocracies.” Derian objected to Kirkpatrick’s characterization of some governments as only “moderately repressive,” arguing that this line of thinking allowed the U.S. to support “a little bit of torture” or “moderate” prison sentences for political dissenters. Derian pointed out that, when it comes to human rights, in terms of morality, credibility and effectiveness, “you always have to play it straight.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 2 Comments »
Tags: argentina, diplomatic action, Foreign Policy of the USA, in memoriam, Jimmy Carter, Kirkpatrick Doctrine, obituary, Patt Derian, Philippines, South Korea, USA
May 14, 2016
On 12 May 2016 Democracy Now remembered Michael Ratner, a human rights lawyer who fought for Justice from Attica to Guantánamo, and who died on 11 May 2016 at the age of 72. For over four decades, he defended, investigated and spoke up for victims of human rights abuses across the world. Ratner served as the longtime president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. In 2002, the center brought the first case against the George W. Bush administration for the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantánamo. The Supreme Court eventually sided with the center in a landmark 2008 decision when it struck down the law that stripped Guantánamo prisoners of their habeas corpus rights. Ratner began working on Guantánamo in the 1990s, when he fought the first Bush administration’s use of the military base to house Haitian refugees. In 2008 he was the recipient of the William J. Butler Medal for Human Rights and in 2007 he was awarded the Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship.
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Center for Constitutional Rights, Guantanamo, Human rights defender, human rights lawyer, in memoriam, Michael Ratner, USA, William J. Butler Medal for Human Rights
May 14, 2016
reports on 13 May 2016 how Israel refused to give a travel document and could possibly revoke the permanent resident status of Omar Barghouti.
On 10 May 2016, human rights defender Mr Omar Barghouti received confirmation of the official refusal by Israeli authorities to renew his travel document. Moreover he was informed that the refusal to renew the travel document is a first step in the eventual revocation of his permanent resident status. Omar Barghouti is a Palestinian human rights defender and co-founder in 2005 of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions [https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/profile/omar-barghouti]. Omar Barghouti has been living in Acre, Israel with his family since 1994, when he was granted permanent residency. His Israeli travel document allows him to travel back and forth to Palestine to carry out his advocacy work related to the promotion of Palestinian rights. The permit must be renewed every two years, and was renewed regularly without any difficulty.
On 10 May 2016, Omar Barghouti received official confirmation that renewal of his travel document and re-entry permit had been refused by Israeli authorities. In April 2016, he was informed by Israel’s Interior Ministry, who has responsibility for immigration, that his resident status was under review by the Attorney General. Officials have stated that the revocation of his resident permit is related to his work and international travel advocating “for the boycott of Israel”. Without travel document, Omar Barghouti will be unable to freely travel to and from Palestine; should the resident permit also be withdrawn, he will be unable to reside in Israel, where he has been living with his family for 22 years.
Prior to this incident, Omar Barghouti was prevented by Israeli authorities from traveling abroad on several occasions including to two conferences held by BDS in California, on nonviolent and strategic action against human rights violations.
Posted in Front Line, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: BDS, boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, freedom of movement, Front Line (NGO), Human rights defender, Israel, Omar Barghouti, Palestinian, travel ban, USA
April 19, 2016
Six environmental activists from around the world received the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize at a ceremony in San Francisco on 18 April 2016. This prize does not always go to human rights defenders in the traditional sense of the word, but several well-known ones are among the recipients such as the recently killed Berta Carceres [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/exceptional-response-from-ngo-world-on-killing-of-berta-caceres/]. This year’s winners are: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in awards, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: Berta Carceres, Cambodia, Destiny Watford, digest of human rights awards, Edward Loure, environmental activists, Goldman Environmental Award, Goldman Environmental Prize, human rights award, Human Rights Defenders, land rights defender, Leng Ouch, Luis Jorge Rivera-Herrera, Maxima Acuna, Peru, Puerto Rico, Slovakia, Tanzania, USA, Zuzana Caputova
March 30, 2016
German President Joachim Gauck (left) and Chinese President Xi Jinping are shown during the former’s recent visit to China. Photo: Reuters
Stephen Vines published a piece in 
on 29 March 2016 under the title “Why China acquiesced to German leader’s human rights lecture”. I think it is an excellent read that makes the case for continued ‘human rights interference” in China and not just there. I save you the trouble of finding it by copying it below:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: China, EJINSIGHTS, Foreign Policy, Germany, Human Rights Defenders, international protection, intervention, Joachim Gauck, non-interference, Stephen Vines, UK, USA
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 