Police brutality – Turkey

Some pro-democracy victims of police brutality in Turkey

Daily Headline – 22/03/13

UN; human rights political ploy over North Korea

Yes, another North Korea post! It’s not our obsession but things are extremely tense on the Korean peninsula and there is a lot of media attention.

This time the United Nations (UN) has voted to investigate North Korean human rights abuses.
No, this is not a joke. For over 65 years North Korea has been abusing the human rights of its citizens but for some reason the UN has decided now would be a good time to investigate.

The fact that North Korea and the US seem to be gearing up for military confrontation is surely just a coincidence that the UN has made this decision… I think not.

Does the UN need political motivation before it starts investigating and taking action against human rights abuses? If so then surely it’s not fit for purpose!

The BBC reports:
“UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said the UN had evidence indicating that North Korea’s political prisons held around 200,000 people, with many subjected to rape, torture and slave labour.”

So the UN can tell when North Korea develops nuclear warheads underground but only now has been able to tell that human rights are being abused? Disgraceful.

UN Human-rights

There are 30 ‘articles‘ of human rights, how many are North Korea abusing?

Of course without proof and evidence it is hard to say but I suspect the violations would include:

Article 2
Article 3
Article 5
Article 9
Article 11
Article 12
Article 13
Article 18
Article 19
Article 20
Article 23

So that’s 11 violations out of 30.

Daily Headline – 04/03/13

UK; ditch human rights

Once again the Conservative party, currently in government in the UK are attacking the vulnerable in society.

This time they say they want to repeal the Human Rights laws and the European Court for Human Rights if the get elected at the next General election.

While election for the tories is unlikely (at least out-rightly) this attitude should have alarm bells ringing in the UK electorates ears. Their callous behaviour and complete disregard for the vulnerable in society and the working class, those who are more likely to be victims of human rights abuse.

It begs the question, why would anyone want to do this? When other countries ignore human rights we think of dictatorships and brutal regimes, is that what the UK has coming under a Conservative future?

If you’re not wealthy, the coalition doesn’t care about you, so stop voting for them!

Daily Headline – 25/02/13

Afghanistan; more claims of US torture

Locals have reported that 9 people have gone ‘missing’ and some are being tortured by US elite forces in the Afghan province of Maidan Wardak.

Of course the US has denied the allegations but Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said that there is sufficient evidence for the claims and has told the US to withdraw its troops from the province within two weeks.

One of the most memorable acts of US brutality and barbarism in Afghanistan came in early 2010 when innocent civilians were deliberately targeted and murdered. The squadron were arrested after photographs of them posing with the murdered civilians came into the public domain.

The US military has a long history of human rights breaches and indiscriminate murder from VietNam and Korea right up to present day Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo.

Daily Headline – 13/02/13

UK; Forced labour scheme ‘unlawful’

The right-wing coalition’s ‘work-for-your-benefits’ scheme has been deemed unlawful and a breach of human rights by judges following a court case brought about by an unemployed graduate forced to work for free at Poundand.

Mandatory Work Activity Scheme (MWAS)

MWAS came into effect in June 2011 which meant that anyone wanting to claim unemployment benefits must work up to 30 hours a week for a month for free.

It is expected that following the court case the government with civil servants will try to patch up the scheme in an effort to make it legal. Anything to keep free, forced labour going.

The right-wing loves slavery!

Daily Headline – 07/02/13

Tunisia; Chokri Belaid shot dead

Chokri Belaid, the leader of the Unified Democratic Nationalist party has been shot dead outside his home by ‘radical’ Muslims.

Chokri Belaid was an outspoken critic of Islamic extremism and political violence following the countries revolution two years ago.

This is just part of the long history of religions and religious people attacking others and imposing their views and opinions on others.

Religion

Religions (all of them) and religious people are intolerant and negative to society.
Whether it’s Islam killing people because they disagree with them and have opinions of their own or Christianity telling people what they can and can’t do in cases such as abortion and gay marriage.

Atheists, agnostics and secularists do not kill people because they think differently, they are tolerant of other people’s views, opinions and lifestyles.

Secular countries do not force religious people to have an abortion or to marry someone of the same sex but allow the choice to be made by the individual.

Daily Headline – 01/02/13

Israel continues to breach UN Human Rights

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has said that Israel is in violation of article 49 of the fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids the transfer of civilian populations to occupied territory.

This is exactly what Israel is doing, they are moving settlers to the Palestinian territory of the West Bank in order to prevent the Palestinians from taking back their land and the whole world knows it.

If this continues then Israel will be forced to face the International Criminal Court (ICC) for serious violations of international law.

Naturally Israel has dismissed the UN accusations out of hand.

Something needs to be done about this immediately, while this is a sign of progress from the international community, they need to step things up to stop the ongoing persecution of the Palestinians.
Of course as we have seen before in the numerous votes at the United Nations that one of the biggest obstacles to the UN making real progress is the United States who endlessly support Israel irrespective of what they do!

For more on this click here.

Archbishop calls gay marriage plans a shambles

By Leon J Williams

The Roman Catholic Church’s leader in England and Wales (Vincent Nichols) says government plans for gay marriage are a “shambles”.

In his Christmas Eve sermon he said that marriage between men and women shares in “the creative love of God”.

So it seems as we bring in the new year that the Christians (as with all the other religions) will continue their hatred and persecution of homosexuality through inequality.

Our verdict of Vincent: Arsehole (no pun intended)

For more details click here.