Subjects Archives: Human Rights

First of all, we would like to ask you where the story that you tell in your movie comes from.

The idea was born from the complexity of the theme proposed: dignity. I think it’s very difficult to deal with such sweeping concepts as justice and dignity in the allotted two or three minutes, so I looked for an idea that actually asked the question ‘What is dignity’ rather than answering it.

  Humanism and Human Rights Who or what is the ‘human’ of human rights and the ‘humanity’ of humanitarianism?  The question sounds naïve, silly even.  Yet, important philosophical and ontological questions are involved.  If rights are given to beings on account of their humanity, ‘human’ nature with its needs, characteristics and desires is the normative […]

  Civil rights activist Dr. Binayak Sen is finally a free man after spending two years in jail. This video was released by IBN on 26 May 2009.

  Hany Abu-Assad is a Dutch-Palestinian filmmaker, whose 2005 film Paradise Now won the 63rd Golden Globe Best Foreign Language Film award among other awards.  “A Boy, A Wall and A Donkey” was made as part of Art for the World’s “Stories on Human Rights” on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Universal […]

Five days ago I read a press report stating that Ban Ki-moon would appoint Bill Clinton as his special envoy for Haiti.

  “For fifty years, crude oil has been flowing from under the feet of the people of the Niger Delta.  For fifty years, they have been promised that this would mean a better life.  This promise has never been kept.  Now, the people have had enough.” Sandy Cioffi is a Seattle-based film and video artist.  […]

  Go to <www.democracynow.org/2009/5/21/nigeria> for the transcript of this program. ABUJA, 22 May 2009 (IRIN) — Thousands of civilians have fled their villages in Nigeria’s Delta state after government troops launched an offensive against militant groups in the state on 13 May. Villagers in Delta state’s Gbramatu kingdom reported Oporoza and Okerenkoko villages being attacked […]

  On May 6, 67 Mexican human rights organizations (all non-governmental organizations) along with several other Mexican organizations and individuals, made a call to end US support to the Mexican military in the war on drugs. The letter came after the approval of the 2009 installment of the controversial three-year Merida initiative which provides US […]

Carter is the only ex-president of the United States that I have had the honor of meeting, other than Nixon who was not one yet.

“Nawi is not a typical rights activist.  A member of Ta’ayush Arab-Jewish Partnership he is a Jewish Israeli of Iraqi descent who speaks fluent Arabic.  He is a gay man in his fifties and a plumber by trade.  Perhaps because he himself comes from the margins, he empathises with others who have been marginalised — […]

Our world is not only threatened by the cyclical economic crises which are ever more serious and frequent. Unemployment, bankruptcy, and the huge losses in goods and wealth are inseparable companions of the blind market laws which govern the world economy today. Neo-liberalism proscribes any interference by the State, considering it a disturbing element for the economy, as if the domestic order, the army, health, education, culture, science, the courts, the judges, and many other activities could exist without the State and its laws.

Thursday, April 30 was unlucky for the United States. On that day it occurred to them to include Cuba yet again on the list of terrorist countries. Committed as they are to their own crimes and lies, perhaps even Obama himself was unable to untangle himself from that mess. A man whose talent nobody denies must feel ashamed about the empire’s cult of lie. Fifty years of terrorism against our Homeland come to light in an instant.

Tomorrow is International Workers’ Day.

Karl Marx called to unity: “Workers of the world unite”, although many of the poor were not workers. Lenin, who was even more far-reaching, made a call to the peasants and the colonized peoples for them to struggle together under the leadership of the proletariat.

  Clayton Swisher, “Palestinians Mourn Demonstrator’s Death,” Al Jazeera, 18 April 2009 Clayton Swisher: Laying to rest one of their own, the village of Bil’in mourn the death of Bassem Abu Rahme, killed while protesting against Israel’s West Bank separation wall.  It divides Bil’in in two, with Palestinians on both sides and Israeli settlers not […]

Some of the things Daniel [Ortega, President of Nicaragua] told me would be difficult to believe if they weren’t being told by him and if they weren’t happening at a Summit of the Americas.

  VTV’s “La Hojilla” program’s production team republished the images of the coup d’état of 11 April 2002, which kidnapped President Hugo Chávez and trampled on the Constitution and the rights of the Venezuelan people for 48 hours. After seven years, now that justice is beginning to be done in the cases of the massacre […]

  Activists interviewed by an alternative journalism collective Pueblos Sin Fronteras reported that the police provocation made the protests violent, penning demonstrators in separate corrals and preventing them from moving for hours, without access to water, food, or restrooms.  This may explain the collapse of a citizen who died this Wednesday while the demonstrators were […]

  On March 28, Palestinians and international activists gathered to protest the long-time closure of Shuhada Street in Hebron, leaving one arrested and five injured. The protest was attended by about 50 local and international activists, including MK Mohammad Barakeh of Hadash and Palestinian Legislative Council member Sahar Qawasmi.  Giving a passionate and fiery speech […]

Our delegation was received early this morning with the recognition and the honors it deserves. Esteban Lazo and Frederich Cepeda spoke. There was Raúl, who had made them standard-bearers during the ceremony at the Palace of the Revolution.

The Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle of New York invites you to join us in April for a 10-day trip to Venezuela examining advances in food sovereignty and other initiatives for social change.  Start off in the capital city of Caracas, then travel to four additional states, including visits to newly formed cooperative farms and rural […]