Category: Human Rights

Private Israeli spyware used to hack cellphones of journalists, activists worldwide

August 10, 2021

Military-grade spyware licensed by an Israeli firm to governments for tracking terrorists and criminals was used in attempted and successful hacks of 37 smartphones belonging to journalists, human rights activists, business executives and two women close to murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to an investigation by The Washington Post and 16 media partners.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2021/nso-spyware-pegasus-cellphones/

The Roots of Cultural Genocide in Xinjiang ($)

March 28, 2021

China’s actions against the Uyghur people over the last four years recall the cultural genocides carried out by other settler colonial powers in previous eras. Much like indigenous peoples in the Americas and Australasia, Uyghurs have faced mass incarceration and internment, the destruction of cultural sites and symbols, displacement, family separation, and forced assimilation. Beijing’s recent policies in Xinjiang represent the culmination of a long and gradual colonization of the Uyghur homeland.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2021-02-10/roots-cultural-genocide-xinjiang

 

China Has Chosen Cultural Genocide in Xinjiang—For Now

Some members of the Uighur community say the abuse goes further. They allege that China is committing a cultural genocide. Cultural genocide means the elimination of a group’s identity, through measures such as forcibly transferring children away from their families, restricting the use of a national language, banning cultural activities, or destroying schools, religious institutions, or memory sites. Unlike “physical” genocide, it doesn’t have to be violent. Uighur activists point to the forced separation of families, the targeting of scholars and other community leaders for detention and “reeducation,” the bans on Uighur language instruction in schools, the razing of mosques, and the onerous restrictions on signifiers of cultural identity such as hair, dress, and baby names as evidence that China is trying to eradicate the Uighur identity.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/19/china-has-chosen-cultural-genocide-in-xinjiang-for-now/

An Old Legal Doctrine That Puts War Criminals in the Reach of Justice

March 1, 2021

Universal jurisdiction, the idea that any nation’s courts can try people for atrocities committed anywhere, has gained as a tool of human rights lawyers battling impunity.

Why is universal jurisdiction needed?

Some countries lack adequate judicial systems to prosecute crimes of this magnitude committed on their own soil. And some nations simply don’t want to prosecute them — especially if their leaders or other powerful figures would be implicated.

That poses a threat to a core tenet of the rule of law everywhere, legal advocates say.

 

The Extraordinary Trial of the Child Soldier Who Became a Brutal Rebel Commander

February 18, 2021

Kidnapped at 9 by Joseph Kony’s notorious guerilla army, Dominic Ongwen was groomed to kill. Is he a lost soul deserving of mercy, or a cold-blooded war criminal who must face justice?

He didn’t look at her for a long time. He stared at the edge of the table in front of him, holding his hands in his lap as if he was praying, visibly tense as this small woman with dark blonde hair spoke in a confident, cool, posh English accent. It was March 19, 2018, as Gillian Mezey testified before the International Criminal Court in The Hague in the trial of Dominic Ongwen, a former commander of the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army, the LRA, one of Africa’s oldest and cruelest rebel groups. Mezey, a professor of psychiatry in London, was testifying because nothing was more important and more controversial in this trial than the mental state of the accused, a former child soldier.

The Extraordinary Trial of the Child Soldier Who Became a Brutal Rebel Commander

The International Criminal Court’s new chief prosecutor is controversial ($)

February 16, 2021

The ICC badly needs such a champion. Victims of human-rights abuses around the world have been ill-served since the court began operating in 2002. Mr Khan’s two predecessors, Luis Moreno Ocampo and Fatou Bensouda, managed to secure just five significant convictions between them in 18 years. 

https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2021/02/16/the-international-criminal-courts-new-chief-prosecutor-is-controversial

 

“Genocide” is the wrong word for the horrors of Xinjiang ($)

February 12, 2021

To confront evil, the first step is to describe it accurately

It accomplishes nothing to exaggerate the Communist Party’s crimes in Xinjiang. Countless true stories of families torn apart and Uyghurs living in terror appal any humane listener. When ordinary Han Chinese hear them, as a few did on Clubhouse, a new social-media platform, which China has rushed to block, they are horrified (see article). By contrast, if America makes what sound like baseless allegations of mass killing, patriotic Chinese will be more likely to believe their government’s line, that Westerners lie about Xinjiang to tarnish a rising power.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/02/13/genocide-is-the-wrong-word-for-the-horrors-of-xinjiang

Colombia’s Angela Merkel moment

February 10, 2021

Colombian President Iván Duque earlier this week announced that as many as 1.7 million Venezuelan migrants currently in Colombia will now be authorized to live and work legally in the country for ten years.

As humanitarian gestures by world leaders go, it’s hard to find something on this scale in recent history.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s fateful “Wir schaffen das” (We can do this) decision in 2015 allowed up to one million refugees to apply for asylum. Duque’s move, by contrast, welcomes nearly twice that number of people to stay for at least a decade.

https://www.gzeromedia.com/colombias-angela-merkel-moment

 

Personal Freedom on the Decline Worldwide: New Human Freedom Index

February 10, 2021

Overall freedom has also declined, though to a lesser degree, over the same time period. Of the 12 major categories that we measure in the report, all but five have seen some deterioration, with freedom of religion, identity and relationship freedoms, and the rule of law seeing the largest decreases.

https://www.cato.org/blog/personal-freedom-decline-worldwide-new-human-freedom-index

 

Israel and the International Criminal Court (ICC)

February 7, 2021

Interesting discussions and implications around international law, war crimes, human rights, jurisdiction of international bodies (ICC), sovereignty, among others.

 

Israel originally supported the establishment of the international court in 2002, but it did not ratify the Rome Statute, in part out of fear of ending up on trial over the issue of settlements.

As a nonmember, it cannot appeal Friday’s ruling. But Israel’s attorney general has argued all along that only a sovereign state can delegate authority to the I.C.C., and that the areas in question were not a Palestinian sovereign state.

 

Response by Benjamin Netanyahu

 

Lastly, a pretty great discussion (10 minutes) regarding the issue of the ICC’s decision. The discussion gets to the heart of the nature of the ICC and why the issue is controversial.

A Native Tribe Wants to Resume Whaling. Whale Defenders Are Divided

April 2, 2020

Good example of the concept of cultural or collective rights.

“We’re talking rights here,” Nate Tyler, a 47-year-old tribal council member, said of whaling. “It’s our identity.”

Many Makah believe a traditional diet that includes whale can help to improve their health. The preparation for a hunt is also physically and spiritually nourishing, tribal members say. Hunters train by running and paddling every day. They fast, abstain from sex and face the sun and pray each morning. After a kill, they pray for and thank the whale for providing for them.

“It brings to life a better part of our culture,” said Spencer McCarty, a 59-year-old Makah whaler.