Tuesday, August 24, 2010
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS GAMBIA:
FREE GAMBIAN JOURNALIST EBRIMA MANNEH:
The following call for solidarity comes from the Care2 Petition site. The "African media foundation" referred to below is undoubtedly the Media Foundation for West Africa who have been protesting his imprisonment for some time. Some time means four years as Manneh was originally disappeared in 2006. You read all about Mannah's case and also numerous other struggles for freedom in West Africa at the Media Foundation's website. Molly found the site to be quite interesting and worth recommending.
EMEMEMEMEM
Free Gambian Journalist Ebrima B. Manneh
The exact reason for journalist Ebrima B. Manneh's arrest is uncertain, and the Gambian government denies knowledge of his whereabouts, but it's widely believed he is detained by the government as a prisoner of conscience.
Manneh's arrest was supposedly by the Gambian government, though they deny any involvement. Reports of the arrest cite several possible reasons for his imprisonment. It's unclear which reason is correct, but all of them point to the fact that Manneh is detained for exercising his right to freedom of expression.
An African media foundation has petitioned the Gambian government to answer questions about Manneh's disappearance, but so far they have remained silent.
Don't let the Gambian government cover up Ebrima B. Manneh's whereabouts after his murky arrest for a practicing a universal right. Tell the Gambian President Dr. A.J.J. Yahya Jammeh to release Manneh immediately.
EMEMEMEMEM
THE LETTER:
Please go to this link to send the following letter the President of Gambia.
EMEMEMEMEM
letterTarget: Dr A.J.J. Yahya Jammeh, President of Gambia
Sponsored by: Care2.com
The exact reason for journalist Ebrima B. Manneh's arrest is uncertain, and the Gambian government denies knowledge of his whereabouts, but it's widely believed he is detained by the government as a prisoner of conscience.
Manneh's arrest was supposedly by the Gambian government, though they deny any involvement. Reports of the arrest cite several possible reasons for his imprisonment. It's unclear which reason is correct, but all of them point to the fact that Manneh is detained for exercising his right to freedom of expression.
An African media foundation has petitioned the Gambian government to answer questions about Manneh's disappearance, but so far they have remained silent.
Don't let the Gambian government cover up Ebrima B. Manneh's whereabouts after his murky arrest for a practicing a universal right. Tell the Gambian President Dr. A.J.J. Yahya Jammeh to release Manneh immediately.
Dear Dr. A.J.J. Yahya Jammeh,
The exact reason for journalist Ebrima B. Manneh's arrest is uncertain, but evidence suggest he is imprisoned by your government for an act exercising his right to freedom of expression.
Multiple parties, including Manneh's father, fellow journalists, the Media Foundations for West Africa, and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have asked your government to answer questions about Manneh's disappearance, including his current whereabouts. The government issued a statement saying they were not involved in the arrest and didn't know Manneh's location, despite reports that he was escorted into a hospital by police. Now, after ECOWAS issued a statement saying that Manneh's right to liberty and fair trial were violated, and asking the government to release him, restore his human rights, and repay his damages, the government is silent.
The story behind Manneh's arrest may be unclear, but one thing is certain: no one should be imprisoned for exercising the universal right to freedom of expression. I urge you to release Ebrima B. Manneh immediately.
Sincerely,
[Your name here]
Labels: Africa, Care2, Ebrima Manneh, Gambia, human rights, international human rights, Media Foundation for West Africa, political prisoners, repression, solidarity.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
POPULAR CULTURE:
COMIX ARTIST HARVEY PEKAR DIES AT 70:
A blast from the past today. One of the icons of American comix, Harvey Pekar, died today. Now it's been perhaps too many years since I was a great comics fans and collector, but Pekar's work on American Splendor sticks out in my memory. Pekar had the unique talent to make the seemingly trivial events of everyday life shine with luminous meaning. His style was, of course, not for everyone, but his concerns and subject matter were universal (or at least pertinent to the 99% of us who are neither rich, famous nor members of a cult, either religious or political). He'll be sorely missed.
I sold my first comic collection almost a quarter century ago, and have been only peripherally a fan since then. Turns out I've missed a lot, at least in terms of Pekar. Here's one of the many tributes to the man, this one from the Care2 site.
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Harvey Pekar, the Mark Twain of Comics, Dies at 70
His work has been compared to Mark Twain and Anton Chekov. Harvey Pekar, the "genius of the mundane," a neurotic, obsessive, erudite comic book writer and cultural historian died early Monday morning in Cleveland. It's a great loss to American arts and letters.
A pioneer in underground comics, Pekar brought the voices and lives of everyday people to the forefront of his work. While cranky and irascible, Pekar wrote of class concerns with empathy and clarity. His work was an equalizing force kin to Studs Terkels' oral histories (which makes it unsurprising that his last full-length work was a graphic adaptation of Terkel's Working.) As Joanna Connors of the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote:
"Unlike the superheroes who ordinarily inhabit the pages of comic books, Pekar could neither leap tall buildings in a single bound, nor move faster than a speeding bullet. Yet his comics suggested a different sort of heroism: The working-class, everyman heroics of simply making it through another day, with soul -- if not dignity -- intact."
From off the streets of Cleveland...
Pekar is perhaps best known for his biographical comic American Splendor, which elegantly catalogued the unexpected pleasures and frustrations of life in Cleveland, Ohio. Pekar was a file clerk at a VA hospital by day, but wrote prolifically about jazz and literature in his off hours.
Pekar's work broke open comics as a medium that served a greater purpose sans the superheroics. They elevated daily life to something beyond humdrum--in Pekar's hands, finding the right pair of shoes for a song at the thrift store was a meditation on style and passing trends. He paved the way for future generations of independent comic artists dedicated to replicating the unsung morsels of daily life.
Top Ten
Pekar was politically outspoken, particularly about the undue influences of corporations. In the late 1980s, Pekar was a recurring guest on Late Night with David Letterman, until he became critical of General Electric on the air (GE owned NBC at the time).
Pekar worked with peace activist Heather Roberson on the book Macedonia, ultimately producing a case study about a country that, despite heavy political pressures, has never descended into war like its neighbor Kosovo. Other works include histories of the Beat poets and Students for a Democratic society.
Pekar's work merged the personal and the political in a highly accessible way. It embodies a core democratic sentiment: That all people should have access to art and politics--and that even the most unexpected sources have something to contribute to the conversation. To see some of his last works, visit The Pekar Project.
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I have already admitted that I missed a lot of Pekar's later work which if you were to judge from the above made was what originally the more or less implicit political content of his work into something quite explicit. I think that his early work, set as it was in the depressing city of Cleveland ( probably even worse than Winnipeg )and dealing only with the events of everyday life was a much needed corrective to the tendency of all opponents of the way things are to drift into a fantasy world of spectacle. There is a direct line between this concern for the ordinary person and his later efforts. Anyways, here's his obit as published in the British newspaper The Guardian.
HPHPHPHPHP
Harvey Pekar obituary
Harvey Pekar, who has died aged 70, was the writer of American Splendor, an autobiographical comic in which he wrote about the everyday, often mundane, aspects of his life. Pekar experimented with the narrative form and used a shifting roster of artists on his comics, but it was the sheer ordinariness of the stories that slowly earned him a strong following, critical acclaim and comparisons with Chekhov and Dostoevsky.
Set in the rundown neighbourhoods of Cleveland, Ohio, American Splendor's world was revealed without exaggeration or self-aggrandisement. Pekar, opinionated and curmudgeonly, was often the most frustrating and aggravating character to appear in his books. The writer became a regular guest on the talkshow Late Night With David Letterman, but his confrontational style led to him being banned from it.
In 1990, Pekar was diagnosed with lymphoma and underwent chemotherapy. Heavy medication led to hallucinations and occasional paralysis, but the cancer went into remission. His wife, Joyce Brabner, kept detailed notes during this period and collaborated with him on Our Cancer Year (1994), an unflinching account of their relationship, illustrated by Frank Stack.
Our Cancer Year was central to the 2003 movie American Splendor, directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, and starring Paul Giamatti as Pekar and Hope Davis as Brabner. Pekar and Brabner also appeared as themselves in the film, which won major prizes at the Sundance and Cannes festivals.
When asked in an interview whether he thought the film was an accurate account of his life, Pekar replied: "I don't know what's normal because I don't see too many movies ... but yeah, it felt right. It felt true." Not surprisingly, he gave his own account of the film-making process in his 2004 collection, American Splendor: Our Movie Year.
Born in Cleveland, he was the eldest son of Saul and Dora Pekar, Polish Jews who had recently moved to the US from Białystok. Pekar grew up in a working-class neighbourhood, where his father ran a grocery store. After graduating from Shaker Heights high school in 1957, he held down a series of short-lived jobs, including stints as a janitor and an elevator operator.
He attended Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland but dropped out after a year. He was also briefly in the navy – as he later recounted in his 2005 comic, The Quitter, drawn by Dean Haspiel. In 1965 he settled into a dull but stable job as a clerk at a Veterans Affairs medical centre in Cleveland, where he remained until his retirement in 2001.
Pekar had read comic books from the age of six but lost interest in them after a few years because he found the stories cliched and repetitive. In 1959 he began writing jazz reviews for magazines. His interest in comics was rekindled in 1962 when he met the 19-year-old artist Robert Crumb.
Crumb was already involved in the nascent "comix" scene of artists who were creating underground, counterculture strips. Pekar, although impressed by the freedom of expression offered by this new movement, felt that they concentrated on a bohemian lifestyle which he – as a wage slave – did not share.
Pekar enjoyed the directness of writers such as Henry Miller and felt that even his workaday life had its moments of humour and drama. In the early 1970s he began writing stories, using stick figures and laying out the scripts as storyboards. He showed these to Crumb, who offered to illustrate some of the stories. Their collaboration appeared in Crumb's The People's Comics in 1972 and Pekar's autobiographical tales were featured in other underground titles, including Bizarre Sex, Flaming Baloney, Snarf and Flamed-out Funnies.
In 1975 he conceived the idea of self-publishing so that he could write longer, more involved stories. Although he lost money on the first issue of American Splendor, published in 1976, later annual issues – which ran to around 60 pages – slowly found an audience. By the early 90s, American Splendor had a print run of 10,000 copies per issue.
Pekar continued to review books and records and write essays, often for the alternative press. From 1992 to 1996, he also penned a series of comic strips about jazz, drawn by Joe Sacco, for the Village Voice newspaper. Doubleday published the collection American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar in 2006. A sequel, More American Splendor, came out the following year.
American Splendor was published by Dark Horse Comics from 1994 to 2002 and Vertigo (DC Comics) from 2006 to 2008, giving Pekar the financial stability to work on other projects, including Unsung Hero (illustrated by David Collier, 2003), about the experiences in Vietnam of an African-American colleague at the VA hospital where Pekar worked.
Pekar wrote Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History (drawn by Gary Dumm, 2008) and Studs Terkel's Working: A Graphic Adaptation (drawn by various artists, 2009). He also contributed to The Beats: A Graphic History (various artists, 2009).
He divorced twice before marrying Joyce in 1983. The couple adopted a daughter, Danielle, in 1998. They survive him, along with his younger brother, Allen.
• Harvey Lawrence Pekar, comics writer, born 8 October 1939; died 12 July 2010
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And here is my favourite Harvey Pekar quote, taken from an interview which he gave to Walrus Comix.
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"NO… ACTUALLY, I DON’T KNOW HOW TO SELL OUT!! I mean if I KNEW how to sell out... I mean I haven’t given in to commercialism because I DON’T KNOW HOW TO give in to commercialism... If I DID, I might have done it a long time ago!! "
No doubt Harvey will find lots to grumble about in heaven. RIP.
Labels: Care2, deaths, Harvey Pekar, obituaries, people, popular culture, The Guardian, Walrus Comix
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Public Comment Needed To Prevent New Oil Pipeline
posted by: Beth Buczynski
Canada, and more specifically the province of Alberta, is ground zero for tar sands extraction.
As North America’s number one source of foreign oil, the tar sands produce the world's most harmful type of oil for the atmosphere, emitting high volumes of greenhouse gases during development, which contribute to global warming.
To access these underground stores, Big Oil companies must strip mine huge tracts of forest, causing cancer hot spots in indigenous communities living downstream from the toxic byproducts.
As if these characteristics weren't horrifying enough, these same companies are now pressuring the Obama administration to allow construction of a pipeline that would pump oil from the Canadian tar sands to refineries in the Gulf Coast that supply our country's gasoline.
Known as the "Keystone XL," oil companies are counting on this massive pipeline to make the expansion of tar sands operations profitable profitable, but they've failed to take into account (at least publicly) the "extra-large" effects this will have on environment, wildlife, and human health.
Consider these points from DirtyOilSands.org:
Oil sands production harms human health in at least two ways: when extracted, and when processed and refined from bitumen into gasoline. As described above extraction pollutes water resources. Communities downstream, in some cases hundreds of kilometers downstream, have been impacted: directly, with elevated cancer rates; and indirectly, with their subsistence economy endangered by polluted fisheries.
The spread of refineries processing tar sands oil is a problem because the synthetic heavy crude produced from tar sands is laden with more toxins than conventional oil. Communities adjacent to tar sands oil refineries face increased carbon dioxide emissions, and increased exposure to heavy metals, and sulfurs.
The communities along the Keystone XL pipeline's proposed path, would face increased risk of spills, and, at the pipeline's end, the health of people living near Texas refineries would suffer, as tar sands oil spews higher levels of dangerous pollutants into the air when processed.
Thankfully, President Obama has the power to halt this plan because Big Oil needs his permission, in the form of a presidential permit, to begin construction.
On April 9, the State Department released a draft analysis of the project, called an Environmental Impact Statement, which kicked off a 45-day public comment period.
Submitting official comments is a key opportunity for members of the public to pressure the Obama administration to reject this pipeline. The State Department is required by law to listen to your concerns and take them into account before making a final determination as to whether this project is in the public interest.
Click here to make your voice heard. Urge the Obama administration to reject new pipelines for the world's dirtiest oil.
I am writing to submit my concerns about the impacts the proposed Keystone XL pipeline would have on the climate and communities -- and to urge you to deny a permit for this pipeline.
Tar sands oil is dirtier than conventional oil, causing three times more greenhouse gas emissions than regular gasoline. The 900,000 barrels of dirty oil that would be pumped through this pipeline every day would add 38 million tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere annually, which is equal to adding six million new cars to the road. Your draft environmental impact statement ignores how this pipeline would make global warming worse, a serious oversight that must be amended.
Labels: Alberta, Care2, ecology, environment, Friends of the Earth, petitions, pipeline, tar sands
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Bring Indigenous Voices into the Conversation About Climate Change
The United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries or UN-REDD was created to offer developing countries financial incentives for cutting down carbon emissions by preserving forests and biodiversity.
Addressing global climate change is vital, but unfortunately policies developed by the global North are not always harmonious with the livelihoods of the indigenous peoples that live on the lands. The watchgroup REDD-Monitor points out specific language in REDD's call to action that can be problematic:
1. "conservation" sounds good, but the history of the establishment of national parks includes large scale evictions and loss of rights for indigenous peoples and local communities.
2."sustainable management of forests" could include subsidies to commercial logging operations in old-growth forests, indigenous peoples’ territory or in villagers’ community forests.
3."enhancement of forest carbon stocks" could result in conversion of land (including forests) to industrial tree plantations, with serious implications for biodiversity, forests and local communities.
When groups of marginalized people barely have a voice at the state or national level, it is easy and convenient for world leaders to overlook them. But besides bringing unique perspectives and knowledge of the issue, indigenous peoples need to have a say in the fate of the land they live on.
TAKE ACTION:
Tell the Head UN-REDD Programme Secretariat Yemi Katerere that indigenous peoples must participate in deciding climate change policies by signing the petition.
Dear Dr. Katerere,
As the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (UN-REDD) develops its policies for COP-16 in Mexico, I am writing to encourage you to promote the participation of local and indigenous peoples. They are the key to conserving standing forests and restoring degraded forests to combat global climate change.
[Your comment will be inserted here]
In particular, EcoLogic encourages integration of UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in REDD projects and policies, including: a) free, prior, and informed consent of local and indigenous people in REDD project development; b) land rights based on traditional ownership, occupation, and use; and c) a transparent and fair process to recognize and adjudicate these rights.
I strongly support the EcoLogic position that indigenous people must be an active part of the solution to protect the world's forests.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
[Your name here]
Labels: Care2, deforestation, global warming, indigenous people, international politics, petitions, REDD, solidarity., United Nations
Sunday, March 07, 2010
Judy Molland
It all happened on February 23 at River Valley Middle School in Jeffersonville, Indiana. Seventh grader Rachel Greer was in the locker room during fifth period gym class when a fellow student walked in with a bag of pills.
Labels: Care2, drugs., freedom., individual liberty, liberty., New Class, political correctness, social control, students
Sunday, February 28, 2010
posted by: Nancy Roberts
As the disasters in Haiti and now Chile are showing us, the challenges of immediate relief can be dwarfed by the needs of long-term, sustainable development in agriculture, sanitation, infrastructure, and education all over the world. The Inter American Development Bank recently estimated that the cost of reconstruction in Haiti alone could be $14 billion. But can the rebuilding be done in a way that will truly help people in the long term, not by rebuilding in the same way, but by taking advantage of the opportunity to improve health, well being and the environment?
Labels: Care2, international aid, international development, international politics, SELF.
Monday, February 01, 2010
While several states allow gay marriage in the US, the federal government does not recognize same-sex marriage due to the Defense of Marriage Act. However, there are several countries that do recognize gay marriage.
Which States in the US Allow Gay Marriage?
Labels: Care2, gay marriage, gay rights, human rights, international human rights
Sunday, January 17, 2010
And he might be taking you with him. Because if there is a god, Pat Robertson is one of the devil's pied pipers.
Labels: american empire, American politics, Care2, evangelists, fundamentalism, Haiti, Haiti earthquake, Pat Robertson, petitions
Saturday, December 26, 2009
By Nezua, Media Consortium
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, apparently isn’t beholden to US or international law. In The Nation, Jacqueline Stevens reveals the “clandestine operations, akin to extraordinary renditions” carried out by ICE.
Beyond the department’s public list of detention facilities—many of which are already sites of alleged abuse—ICE is also “confining people in 186 unlisted and unmarked subfield offices” around the nation. According to Alison Parker, deputy director of Human Rights Watch, these secret detention centers may violate the UN’s Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the United States is a signatory.
But what’s most appalling is ICE’s assertion that the department is some sort of super-police with powers of rendition. James Pendergraph, former executive director of ICE’s Office of State and Local Coordination, said in late 2008 that “if you don’t have enough evidence to charge someone criminally, but you think he’s illegal, we can make him disappear.” The boldness with which a law official would state such an idea is confounding; the confession, if true, is criminal.
Last week, The Diaspora wrote about the introduction of the CIR ASAP immigration bill by Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL). Freshman Congressman Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) is a recent addition to the list of 87 cosponsors on the bill, as The Colorado Independent reported last Wednesday.
Finally, David Moberg reports on the Obama administration’s controversial use of “audits” to purge employment payrolls of undocumented workers for In These Times. While the audit method is much quieter and less likely to make headlines, it is also ineffective. Not only do audits rely upon “flawed federal databases” to judge who is documented, they also purge immigrants who are “legal.”
As the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Executive Vice-President Eliseo Medina explains, workers fired as a result of ICE probes or audits do find other, lower-paying jobs that offer even less protection to the worker. Ultimately the number of undocumented workers in the US remains the same, and the entire exercise but “a losing game of musical chairs.” Medina stresses that SEIU is not suggesting the law shouldn’t be enforced, simply that it be enforced in a way that works.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by membersof The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Labels: American politics, Care2, immigrants, police state, The Media Consortium
Saturday, December 19, 2009
“Homosexuality is not natural and it’s not African,” said Arthur Owori, a 43-year-old technician. “What next? Will people start going with animals?"
Robina Matanda, a 40-year-old businesswoman in Kampala, was adamant that homosexuality must be punished.“It’s very bad, it’s inhuman, it’s immoral, it’s abusive,” she said. “They should pass the Bill and it should be the death penalty.”Student Annitah Natukunda, 24, said: “I don’t support the death penalty but I would support castration."
However, not all Ugandans believed that the Bill should be passed, while one citizen contended that, rather than legislating the death penalty and longer prison sentences for homosexuals, gay people needed "help" instead.
This was echoed by a rumored amendment to the Bill that may have gained traction this week.
In our previous coverage of Uganda's "Kill the Gays" legislation (as it has been nicknamed by many in the media), it was mentioned that some members of the Ugandan parliament were considering ditching the death penalty clause in favor of forced reparative or "conversion" therapy.
Suddenly the "Kill the Gays" legislation becomes a "Cure the Gays" drive. While on the surface this may seem like an improvement, the degree to which this can be considered a victory is only very slight given the mental and physical damage that conversion therapy can cause.
While the MP that tabled the Bill, David Bahati, is adamant that the death penalty for repeated offenders should remain, Martin Ssempa, a Ugandan pastor credited as one of the main driving forces behind the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, has released a letter (.pdf, 4 pages, from Christianity Today) addressed to US pastor Rick Warren in which he attempts to counter international criticism leveled at the Bill, urges Warren to rethink his condemnation of the proposed legislation, and also says:
At a special sitting of the Uganda Joint Christian Council task force sat and reviewed the bill to make comments. We resolved to support the bill with some amendments which included the following: a. We suggested a less harsher sentence of 20 years instead of the death penalty for pedophilia or aggravated homosexuality. b. We suggested the inclusion of counseling and rehabilitation being offered to offenders and victims. The churches are willing to provide the necessary help for those who are willing to undergo counseling and rehabilitation.
You may remember that megachurch leader Rick Warren had gone to the liberty of announcing that he and his wife had severed all ties with Ssempa whom they had previously worked with as part of Warren's pastoral work.
In what he called an "extraordinary" statement that was issued earlier this month, Warren played down his connections to Uganda's religious leaders, saying that his pastoral work in Uganda was simply about spreading the teachings of Christianity.
In their ongoing (and excellent) coverage of this issue, Box Turtle Bulletin analyze Ssempa's letter further and provide evidence to show that, at least for Ssempa, Warren's trips to Uganda have served as an inspiration for the anti-gay drive.Meanwhile, international criticism of the Bill has continued. At a meeting in Strasbourg, France, on Dec. 17, EU leaders adopted a resolution opposing Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill. In the resolution, EU members went a step further than just condemning the Bill. They asked the Ugandan parliament not only to “not to approve the bill" but also "to review their laws to decriminalize homosexuality.”This is interesting, because this now becomes a challenge, not only calling for the Ugandan government to rethink their latest anti-gay bill, but to reconsider their entire vilification of homosexuals. They won't, of course, but the EU has put impetus behind its request. As previously stated, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill attempts to permit Uganda to break previous international commitments that do not correspond with the spirit of the Bill, for instance any previous treaties that promised not to make further attempts at criminalizing homosexuality. However, the EU resolution reminds Uganda of its inability to withdraw from ratified human rights treaties through the use of domestic legislation (Article 4; Joint Motion for a Resolution 0RC-B7-0258/2009). Further to this, the resolution formally warns that, should the legislation be passed by the Ugandan government, EU member states will consider cutting aid to Uganda, saying in Article 5 of the resolution:
"5. [The EU parliament is] extremely concerned that international donors, non-governmental organisations and humanitarian organisations would have to reconsider or cease their activities in certain fields should the bill pass into law."Why have EU leaders gone to such lengths? One reason could be that they fear that once Uganda adopts such massively overreaching legislation, other African countries will intensify their own institutionalized homophobia. Evidence of this already happening appeared this week when the Rwandan government announced that they too are to consider legislation that would also criminalize homosexuality. Newsweek have an interesting article on the "domino effect" that Uganda's anti-gay legislation may have in Africa. To read it, please click here. In the US, prominent political figures have also continued to condemn the Bill, while Senator John Kerry, chairman of the US Foreign Relations Committee, released a statement, saying:
“I join many voices in the United States, Uganda and around the world in condemning Uganda's draft legislation imposing new and harsher penalties against homosexuality.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also spoke out this week when she again condemned the Bill as she spoke to students at Georgetown University and responded to their questions:
Also noteworthy this week, Pope Benedict reiterated his opposition to what he described as "unjust discrimination" against gay men and women as well as “violations of human rights against homosexual persons.” Read more about the Pope's statement here.
As always, I'll keep you updated on this issue, including information from Uganda's parliamentary debate on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill when it becomes available. Care2 Action:Stop the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Sign the Care2 petition now, and forward it to your friends.
Find Out More at Care2:
To find out more on Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill, links to our continued coverage of this story are provided below:
Rowan Williams, Leader of the Anglican Church, Publicly Denounces Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill: Rick Warren Speaks Out While Uganda Reportedly Drops Death Penalty Clause
Ugandan Gay Death Penalty Bill: Sweden Threatens to Withdraw Aid, Should the USA?
Uganda's Gay Death Penalty Bill is 'Morally Repugnant' Says United Reform Church
There is a dangerous proposal that threatens the human rights of LGBT people in Uganda.
Labels: Care2, gay rights, human rights, international human rights, petitions, Uganda
Sunday, October 18, 2009
You are officially invited to join the fight to legalize it...again. No, we're not talking about the smokable plant that's gotten so many politicians in hot water. We're talking about the good old fashioned clothes line.
Labels: Care2, individualism, laws, liberty., USA
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Oklahoma Law Will Publicly Post Details of Women's Abortions Online:
posted by: Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux 2 days ago
On November 1, a law will go into effect in Oklahoma that will post personal details about every abortion performed in the state and post them on the internet. The information will be accessible via a public website, so anyone will be able to access details like the date of the abortion, the county in which the abortion was performed, the age of the mother, her marital status, and her race. Although lawmakers claim that no identifying information will be included, this kind of information could easily be used to pinpoint a woman in a small community.
Read more: oklahoma, abortion, womens rights
Labels: abortion rights, Care2, feminism, laws, religion, USA