Witness is an international non-profit organization that uses video and online technologies to shine a light on human rights abuses around the world. For the 60th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights, Witness staff discuss some of the videos and images that have touched them over the past few years.
At the end of the video, viewers are asked what image has opened our eyes to human rights. For me, this picture is one of the most enduring symbols of how the demand for human rights can inspire extraordinary courage in ordinary people.
What images most symbolize human rights to you? Send an email to undispatch AT gmail.com and we will update this post with your response. Please indicate if you would like to keep your response anonymous.
UPDATE: See some reader responses below the fold.
The Enough Project's Gayle Smith, David Sullivan, Andrew Sweet just released a new report, "The Price of Prevention: Getting Ahead of Global Crises," which argues that rather than simply responding to crises as they arise, America's foreign policy apparatus should be overhauled and focus on conflict prevention. Read the full report to see how doing so would save a lot of money and a lot of lives.
The report is part of the Center for American Progress' Sustainable Security series. What is sustainable security? Gayle Smith explains:
Via Kevin Drum and Brian Beutler, the Maldives is looking to purchase land should global warming cause sea levels to rise and erase the tiny Island-state from the face of the earth.
The president, a human rights activist who swept to power in elections last month after ousting Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, the man who once imprisoned him, said he had already broached the idea with a number of countries and found them to be "receptive". He said Sri Lanka and India were targets because they had similar cultures, cuisines and climates. Australia was also being considered because of the amount of unoccupied land available. "We do not want to leave the Maldives, but we also do not want to be climate refugees living in tents for decades," he said.For more on the consequences of climate change to small island states check out this video from Go Green Tube.
Top Stories
>>Syria -
The International Atomic Energy Agency announced
yesterday that Syria's government will allow nuclear inspectors visit the site bombed by Israel in September 2007.
Syria has denied that the site was a nuclear reactor, but many
including the U.S. government believe otherwise. Soon after the
attack, Syria wiped the site clean and began rebuilding a new
structure, steps that investigators say will complicate their work.
The visit will occur June 22 to 24.>>North
Korea - Yesterday, an external
panel cleared the UN Development program of any
wrongdoing in North Korea and dismissed "without merit" the allegations
of a former contract employee who claimed to have been negatively
affected after blowing the whistle on the agency. These findings echo
those of a U.S. Senate subcommittee released this January. The
central allegation was that UNDP spent $2.7 million in hard currency
in North Korea that then ended up in the hands of entities suspected
of money laundering and arms dealing.
>>Pakistan - Eight were killed and 25 injured yesterday in Islamabad when a car bomb exploded outside the Danish embassy, the second attack targeting foreigners in the last few months. Pakistan's government recently signed a series of peace deals with Islamic militants in tribal areas.
Yesterday in UN Dispatch
Top Stories
>>China - Chinese authorities are evacuating 150,000 citizens who are threatened by a gigantic lake that formed in Tangjiashan when a river was blocked by mudslides set loose by the earthquakes this month. Engineers continue to dig drainage areas in hopes that the lake's size might be decreased. Meanwhile, a 5.4 magnitude aftershock destroyed 420,000 houses in Sichuan's Qingchuan county and injured 63. China is seeking help from Japan's military.>>Israel - Israel's defense minister Ehud Barak called for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to step down today, a day after American businessman Morris Talansky testified in a Jerusalem District Court that he had handed Olmert envelopes full of up to $150,000 in cash. Both Olmert and Talansky have admitted the transfer but denied it was a bribe.
>>Syria - In a meeting with British members of Parliament, including the Interior Minister, Syria's president Bashar al-Assad said that Syria intends to maintain normal relations with Iran while negotiating with Israel, contrary to Israel's demand that it abandon its alliance. The two nations confirmed indirect talks last week, the first since 2000.
Yesterday in UN Dispatch
In what may be one of the lamest ledes ever, the New York Times announces "Caution: Heavy Internet traffic ahead. Delays possible." Best get your Morning Coffee while you can.
Starting 5
>>Tibet/India - The 100 Tibetan exiles who had disobeyed a directive by Indian police to cease their protest march from the Kangra district in India to their native country have now been detained by the Indian authorities. The protestors have since launched a hunger strike. Meanwhile, Chinese police fired tear gas into a crowd of 600 protesting monks in Tibet.
>>Cuba - Five Cuban soccer players, in the U.S. for Olympic regional qualifiers, went missing in Tampa on Tuesday night. Their disappearance has not been reported to the authorities, and they would likely be granted political asylum under the "wet foot, dry foot" policy were they to seek it.
>>Israel/Palestine - An Israeli raid in the West Bank that ended in the death of four Palestinian militants has further imperiled a ceasefire sought by Egypt. The raid occurred just hours after Hamas declared the cessation of Israeli "agression" a necessary precondition to such a ceasefire. The four killed had been wanted by Israeli authorities for years. As an "initial response" Islamic Jihad fired rockets toward Israel from Gaza. Israel then retaliated with air strikes.
>>Pakistan - One of the two corruption charges that bar Benazir Bhutto's widow Asif Ali Zardari from holding public office was dropped yesterday. Dismissing the charge was part of a power-sharing deal worked out with Bhutto in October. The final case will be ruled on Friday. Zardari did not run for a seat in the February 18 election, in which his party won the most seats, but could still try to win a spot in a by-election and become Prime Minister, assuming the other charge is dropped. Meanwhile, Musharraf has dangled a deal to give up his powers to dissolve parliament in exchange for opposition parties agreeing not to reinstate former supreme court chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.
>>Chad - The government of Chad has announced that heavily armed rebels are entering the country from Sudan. The two nations are set to sign a non-agression pact in Dakar in just a few hours prior to the opening of the OIC summit. Chadian and Darfuri rebels have dismissed the pact as meaningless.
Yesterday in UN Dispatch
The French have made Terminator-style rubber out of urine, while the Americans were focusing on a wooden car that can travel 240mph.
Top Stories
>>Star Wars - The US Navy successfully hit an impaired satellite the size of a school bus that was falling to earth and potentially contained 453kg of hydrazine, a hazardous fuel. The missile was fired from a vessel off the west coast of Hawaii. The aim was to strike and disperse the contents of the fuel tank. The satellite flew 247km above the earth. The Pentagon denied that this was simply a pretext for a weapons exercise in the face of China's unabashed test last year.
>>Kenya - The Kenyan government has "more or less agreed on" the creation of a prime minister's post, a key demand of the opposition and a possible breakthrough in the political crisis. Kofi Annan sees this as considerable progress. Negotiators return on Friday, when they are expected to ink the final deal. The stakes are high says the International Crisis Group in a new report.
>>Bush's African Tour - President Bush arrived in Liberia today to meet with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first woman ever elected to head an African nation and a U.S. Medal of Freedom winner. UN peacekeepers provided security in advance of his visit. This completes President Bush's five-nation tour of Africa, which also included stops in Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Ghana.
Quote of the Day
"The current uneasy calm in Kenya should not be misunderstood as a return to normalcy."
- International Crisis Group
"We will continue waiting for the 'Reflections of Comrade Fidel,' which will be a powerful arsenal of ideas and guidance."
- as written in Granma, the Cuban Communist Party newspaper
Yesterday in UN Dispatch
- Meanwhile, A Peacekeeping Mission Falls Apart - by Mark Leon Goldberg
- Gambari Expected to Visit Myanmar - by Mark Leon Goldberg
A United Nations independent expert, after a mission to France, has noted that "visible" minority immigrants are targets of racism.
UN Independent Expert on minority issues, Gay J. McDougall said, "Racism is alive, insidious and clearly targeted at those 'visible' minorities of immigrant heritage, the majority of whom are French citizens."
McDougall called on the government to take action to address "widespread, entrenched and institutionalized discrimination."
More
At the Brookings Institution this morning, Steven Kull, editor of WorldPublicOpinion.org released the results of a new global public opinion survey on the responsibility to protect. The results are pretty striking. According to the data, there is an emerging international norm that approves United Nations intervention in the affairs of a member state if that country is failing to protect its own population from widespread human rights abuses.
Back in 2005, heads of state signed on to the principal of the responsibility to protect. This survey shows that the idea has now been endorsed by the public--in very large numbers.