Category Archives: Post Human

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has called on Malaysia to review the Sedition Act and to repeal or amend it in line with its international human rights obligations, reports the UN News Centre.

The United Nations human rights office today urged Malaysian authorities to immediately stop investigations and prosecutions under a 1948 law that curbed free speech and freedom of expression in the South-east Asian nation.

We are concerned about the recent increase in the use of the 1948 Sedition Act to arrest and prosecute people for their peaceful expression of opinion in Malaysia, the spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rupert Colville, said in Geneva.

Since the beginning of August, at least 19 people, including religious leaders, civil society actors, political opposition members and activists, a university professor and a journalist have been charged or placed under investigation for sedition, according to the Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR).

Most recently, an investigation was opened against Edmund Bon, a human rights and constitutional lawyer, for comments in an article on the legal use of the word Allah, which were critical of current restrictions on members of the other religious groups using the term.

The UN right office said it was also concerned that the authorities in Malaysia are arbitrarily applying the Sedition Act to silence critical voices.

The Act is overly broad and does not outline well-defined criteria for sedition, Mr. Colville said speaking on behalf of the OHCHR.

We call on the Government to quickly initiate a promised review of the Act and to repeal or amend it in line with its international human rights obligations. Source: un.org

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UN rights office urges review of colonial-era Sedition Act

Pablo Picassos Rape of the Sabine Women is being brought to Japan for the first time. This work, inspired by Nicolas Poussins The Abduction of the Sabine Women and Jacques-Louis Davids The Intervention of the Sabine Women, depicts a tale of Ancient Rome, when the citys men forcibly took a neighboring tribes women to be their wives. Though the theme can often be found in paintings and sculpture, Picasso uses it to express his personal reaction to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

In addition to this major piece, works by other major artists such as Henri Matisse and Andy Warhol will be on display; Sept. 20-Nov. 30.

Nagoya/Boston Museum of Fine Arts; 1-1-1 Kanayama-cho, Naka-ku, Nagoya, Aichi. Kanayama Stn. 10 a.m.-7 p.m. (Sat., Sun., holidays till 5 p.m.). 1,300. Closed Mon. 052-684-0101; http://www.nagoya-boston.or.jp/english

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The Human Image: Picasso, Matisse, Warhol

Source: International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran

Yeganeh Salehi and Jason Rezaian

Jason Rezaian and Yeganeh Salehi have lost a shocking amount of weight in prison, an informed source has told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. According to this source, the family of the imprisoned Iranian journalist Yeganeh Salehi was allowed to have their first visit with her and her Washington Post reporter husband Jason Rezaian on September 7, and they were astonished at the couples appearance.

The source, who was knowledgeable of the details of the visit, told the Campaign that after seeing Rezaian and Salehi, Yeganeh Salehis father was overcome with emotion and collapsed. According to the source, the couple stated during the visit that they had no physical problems, but the family was gravely concerned by their appearance.

The source stated that the couple has no idea when they may be released [and that they]repeatedly told their family during their visit that they have not committed any crimes and that they are very worried about their state of limbo in prison.

The meeting took place in the presence of members of the interrogation team. Two months after the journalist couples arrest and detention, it is still unclear what their charges are and on what grounds their one-month temporary detention orders have been twice extended. The Campaign has also learned that the couple has been denied access to lawyers.

Jason Rezaian and Yeganeh Salehi were arrested in Tehran on the night of July 22, 2014, after their homes were raided by security forces. The agents also confiscated their personal belongings, including laptops, books, and notes, a source told the Campaign.

Jason Rezaian and Yeganeh Salehi both held licenses for working as correspondents for theWashington Post and the UAEs National newspaper, respectively. Before becoming theWashington Post correspondent in Tehran, Rezaian was a freelance reporter whose stories appeared in various publications outside Iran, including the San Francisco Chronicle and Slate.

In a video clip released on July 29, 2014, Jason Rezaians mother, Mary Rezaian, asked Iranian authorities to release her son and daughter-in-law. She said in the video clip that Jason Rezaian suffers from high blood pressure and that his arrest and detention could endanger his health.

Iranian officials have not yet made any statements about the reasons for the arrests and the charges facing the two journalists. In his last statement on the issue, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, Deputy Head of the Judiciary, did not specifically address Yeganeh Salehi, but told reporters on September 10 that nothing special has happened in the case of the Washington Post reporters, and these individuals remain in prison.

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Washington Post Reporter Jason Rezaian, Imprisoned in Iran, Suffers Severe Weight Loss

RACE ROSTER

Evergreen Trail Racing Series

Oct. 4: The Evergreen Parks & Recreation District continues its series with the Bergen Peak Half Marathon Aug. 30 and Fall EverGold Oct. 4. Locations, times and fees vary. evergreenrecreation.com

BENEFITS

The Bear Chase Race Endurance Festival

Sept. 27-28: The two-day festival includes 100K, 50 mile and 50K races on Sept. 27, and a half marathon and 10K on Sept. 28. Start times and fees vary. All runners must park at Bandimere Speedway and take a shuttle to the start. Proceeds benefit open space preservation in Lakewood. Bear Creek Lake Park, 15600 W. Morrison Road, Lakewood, bearchaserace.com

bRUNch 5K Festival

Sept. 28: A celebration of the end of bRUNching season includes a timed USA Track & Field Certified 5K around Stapleton Central Park followed by food and drinks from local restaurants, including Jax Fish House Glendale, Panzano, The Grubbery, Breckenridge Brewery and others. 8:30-9:15 a.m. check-in, 9:30 a.m. 5K start. $50 adults, $30 ages 4-12 and non-runners. Proceeds benefit Metro CareRing, a local hunger-relief organization. 8801 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., brunchrunning.com/race-series/

Colorado VisionWalk

Oct. 11: The Foundation Fighting Blindness presents the ninth annual benefit for those with blinding retinal degenerative diseases. 9 a.m. registration, 10 a.m. walk begins. Live music, children's activities, entertainment and refreshments included. Dogs and strollers welcome. City Park Bandshell and Pavilion, 23rd Ave. and Colorado Blvd., blindness.org/events/9th-annual-colorado-visionwalk

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Denver Post Fitness Calendar, 9/23/2014

CHAMPAIGN The city's new human resources director comes from inside city hall after former community relations manager Jason Hood assumed the role on Monday.

Hood takes over as the head of the city's human resources department, a job that was left vacant when Chris Bezruki retired in May 2013. Hood was first hired by the city as a community relations specialist in July 2012.

City Manager Dorothy David said in a press release Hood's advanced degrees, including an MBA from Millikin University and law degree from the University of Illinois, plus his 10 years' experience in both the private and public sectors, will serve the city well.

"It is my pleasure to be able to promote an internal candidate that is so well-qualified to lead our HR function," she said.

Hood was selected from a field of 45 candidates and will make $110,000 annually, according to the city.

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City promotes from within for human resources post

Visitors to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 21st century printing facility also will get a glimpse into the newspaper's past.

Post-Gazette Publisher and editor-in-chief John Robinson Block has found and acquired a Washington hand press similar to the type used to print the Pittsburgh Gazette between 1829 and 1845.

The Washington Press will have a temporary home in the lobby of the Post-Gazette's printing plant in the Clinton Commerce Park.

The eventual place of honor for the restored artifact will be the lobby of the renovated Post-Gazette offices at 34 Blvd. of the Allies. That location in the Golden Triangle is only about two blocks from where partners John Scull and Joseph Hall published the first edition of the Pittsburgh Gazette in 1786.

The Post-Gazette's publisher bought the press from Ed Regan, 64, a collector and restorer of antique presses. Mr. Regan, a former printer and longtime printing press installer, has a collection of about 200 presses. He lives in Parr, Ind., about 45 miles south of Gary and 470 miles west of Pittsburgh.

The iron and cast-iron Washington Press weighs about 4,000 pounds. The 19th century classic stands about 6 feet tall and is about 4 feet wide and a little more than 6 feet long. The machine's platen, the heavy metal plate that evenly presses paper against inked type, measures 22 1/4 inches by 32 5/8 inches wide. That size made it suitable for publishing newspapers as well as many other kinds of job printing.

Its cast-iron frame bears the serial number 2929 and is decorated with bas-relief medallions of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, one of the nation's first newspaper publishers. A chart of production dates provided by the manufacturer in 1965 indicates that No. 2929 was made in 1850, although Mr. Regan said that exact date is not definitive.

"That device is the only invention to be enshrined in the Constitution," Mr. Block said of the Washington Press. "The reason we live in a mostly free country is because of that machine and others like it."

This press was the early 19th-century version of mass media, but it also required massive outputs of human strength--so much so that two workers generally produced four impressions a minute, impressions that later had to be turned over and printed on the other side. Printing the Gazette this way was arduous, requiring eight hours' hard and sweaty labor. By contrast, the Post-Gazette's new presses can produce 90,000 copies an hour.

Mr. Regan delivered the restored press to the Post-Gazette's production facility last week. It has been set up in the building's lobby.

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Vintage press restored on display at PG's new facility

From Belgium comes news that a mentally disturbed prisoner is to be granted government help in committing suicide. A typically shallow ethical debate ensued isnt assisted suicide for a prisoner a bit too close to capital punishment? before the trump card of individual autonomy was played. Regardless, hes a human being, said Jacqueline Herremans, the head of Belgiums right-to-die association, a human being who has the right to demand euthanasia.

This is the culmination of a certain line of moral reasoning: The human right to cease to be a human being.

If your overriding values are individual autonomy and choice, this is an easy case. In fact, all cases however individually are theoretically easy. A mentally ill criminal or a lonely senior, or a depressed teenager has every right to take his or her own life. It is just another profound, self-determining decision, like marriage or retirement. Retirement from an existence one finds unbearable.

But even the Belgians dont really believe this. They surround assisted suicide with legal qualifications. The prisoner in this case apparently had an incurable mental disorder, which Belgiums justice minister cited as the reason for state action in putting him to death. Assisted suicide is generally available to Belgians in cases of serious physical and (more recently) mental illness. According to The Associated Press, 1,800 Belgians took advantage of the offer last year an increase of 400 from the previous year. Causes included dementia, cancer and psychosis. Belgium is simply extending this right to prisoners.

This is justified by an ideology of choice. But the determination of certain societal classes that are helped in committing suicide is hard to separate from a judgment about the worth of those classes. The right to suicide adheres, in this case, not to all human beings but to sick and apparently flawed human beings. And such a right begins to look more and more like an expectation. A mentally or physically ill person can be killed, in the end, because they have an illness. A qualification can slide into a justification. This is a particularly powerful social message since people with cancer or severe depression sometimes feel worthless, or like burdens on their families, anyway. It is pitifully easy to make them with an offer of help into instruments of their own execution.

All of us particularly those who face cancer, Alzheimers, Huntingtons or other gnawing horrors can imagine circumstances in which the extension of life does not seem to serve the cause of life. Our excessive tolerance of suicide, said sociologist Emile Durkheim, is due to the fact that, since the state of mind from which it springs is a general one, we cannot condemn it without condemning ourselves. We are accused by our own darkest thoughts.

But when a friend takes his or her own life a cause of death now more common in America than traffic fatalities it does not seem like a choice. It seems like the end of all possibility of choice. It doesnt seem like freedom; it seems like slavery to a single moment of despair. Our immediate response is: I wish I had known his night was so dark. I might have done more.

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Michael Gerson: The value of a human life

DAVAO CITY Filipino media and human rights groups described as arrogant the remarks of President Benigno Aquino before a Belgian audience on the state of the countrys human rights in the course of the government counterinsurgency campaign.

These are themselves blanket statements.The general consensus among the Philippines and international human rights groups is that most cases of human rights violations are not investigated, much less prosecuted., Luis Teodoro, deputy director of Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) said.

Teodoro cited the 2014 Human Rights Watch Report which he said has argued that the findings and conclusions of human rights groups are based on in-depth research and documentation.

Teodoro reacted to Aquinos reply to a question fielded by a Belgium national who asked that governments counter-insurgency program Oplan Bayanihan may have endangered the lives of some people.

Aquinos reply carried by Filipino newspapers quoted him as saying that the statement was, well, those are blanket statements and we dont necessarily agree with them. It is not our policy to encourage or even abet any transgressions of the law. And towards that end, we have been investigating all of these allegations.

The human rights group Karapatan in Southern Mindanao said the arrogant statement of Aquino is a blatant disregard of accountability.

It seems that he is afraid of the truth that he is guilty and accountable for the worsening human rights violations in the country. He feared the truth that he is a successor of [former strongman, Ferdinand] Marcos for being a tyrant and fascist, said Hanimay Suazo, regional secretary general of Karapatan-SMR.

Oplan Bayanihan is nothing but a killing machine of government. It is a fact that they [government] must accept first before stating a recycled alibi and apparently the state of impunity continues because until now justice remains elusive to victims of human rights violations, Suazo said.

The group said it documented 200 cases of extrajudicial killings in the country, of which 33 victims are from Southern Mindanao.

Sheena Duazo of Bayan-SMR said Aquinos Oplan Bayanihan is bloodstained with human rights violations comparable to Oplan Bantay Laya 1 & 2 of former President, and now Pampanga Congresswoman Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

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Media, HR groups hit PNoys human rights remarks as arrogant

DAVAO CITY Militant human rights organizations have claimed that violations of civilian rights continue to happen in Mindanao that would indicate that President Benigno Aquino III did not live up to his promises of a tuwid na daan (straight path).

Rather, Marie Hilao-Enriquez, national chairperson of the human rights group Karapatan, said that his administration has worsened it with the application of a new counterinsurgency operation plan Bayanihan.

As of 2010, she said Karapatan recorded 204 extrajudicial killings nationwide and 73 of them happened in Mindanao. Of 21 enforced disappearances nationwide, six happened in Mindanao.

Victims from the indigenous peoples have been increasing especially those that have been driven out because of mining and logging interests, she said.

Karapatan Southern Mindanao spokesperson Hanimay Suazo said the Davao Region has been swarmed with 29 army battalions which she described as militarized and blamed for the 33 extrajudicial killings and 36 illegal arrests of activists, human rights defenders, workers, peasants and indigenous peoples.

Karapatan and other Mindanao-based groups involved in the monitor and protection of human rights gathered today to conduct a three-day human rights conference.

Dubbed as the Mindanao Human Rights and Peace Conference, the activity would address and register their resistance to the further intensification of human rights abuses directed against the people of Mindanao.

Sr. Noemi Degala, executive secretary of the Sisters Association in Mindanao said the event wants to gather the cases of human rights violations in Mindanao and to strengthen the response of advocates on attacks against human rights.

No one is excluded but this should not stop the people from fighting for their rights. We as advocates are also targeted but we chose to journey with the people, said Degala.(davaotoday.com)

Excerpt from:
Human rights violations in Mindanao worse since Pnoy says human rights group

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has strongly disapproved the chairperson's post in state human rights commission (SHRC) in Tamil Nadu lying vacant for three years and asked the J Jayalalithaa government to take urgent steps to fill the vacancy.

"State of Tamil Nadu has always shown zero tolerance towards human rights violations and has always sent clear message of its commitment towards protection of human rights. We see no reason as to why the post of chairperson, SHRC, which is to be headed by a retired chief justice of a high court, should remain vacant for more than three years," a bench of Justices T S Thakur and R Banumathi said.

"State of Tamil Nadu would do well if it takes appropriate steps to fill the vacancy of the chairperson SHRC expeditiously," the bench added.

The court also indicted the Tamil Nadu government for lack of promptness in dealing with the violence in Ambedkar Government Law College, where non-dalit students were brutally beaten up on November 12, 2008. After perusing the status report on the law college violence, the bench said, "We feel that the matter was not proceeded with the seriousness with which it ought to have been proceeded with."

However, it refrained from considering a CBI probe into the incident given the fact that police have filed charge-sheets and the cases are up for trial.

"We feel that the matter should have been addressed by the police and the state with great concern and promptitude," the bench said, indicting the previous M Karunanidhi regime.

However, the blame for not filling the SHRC chairman's post fell squarely on the Jayalalithaa regime. The post fell vacant on August 27, 2011, four months after AIADMK came to power.

The state, through advocate Subramonium Prasad, informed the court that Madras High Court had provided a list of eligible persons for the SHRC chairman's post to the government, but most have either been appointed to different tribunals or equivalent posts outside the state or attained the age of 70 years, rendering them ineligible.

The other ineligibility for candidates in the Madras HC list was their lack of familiarity with the language and culture of Tamil Nadu, the state said, informing the apex court that "it was almost impossible to find a suitable candidate for the post".

The state also said it has written to the Centre to amend the eligibility criteria for SHRC chairman's post by allowing appointment of any retired judge of the HC who had a minimum seven years experience at the bench.

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SC orders TN to fill SHRC chairman post urgently