Across Weirdish Wild Space

Just a little propaganda for my peeps…

Amnesty International(disclaimer: who I work for), has just released their 2007 Annual Report which outlines the state of the world’s human rights.

Available in five languages (English, French, Spanish, Russian and Arabic).

Lotta stuff going on in the world that people don’t know enough about, or even worse, are doing nothing about when they do know about it.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
- from Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

I love Wikipedia. I think it’s as revolutionary as the printing press for access to information and I am not exaggerating when I say I probably look something up using it every day in the course of research, work or personal curiosity.

And even more impressively, rather than folding like a cheap lawn chair with the likes of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft in censoring information and turning over bloggers and dissidents it’s held its ground in refusing to alter articles in the face of the Chinese government restricting access to the site. (As China has learned, you can force those kind of issues when you’re the world economy’s 800 lb gorilla and bully companies over restricting access to markets).

Banned in China since October of last year, Wikipedia has taken the high road and refused to capitulate to Chinese government attempts to censor the information on what they consider to be sensitive articles. Jimmy Wales had some great things to say about freedom and access to information.

We’re really unclear why we would be [banned],’ Wales told The Observer. ‘We have internal rules about neutrality and deleting personal attacks and things like this. We’re far from being a haven for dissidents or a protest site. So our view is that the block is in error and should be removed, but we shall see.’

Wales said censorship was ’ antithetical to the philosophy of Wikipedia. We occupy a position in the culture that I wish Google would take up, which is that we stand for the freedom for information, and for us to compromise I think would send very much the wrong signal: that there’s no one left on the planet who’s willing to say “You know what? We’re not going to give up.”’

Wikipedia’s entry on the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 includes the government’s official claim that 200-300 died and the Chinese student associations and Chinese Red Cross’s estimate of 2,000-3,000 deaths.

(via The Observer via Slashdot)

If you haven’t heard of the Flying Spaghetti Monster by now you should have, because it is another one of those interesting flash points in the battle for the United States between crazed or misguided conservatives bent on reversing hard won segregations between church and state and well, the rest of us semi-normal, peace loving folks (Joking aside, it’s a deeply divided country and most of my friends that live there don’t like what’s happening to it either.)

Anyhow, the parody religion formed to protest the Kansas School Board’s decision to teach Intelligent Design (read : creationism with more media spin), is rapidly gaining converts. Wikipedia has a great summary page for those interested in becoming converts. If you’re unaware of what Kansas is up to...

I’m just going to steal whoeheartedly here :

Beliefs

• The Universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster.
  
• All evidence pointing towards evolution was intentionally planted by this being.
  
• Global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct consequence of the decline in numbers of pirates since the 1800s.
  
• Bobby Henderson is the “prophet” of this religion.
  

Codes of conduct

• Prayers are ended with the word Ramen rather than Amen.
  
• Followers are expected to dress in full pirate regalia.
  

Benefits of conversion

Apologists for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism cite the following benefits of conversion:

• Like the noodles they worship, Flying Spaghetti Monsterists have flimsy moral standards.
  
• Every Friday is a religious holiday.
  
• Promise of a stripper factory and a beer volcano in Heaven.
  

(via BoingBoing)

I’m not sure if it’s an early XMas present or just the High Court taking note of the fact that World Human Rights Day was last week, but the Lords ruled that detaining foreign terrorist suspects without trial breaks human rights laws.

The immigration commission in the UK had already found that the laws were unconstitutional as British citizens could not be held under the same duress and the violation of European Convention of Human Rights is clear though the British govenrment had opted out in order to pass anti-terrorism legislation in the form of the sweeping Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act in 2001 in the wake of 9/11 and Blair’s alignment with Bush’s Afghan and Iraqi invasions.

Not only did the High Court strike this massive blow for human rights, but also declared that not only is it illegal for the British to do so in England, but anywhere in the world under British jursidiction sending a very strong message about the validity of detentions in Guantanamo Bay and other violations the US has made of both UN Human Rights Declarations and the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners (which it has tried to say it is not bound by).

“Indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial is anathema in any country which observes the rule of law.”
- Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead

“It calls into question the very existence of an ancient liberty of which this country has until now been very proud: freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention,”
- Lord Hoffman

full ruling (in pdf format)

Equally though, I have to again express my own extreme disappointment at Canada’s Supreme Court finding last week that a similar law here in the Great White north, the despicable Security Certificates measures, were not unconstitutional and not overturning them. Sadly, I feel they are an extreme violation of civic liberties, due process and basic human rights and I’m a bit embarrassed as a Canadian that Canada needs to take its cues from Britain in this regard.

Hopefully, this bit of sanity from lawmakers will reverse the trend where “Emergency Powers” acts are trampling basic human rights and rule of law in nations that should have really learned by now the types of horrors that these sorts of measures generally engender and encourage.

Again, if you want to help out organizations fighting against this sort of quiet, sneaking erosion of basic, accepted human rights that every one of the aforementioned nations is a signatory to under the UN Declaration of Human Rights, I strongly recommend volunteering, donating or joining such groups as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch.
disclosure : I just interviewed Monday for a senior position with Amnesty International this week.

I’d just like to point out that tomorrow is the 56th anniversary of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In a certain sense, I feel the dawn of the 21st century has really not lived up to the peace and prosperity we all would have hoped for from a third millenium of human progress. And in a real sense, I believe we’ve actually lost ground on the human rights front in recent years with even Western powers holding human rights in abeyance at times (even, I am sad to say, Canada is guilty of this with the new “Security Certificates” to combat the “war on terror” which allows the holding of people under secret charges and with evidence against them not disclosed. It is scarily Kafka-esque).

So, please do one thing tomorrow which forwards the cause of human rights in the world. Even if it’s going and looking at the information on a country you’re interested in (or your own even) on the sites of Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch. Feel compelled to do more ? Get active. Volunteer. Donate. Join. Even become politically active in a local political party that wholeheartedly supports the enjoining of these rights for all people.

Freedom. Dignity. Respect. Tolerance. Equality. Justice.

playing : La Primavera by Manu Chao

I’d just like to applaud the Canadian Supreme Court for making what I consider a swift, wise and judicious ruling on constitutionality of same-sex marriage and defending the cause of human rights and equality in Canada.

I haven’t read the full ruling or opinions yet (this is all that is posted at press time), but in summary :

1. Same-sex union isconstitutional under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
2. The high court also recognizes the religious freedoms of those who may be opposed to the idea of same-sex marriages religiously, clergy and groups can not be compelled to perform those marriages
   
3. Perhaps most importantly, the definition of marriage is a Federal responsibility and provinces are only concerned with the civil ceremonies surrounding the solemnizing of the union, thus preventing province’s from invoking the notwithstanding clause (and knocking down Alberta’s against same-sex union legislation)
   
4. The Supreme Court did avoid ruling on the traditional definition of marriage as a union between a man and woman and punted that down to Parliament
   

The ruling now paves the way for Parliament to introduce same-sex marriage legislation (which the PM has announced will happen rapidly). If the legislation passes Parliament, this means that Canada would join the Netherlands and Belgium as the third progressive country where same-sex marriage is legally recognized by the state.

Some days it makes me very proud to be Canadian when I see this sort of seminal commitment to equality, justice and rights in this country. It is especially a marked contrast to the recent events by the religious right in the US trying to force through Constitutional amendments against gay marriage.

It’s beyond disheartening to see that 20 years after the Bhopal disaster, Dow (after buying Union Carbide in 2001) has still done nothing but token gestures to properly compensate victims or clean up the area of what is humanity’s worst industrial disaster.

Bhopal is a clear case of industrial negligence. Lethally toxic gases leaked from understaffed and under-maintained plant killing 20,000 people, injuring over 500,000 and leaving over 100,000 people chronically ill. The safety systems designed to prevent such a disaster had been consciously shut down in order to save money. Today, the polluted site of the abandoned factory bleeds poisons into the grounds leading to high infant mortality rates and elevated levels of cancer and poisoning related illnesses in the area around Bhopal. And there is even a third generation of victims : the children of parents born after the disaster suffering from life threatening birth defects and abnormalities. Adding to the already shameful inventory of victims suffering from acute breathlessness, brain damage, immuno-deficient illnesses, cancer and TB. Groundwater in Bhopal has become heavily contaminated as well, further toxifying the environment and causing a long term problem stretching into the unforeseeable future.

In the West, we are fairly protected from events like these by the fact we have a strong whistle-blower ethic, heavily protected rights and efficient and comparatively quick courts and effective laws in protecting our safety. Firms which have been found to be putting profits ahead of consumer safety and covering things up (to say nothing of actively contributing to such a disaster) have been punished in civil court and suffered enormous loss of reputations where it’s been demonstrated that there was wilful disregard and negligence. Still though, some days it seems that the needle is tipping in favour of corporations lately with their unbelievable ability to put money and personnel behind lobbying government and law-makers to limit their liabilities and otherwise unfairly protect their interests against the public.

It has made me have radical thoughts mulling over, not just how to make amends for what happened at Bhopal, but in making sure that companies are seriously punished for cutting corners and negligently causing loss of human life.

One thing that was pointed out in the excellent documentary The Corporation was that really the only difference between a normal business and a corporation is the fact that it is basically identified as a legal individual. It has the rights of a legal person.

Yet, for some reason, a corporation is never struck with the same responsibilities we would expect of any sane and reasonable individual. In fact, even with obvious criminal intent by executives in wilfully deceiving or negligently pursuing business practices which are dangerous or even fatal, it is not only very difficult to approach them in civil courts but expensive to the point that it is only the recent advent of class action suits that has allowed them to be brought to any form of justice. And while these suits may in fact (and note that many corporations are lobbying for limitations in punitive fines in these cases) allow some people to find satisfaction at the hands of a few companies in financial means, many firms never admit culpability or negligence.

If an individual causes a criminal act though, the government charges, prosecutes and if found guilty, incarcerates, fines and in some cases even terminates the lives of persons. Why do we not have a criminal code for corporations ? If they are legal individuals, how difficult would it be to have a criminal code for the heinous acts perpetrated by companies that wilfully and criminally neglect the public good ?

I’m not saying that every single sin of a corporation needs to be addressed, but it’s clear that in some heinous cases like major fraud, negligent environmental devastation, loss of human life and other situations, corporations need to be held accountable wherever they are operating. Now, we are getting into the situation where corporations simply export labour and questionable practices to countries where they cannot be prosecuted for what would be crimes in their originating nations.

If people are going to re-establish some sort of equilibrium over what has become the dominant institution on the planet and re-assert some form of democratic ownership over their fates it’s clear that something needs to be done to reward corporations which act within the bounds of the public good to make profit and serve the public over those that put short term gain ahead of the safety, welfare and lives of people.

On this anniversary of such a terrible travesty of justice that still remains unaddressed by those responsible, please support the work of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal and others that are supporting relief, justice and compensation for the continuing victims of the tragedy. Keep in mind, Dow is shirking both its moral responsibilities and its legal ones in these cases, tying up compensation claims found against it and continuing to avoid costs surrounding cleaning and fixing problems. Dow continues to lie and spin its way around this problem and managed to avoid responsibilities in India without ever being held accountable to the victims of Bhopal or their representatives.

After Amnesty International, one of the human rights groups I most respect is Human Rights Watch.

They’ve just released an incredibly critical paper, even though they are a US organization, incredibly critical of the US illegally detaining, torturing and mistreating prisoners as well as charging the CIA is “disappearing” captives worldwide.

Sobering reading to go along with the Project for the New American Century.

playing : Californication by Red Hot Chili Peppers

Just some rainy day food for thought…

During recent years a theory has developed that there shall be no criticism of the foreign policy of the administration, that any such criticism is an attack on the unity of the Nation, that it gives aid and comfort to the enemy, and that it sabotages any idea of a bipartisan foreign policy for the national benefit. I venture to state that this proposition is a fallacy, and a very dangerous fallacy threatening the very existence of the Nation.

In very recent days we have heard appeals for unity from the administration and from its supporters. I suggest that these appeals are an attempt to cover up the past faults and failures of the administration and enable it to maintain the secrecy which has largely enveloped our foreign policy since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was a distinguished Democrat, President Woodrow Wilson, who denounced secret diplomacy and demanded open covenants openly arrived at. The administrations of President Roosevelt and Presidential Truman have repudiated that wise democratic doctrine and assumed complete authority to make in secret the most vital decisions and commit this country to the most important and dangerous obligations. As I see it, Members of Congress, and particularly Members of the Senate, have a constitutional obligation to reexamine constantly and discuss the foreign policy of the United States. If we permit appeals to unity to bring an end to that criticism, we endanger not only the constitutional liberties of the country, but even its future existence.

Senator Robert A. Taft
United States Congressional Record (1951)

(Via The Mediaburn Radio Weblog.)

playing : What’s the Frequency Kenneth? by R.E.M.