· April, 2007

Stories about Human Rights from April, 2007

Japan: Pre-election protest party

  26 April 2007

Amamiya Karin writes in Magazine 9 [Ja] about protest parties held in Koenji last weekend organized by Suginami Ward Assembly candidate Matsumoto Hajime. Although Matsumoto finally lost the election, the party was a great success, featuring live music, dancing, and plenty of stage-diving. Matsumoto, one of the youngest contenders, pushed...

Japan: Abe apologizes to US media, not Asian people

  26 April 2007

On the apologies made by Abe in an interview last weekend with Newsweek, Amaki Naoto, a former Japanese diplomat who resigned protesting Japan's involvement in the U.S. attack on Iraq, comments that in apologizing about the Comfort Women issue Abe was “putting aside his political belief” in order simply to...

Zimbabwe: police brutality against activists

  25 April 2007

Police brutality against members of Zimbwabean women's civic movement, WOZA: “By 7pm on Tuesday, all 56 members arrested on Monday at the Kuwadzana ZESA sit-in had been assualted in police custody and forced to pay admission of guilt fines to ‘buy’ their freedom. Lawyers served police with orders to allow...

Poland: A View on VT Tragedy

  25 April 2007

A Polish view on the Virginia Tech tragedy – at Warsaw Station: “Minutes after the tragedy on Monday, Polish news programs were running headlines like: “W Ameryce można kupić broń w supermarkecie” Translation: “In America one can buy a gun in a supermarket” Everyone else sees it. Why don't we?”

Bangladesh: The Politics of Exile

  24 April 2007

The Bangladeshi blogosphere heated up reacting to the drama of the process of exiling the two powerful lady politicians of Bangladesh. Sheikh Hasina Wazed and Begum Khaleda Zia crowned the center stage in Bangladesh politics in the past few decades. They spearhead two different ideologies in Bangladesh, which instead of...

Colombia: Al Gore's Snub

  23 April 2007

President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia has been attracting a lot of criticism for his alleged ties with paramilitary forces in his country. Because of these unclear links, former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore officially dropped out of an environmental conference where Uribe would be in attendance. The Colombia Herald writes about...

Egypt: Worldwide Free Kareem Rallies

World-wide rallies to pressure the Egyptian government to free jailed Egyptian blogger Kareem Nabeel Sulaiman are being planned on April 27, announces Free Kareem. “While we appreciate the support provided by organizations worldwide, everyone is participating first and foremost as a civilian, not necessarily as a member of a particular...

China: Blame Canada?

  23 April 2007

Google seizes up before any results appear in a search for 'Celil,' 'Canada' (in Chinese) and '2007,' fitting given that a proxified search turns up no Chinese language media reports from websites that can be readily viewed within China. It's a different story, as usual, for a Google search which includes the word blog.

Tunisphere and the French elections:

Tunisia's love-hate relation - more love than hate - comes to life with the extensive coverage Tunisian bloggers provided in the run up to the French elections. France's impact on Tunisia is both historic and present - it has colonised the latter for a good 75 years and is today its foremost economic partner.

Colombia: Putumayo YouTube Videos

  23 April 2007

“In early 2004, colleagues at the Colombian human-rights group MINGA gave us a very interesting, and potentially useful, CD. It contained several videos of interviews with peoplein the southern Colombian department of Putumayo – farmers, indigenous leaders, teachers, health workers, alternative-development workers, a mayor. MINGA gave us the CD three...

Iranian Women's Movement Beyond Gender and Age

Thanks to Kosoof, a leading photoblogger, we can discover some important moments of this movement in photographs from the last two years. Here are six photos chosen to display that in the struggle there is no question of gender or age. We see old and young men and women taking part in the demonstrations as well as female police repressing women activists.

Online Freedom for All: Some cases worth supporting

  21 April 2007

In my last article, “Lessons from the Free Kareem campaign”, I talked about campaigning and why some jailed and persecuted bloggers and online writers are winning sympathy, while others have difficulty attracting the attention of the public. I also discussed the logic behind the success or the failure of campaigning,...

D.R. of Congo: the crime of being born a woman

  21 April 2007

Trailblazer on the plight of women in D.R of Congo: “They may feel that the only crime they have committed was being born into this world as a woman. What’s even a worse, a Congolese woman. Instead of being able to proudly walk this earth, provide for themselves and their...

Russia: “Protesting the Protesters”

  20 April 2007

Scraps of Moscow links to a few anti-opposition pieces and observes: “Of course this is not a real, capable, popular opposition. Of course Putin is supported by the majority of Russians, with some justification given Russia's recent economic good fortune. But none of this means that people engaged in a...

Greece: The Roma

  20 April 2007

Romania International Media Watch links to a blog on discrimination of the Roma population of Greece – The Roma Series, by Devious Diva: “Unfortunately, there is seems to be very little tolerance in the Greek society for Roma people or/and especially for people like DD who have been writing about...