Category Archives: Human Rights

No Country For Christian Women

By avicenna | Published: January 15, 2011

A frequently made defence of the Blasphemy Law in Pakistan:

“No-one has ever been executed under Pakistan’s blasphemy law”

While this is factually correct, it is a trope which ignores the violence and victimisation inflicted on Pakistan’s minorities by the slightest allegation of blasphemy. Take a look at this extremely distressing story of two Christian women who were beaten and publically humiliated by an angry mob over apparently frivolous blasphemy allegations. They and their family are now in hiding for fear of being killed.

“None of our relatives is ready to let us stay with them. They fear the wrath of the extremists, particularly after the assassination of Salmaan Taseer,” a male member of the family said over the phone from an undisclosed location.

The family and a non-governmental organisation that is helping them asked that their identities not be revealed, lest it put them in further danger. The names mentioned here are fictitious.

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Also posted in Freedom of Religion, Misogyny | 5 Comments

Where are the Bangladesh ‘death squads’ for the UK government to train?

By Guest | Published: January 7, 2011

This article by David Bergman was originally published in New Age

Condemning the British government for its engagement with RAB—without any actual evidence that the training it provides facilitates RAB in violating human rights—risks preventing the organisation from gaining the skills and capacity that might allow it to develop into a human rights compliant organisation.

There has been much in the WikiLeaks cables that is new, revelatory and damning, but the recent ‘disclosure’, published by the Guardian newspaper, claiming wrongdoing by the British government in providing training to Bangladesh’s law enforcement body Rapid Action Battalion is far from being any one of them.

The article describes RAB as a ‘death squad’, and suggests that the British government training may well have increased RAB’s criminality, at one point reporting that its journalists asked the UK’s National Policing Improvement Agency whether its ‘courses in investigative interviewing techniques might not render torture more effective.’

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Reprieve: Protect Victims of Police Harassment in Pakistan

By Press Release | Published: November 29, 2010

This is a press-release from Reprieve

Through our work helping those facing the death penalty in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir, we have come across a number of recurring themes. One is police torture – it is standard practice in some parts of Pakistan (including Azad Kashmir) for people to be tortured upon arrest until they confess.

Most instances of torture are not reported. Police abuse appears to be so common in Pakistan that it has been accepted as the norm. We want to uncover the full scale of the problem of police torture in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir and try to put an end to it. To do this, we need to speak to as many victims of police abuse as we can. We will use this information, with expert medical support, to challenge these practices.

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Posted in Human Rights | Leave a comment

On Being Against Hierarchical Human Rights

By Effendi | Published: November 21, 2010

BenSix, of Liberal Conspiracy, has produced an article criticising the stance taken by Gita Sahgal and Meredith Tax in defence of Karima Bennoune’s decision to challenge the CCR (and ACLU) litigation of the US government in favour of Anwar al-Awlaki.

BenSix begins, rather badly and rather characteristically, with a slander:

Blogger Meredith Tax and activist Gita Saghal appear to believe that one shouldn’t defend a person’s rights if they’re a bastard.

Which is, of course, a misrepresentation and a cheap smear of the position taken by Sahgal, Tax and Bennoune. And if BenSix had actually taken the time to understand their arguments, he might have known that they have not any point suggested that “bad people” be denied their human rights or be subjected to extra-judicial imprisonment. But what to expect from a LiberalConspiracy blogger, where smears come thick and fast against people who campaign against extremism?

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Also posted in Islamism, Terrorism, The Regressive Left | 18 Comments

Why I spoke out on Anwar al-Awlaki

By avicenna | Published: November 20, 2010

Karima Bennoune is a human rights lawyer who supports human rights for all – and that is why she dissents from the uncritical legal defence of a jihadist who advocates murder. This is from CiF:

I am a member of the board of trustees of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in the US and an international law professor of Muslim heritage. I spoke out in the Guardian of 15 November 2010 against CCR’s decision to represent pro bono the interests of Anwar al-Awlaki – a jihadist linked to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula – in litigation against the Obama administration over its stated intention to assassinate al-Awlaki.

As a human rights lawyer, I oppose extrajudicial killings in violation of international law, so I oppose a policy of targeted assassinations by the US government, whether applied to Awlaki or others. However, Awlaki has himself openly called for assassinations, and is at large and continuing to do so (pdf; see pages 24-28, in particular).

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Also posted in Terrorism | Leave a comment

How Not to Build a Culture of Human Rights

By Guest | Published: November 17, 2010

This is a cross-post by Meredith Tax from Taxonomy

Back in August, when I first heard that the Committee for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU were bringing suit against the US government’s targeted assassination policy on behalf of Anwar al-Awlaki, a leader of Al Quaeda in the Arabian peninsula, I wrote Vince Warren, the director of the CCR, raising some questions. I hate the idea of drone strikes—against anyone, not just US citizens. But I was very uncomfortable about the idea of defending al-Awlaki at the same time that he was publicly calling for the murder of a woman cartoonist in Oregon, among others. I felt that further debate was needed, and asked,

“Is there some reason not to pursue a legal or political strategy explicitly calling for him to be captured and brought to the US to stand trial, a la Eichmann, rather than just not killed?… By what means will the CCR distance itself from al-Awlaki’s opinions while defending his right not to be assassinated?… Most importantly, if the CCR becomes identified as defenders of al-Awlaki, will women who are victims of salafi-jihadists feel they can trust you with their own cases?”

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Also posted in Islamism | Leave a comment

Sanitising Awlaki and Lionising Begg

By avicenna | Published: November 17, 2010

When the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR) decided to mount a legal challenge to the Obama administration’s policy of targetted assassinations by representing the legal interests of Anwar al-Awlaki, a board member of CCR stood up against and challenged CCR’s decision.

Karima Bennoune, a law professor at Rutgers school of law and of Algerian decent, went public about her misgivings, saying that the ACLU and the CCR were in danger of “sanitising” al-Awlaki to Western audiences.

This is a debate which in many ways mirrors the Amnesty-Sahgal fallout earlier this year. Who then better to discuss the concerns of Bennoune and other Asian and Middle Eastern feminists regarding the ACLU/CCR story than Gita Sahgal:

Karima Bennoune’s public criticism of the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU’s case in defence of Anwar al-Awlaki is a welcome stand for a universal vision of human rights that has largely gone missing from western human rights organisations.

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Also posted in Islamism | 2 Comments

The Ahmadiyyah Movement: Not so moderate

By Guest | Published: September 3, 2010

This is a guest post by Raziq

Followers of the Ahmadiyya movement (known as Ahmadis) are often victims of religious bigotry. They have long been popular targets of religious extremists and have suffered a great deal, especially in Pakistan where they have been continuously persecuted.  Like most commentators on this site I utterly deplore such actions and I defend the right of Ahmadis to freedom of religion.

I personally spent a number of years studying Ahmadi literature, meeting their leaders and discussing their beliefs.  In this article I intend to explain their beliefs, their attitudes towards other faiths and their political views.

The Founder

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Also posted in Antisemitism, Freedom of Religion, Israel/Palestine, Sectarianism | Comments closed

religious people need to recommit to and engage with critical thinking

By bananabrain | Published: August 23, 2010

following an unusually thoughtful broadcast last week by richard dawkins (he’s obviously trying to take on board how much his militancy turns people off by some of the pleas he made on behalf of sacred texts as fine language, cultural literacy and so on) i am grappling again with some of the issues raised by faith schools in the critical thinking debate. dawkins, as per usual, lumped all faith schools together as a) proponents of segregation (for which there is some justification) and b) closers, rather than openers of young minds – the segment in which he, somewhat exasperatedly, grappled with the islamic school science class with an apparent 100% rejection of evolution was a powerful statement. however, also as per usual, he implied (by saying that he “worried that”) this was inevitable in a situation where the parents’ wishes about what they wanted their children exposed to overruled the presumed human rights of children to make up their own mind about what they thought was interesting or worthwhile. this argument was given short shrift by a catholic educationalist from northern ireland, who told him he was simply imposing his own expectations over those of the parents concerned; i personally thought they struggled with the editing a little if they were seeking to show that the wishes of parents were unreasonable; this wasn’t the strongest argument i’ve ever seen against faith schools. in my opinion, they’d have done better to concentrate on the ethos of these schools as exclusivist and contrary to “community cohesion”, but then again, what do i know?

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Also posted in Anti Muslim bigotry, Antisemitism, Blogosphere, Christian Evangelical Nutters, Democracy, Exegesis, Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Religion, Hate Speech, Hermeneutics, Interfaith, Islamism, Jewish Extremism | 17 Comments

Veiled Values

By Guest | Published: August 9, 2010

This is a cross-post by Kenan Malik

In his bestselling book America Alone, the Canadian writer Mark Steyn fantasises about the state of Europe in 2020. The Islamists have stormed to power right across the continent. No English pub can sell alcohol. Holland’s gay clubs have been relocated to San Francisco. And every French woman is forced to be veiled.

The fashion police, at least, have already arrived, a decade early and without any help from Islamists. But rather than forcing women to wear the burqa or niqab, their job is to force them not to. Earlier this month Italian police in the northern city of Novara fined a Tunisian immigrant, Amel Marmouri, €500 for being veiled in a post office. Belgian police are likely to be doing the same after the Brussels parliament outlawed the burqa. France expects to pass a similar law by the autumn. Holland could follow suit. The Spanish city of Lleida has forbidden the burqa in public buildings; the Minister of Labour and Immigration Celestino Corbacho has hinted at a national ban. In Canada, the Quebec government has drafted an anti-burqa law. Australian politicians are demanding one too.

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Also posted in Anti Muslim bigotry, Fashion, Feminism, Freedom of Religion, Identity Politics, Islamism, Moral relativism, Multiculturalism, Secularism | 15 Comments

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