Human Rights

The international community is woefully lacking in courage and hiding behind "soft diplomacy" in confronting human rights abusers the globe over, a leading rights group has said in a 649-page world report released Monday. Human Rights Watch, in its World Report 2011, flayed world leaders and global institutions for "simply feigning serious participation" and "ongoing concern" for human rights, claiming that these "expected champions" use rhetoric as substitutes for concerted action. "The quest...

The three-day Flashpoint Human Rights Film Festival, which brings together eight extraordinary films from around the world that deal with human rights issues, gets under way in New Delhi on Thursday. The films urge people to reflect, react, revolutionalise and act as a ‘flashpoint’ to usher in change. The festival has already been held in Mumbai from December 8-10, 2010. The New Delhi edition would include special focused thematic screenings and panel discussions. The eight documentaries to be...

Earlier this month, outgoing Colorado Governor Bill Ritter granted a posthumous pardon to Joe Arridy, a mentally challenged man who was executed for murder more than 70 years ago, in spite of evidence suggesting his innocence. Arridy was executed in 1939 by lethal gas after being convicted of killing a Pueblo girl with a hatchet. He had an IQ of 46 - too low to be considered for the death penalty today. Arridy appears to have given a coerced confession and was likely not in Pueblo when the 15...

Twenty years after the fall of the Communist regime, politics in Hungary has come a full circle. It has virtually abolished freedom of the press and also assumed presidency of the European Union (EU). The new media law passed on December 21 by the Hungarian Civic Union (Fidesz), which enjoys a two-thirds majority in parliament, accords the government sweeping powers to monitor the press. Ironically, Hungary also marked its metamorphosis from being a mere satellite State of the erstwhile USSR...

It has been a week since the US cables released by WikiLeaks revealed the extent of extrajudicial measures being resorted to by the State in Kashmir. For the people of Kashmir, the revelation has been a vindication. Everyone knew about it. The leaked cables, however, reveal the irony of it as well: others knew too. And they turned a blind eye to the state of inhuman affairs. Both the Indian and state governments are complicit of torturing political prisoners. There cannot be a second argument...

India's Central Board of Film Certification has refused a censor certificate to Inshallah, Football, a documentary film about an aspiring footballer who was denied the right to travel abroad on the pretext that father was a militant in the 1990s. The film's director Ashvin Kumar said, "This morning (December 23) I received a call from the Indian censor board stating that after having referred the film to a revision panel, censor certification will not be given. We have not been asked to make any...

In the next ten years, 100 million girls will be married off against their consent before the age of 18. Their chance of dying in childbirth is five times those aged 20-24, and their risk of contracting HIV is significantly high. That's what the law of averages say. Their plight could have been better, even so marginally, had the US House of Representatives passed a particular Bill on Thursday night. The US State Department could have helped fight child marriage by expanding investments in other...

The pain shot up to his head faster than he could think. It seemed like a powerful electric shock. Hussain, a 26-year-old, still doesn't have words for it. He got just one, and couldn't take it. Hussain is a victim of Malaysia's judicial caning. Across the Southeast Asian country, government officials rampantly resort to this tactic for torture. The metre-long rattan canes, swishing into the flesh of prisoners up to 160 kilometres per hour, tears into the naked flesh of prisoners, turning the...

Interpol has placed Julian Assange, founder of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, on a red notice wanted list over allegations of sexual misbehavior by a Swedish prosecutor, the police organisation has announced on its website. The notice said Assange, 39, is wanted for “sex crimes” on an arrest warrant brought by the international public prosecution office in Gothenburg, Sweden. Interpol is based in Lyon, France. The Red Notice does not amount to an arrest warrant. It asks people to contact...

On Wednesday, Iraq deposited the 20th instrument of ratification for the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances to the Secretary General of the United Nations. What this meant was that the Convention will enter into force on December 23, 30 days after the 20th accession or ratification. The text was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 20, 2006 and opened for signature on February 6, 2007. So far 87 States have signed, and 20...