New Media » human rights

Human Rights and Halftime Shows in America

jnarvey — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:07:01 +0000

Here’s a human rights condundrum for you:

You are reasonably certain that an asylum seeker sent back to his country of origin could face torture.
You are equally certain that this person poses a lethal terrorist threat to citizens in the local community (or abroad, if this person is given a chance to incite violence from the safe haven of your own shores).

In many countries, the practical solution has been to keep the suspected threat here, either monitored at ruinous expense, or left to his own devices in the hopes that he does not commit the terrorist offenses you were worried about in the first place. I argue it doesn’t have to be this way, in Terrorism, Asylum Seekers and the Human Right to Life

Also, do check out the Halftime in America video. If only because it’s Clint Eastwood.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

This Isn’t Funny

jnarvey — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 15:45:23 +0000

Notice to stand-up comedians everywhere: if you respond to an obnoxious heckler in the audience in a way that injures “dignity, feelings, and self respect”, you may be liable to pay fines of $22,000 or more.

Total insanity masquerading as political correctness — brought to you by the apparatchiks at the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Confusion To Our Enemies!

jnarvey — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 07:51:51 +0000

More provocation and political hit-and-runs from the Ministry of Truth.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Save Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani. Sign The Petition

jnarvey — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 03:25:47 +0000

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani may be executed by Iran at any moment. The following is a letter from her children, Faride and Sajjad Mohammadi e Ashtiani. Please sign this petition to help save this innocent woman.

Plea to the world by Sakineh’s Children
Do not allow our nightmare become a reality, Protest against our mother’s stoning! Today we stretch out our hands to the people of the whole world. It is now five years that we have lived in fear and in horror, deprived of motherly love. Is the world so cruel that it can watch this catastrophe and do nothing about it?

We are Sakine Mohammadi e Ashtiani’s children, Fasride and Sajjad Mohamamadi e Ashtiani. Since our childhood we have been acquainted with the pain of knowing that our mother is imprisoned and awaiting a catastrophe. To tell the truth, the term “stoning” is so horrific that we try never to use it. We instead say our mother is in danger, she might be killed, and she deserves everyone’s help.

Today, when nearly all options have reached dead-ends, and our mother’s lawyer says that she is in a dangerous situation, we resort to you. We resort to the people of the world, no matter who you are and where in the world you live. We resort to you, people of Iran, all of you who have experienced the pain and anguish of the horror of losing a loved one.

Please help our mother return home!

We especially stretch our hand out to the Iranians living abroad. Help to prevent this nightmare from becoming reality. Save our mother. We are unable to explain the anguish of every moment, every second of our lives. Words are unable to articulate our fear…

Help to save our mother. Write to and ask officials to free her. Tell them that she doesn’t have a civil complainant and has not done any wrong. Our mother should not be killed. Is there any one hearing this and rushing to our assistance?

Faride and Sajjad Mohammadi e Ashtiani

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Majority of Canadian Youth Are Spoiled Useless Cowards

jnarvey — Fri, 07 May 2010 05:16:15 +0000

Decades of teaching moral and cultural relativism have taken their toll on our once proud national psyche. Indeed, the brave young Canadian soldiers who are fighting the good fight for freedom are not at all representative of their generation. From the Chronicle Herald:

A clear majority of younger Canadians say they would not have volunteered in 1939 to help liberate Europe and defeat Nazism, according to the poll.

I can hear the arguments by these gutless pimply-faced simps in my head: “It’s their culture to enslave their neighbors, put ethnic minorities into death camps and machine-gun lines of starving civilians. We can’t judge them. After all, democracy isn’t perfect. Just look at our Prime Minister! He’s the real monster.”

Listen up, kids. Freedom is not free and tyranny is not peace.

This is now very un-Canadian behavior

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Palestinians Don’t Need More Lies. They Need Incentives

jnarvey — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:31:31 +0000

The Palestinian-run territory of Gaza is now essentially a pre-industrial state, where pack mules ferry smuggled goods on broken streets in the midst of ruins that have not been cleared since Operation Cast Lead. But as bad as things are now, it’s probably going to get worse before it gets better. It doesn’t help when Canadian politicians like the NDP’s Libby Davies, the Bloc Quebecois’ Richard Nadeau and Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj give the downtrodden Gazans incentives to keep doing the exact same thing they’ve been doing, while hoping for a different result than what they’ve been getting.

It’s not just dishonest. This perverse strategy is helping keep Palestinians in a world of hurt. It’s time for the do-gooders of the world to level with the Gazans and give them some real incentives for change – in this case, the dismantling of Hamas – that will give them a real chance at a future.

Freakonomics and Middle East Politics
What’s this about incentives? In Freakonomics, economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner collaborated to help explain how the world works by applying economic theory. One of the main premises of the book is that given the right incentives, you can change behavior. It’s not exactly a new idea. But the entertaining examples made this book an international bestseller.

Professional baseball players will juice up to hit more home runs so they can boost their salary by millions of dollars. When you give bonuses to high-performing teachers, some of those educators will simply inflate grades. On a more dire note, if the incentive to act like a second-class citizen is to avoid a lynching, terrorized citizens will avoid polling stations at election time and bite their tongues as they are ordered to the back of the bus.

Change the incentives and you’ll change the behavior. Institute an ironclad testing regimen, clawback of wages and automatic jail time for athletes using steroids, you just might see the end of juicing. Find an algorithm to figure out which teachers are cheating and get rid of them; the other teachers will get the message. Put boots on the ground to enforce the rule of law and provide real support for civil rights and a formerly brutalized population will happily make use of their freedoms.

The people of Gaza are not immune to the economic laws that govern the behavior of the rest of us. Give them incentives to do what they have to do to end the blockade — namely the rejection of the fascist, thuggish regime of Hamas — and they will do it. Conversely, if respected leaders from the West go in and tell them that they don’t have to do anything, and eventually the Israelis will cave, Palestinians will take that free lunch.

Canadian Politicians Helping Perpetuate Palestinian Misery Through Dishonesty
Today, the motley crew of Canadian MPs mentioned above will attend Toronto’s Ryerson University to deliver a report on what they saw on a fact-finding mission to the West Bank and Gaza, subsidized by stalwartly even-handed organizations including the Canadian Arab Federation, Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid and Code Pink.

The main recommendations to parliament from the report? No surprises, here. Canada should hand over a big bag of cash to UNRWA, an agency that could be argued has only perpetuated Palestinian misery. Our diplomats should formally register our opposition to the security barrier, originally put up to protect Israelis from a wave of suicide bombings in restaurants and nightclubs.

In regard to Gaza, these MPs want the government to “assert that an end to the blockade on Gaza is an urgent and necessary means by which to normalize the day to day living conditions of people living in Gaza and to restore the civil and economic infrastructure of Gaza.” And finally, these politicians support a policy roughly akin to that asked for by the multi-headed boycott Israel campaign.

These recommendations are ultimately meant to provide incentives for Israeli leaders to change their behavior. Most immediately, this would mean ending the blockade and take down the wall. That would be a perfectly ethical and reasonable position to take if these barriers were put up purely to make Palestinians miserable. But as we know, the blockade was put up by the Israelis for the same reason that Canadian soldiers put up walls around their compounds in Afghanistan — when the walls aren’t there, psychotic losers are more likely to wander in with a rifle or belt of dynamite and try to kill everyone. As regards the hardships experienced in the “day to day living conditions of people living in Gaza”, well, that’s what the blockade was meant to do, as a means of pressuring the Palestinian people to reject their thuggish, torturing fascist overlords. The basic idea behind blockades and sanctions has always been to squeeze the other side until they crack. Undermining the blockade only makes it easier for Hamas to claim victory and carry on with business as usual; meaning a modicum of power for the top thugs and misery for everyone else.

Where’s Hamas?
But where are the incentives for Palestinians to change their behavior? There are none mentioned in this report. In fact, the one key solution that stands a very good chance of getting the blockade lifted is studiously ignored.

Hamas is mentioned just once in this report to parliament: “We wish to make it clear that during our visit we did not meet with representatives of either the Government of Israel or Hamas.” In contrast, Israel is mentioned 79 times.

How do you provide real incentives for change when the stumbling block for progress is treated as though it doesn’t exist?

Get rid of Hamas – or just get Hamas’ leadership to stop calling for the destruction of the Jewish state – and the misery for Palestinians starts to end. The blockade goes away. The economy gets back to work. Poor Palestinian kids who had the awful luck to be born in a permanent refugee camp don’t go hungry anymore. People start thinking about a future that doesn’t involve sleeping rough in missile-blast craters beneath a torn plastic sheet.

What’s Taking Them So Long?
When you don’t present incentives for Palestinians to change their behavior, the implicit understanding is that Palestinians are not masters of their own fate. Democratically-elected Canadian dupes continue to burnish this lie, treating the Palestinians as unthinking pawns who must be patient as others help them behind the scenes:

“Just be patient… we’ll make your oppressors go away. The ICJ is keeping Israeli politicians and soldiers sleepless nights. The United Nations Human Rights Commission is condemning Israel on your behalf every other week. We’re keeping the pressure on. Just you wait…”

Why do the Palestinians not act? Getting a job, being able to provide for your family, enjoying freedom from thugs and torturers are obvious incentives. But for years, politicians and activists have been lying to the Palestinians, telling them they don’t need to change — that they can’t change, that it is the oppressor who must change. Believing these lies, they have no incentive to act:

“You can have freedom, prosperity, a state of your own. Look at your proud legacy of resistance. If your enemies haven’t broken you yet, how can you give up now? Don’t give an inch. Don’t change a thing. You are an inspiration to us. In return, we will win your freedom.”

Truth Be Told
But the game is up. Those who truly want to advocate for the Palestinians have to be willing to tell them the truth:

“The Israelis are exhausted. They’re tired and demoralized from constantly getting slammed as the new Nazis. Some of them really are concerned about these talks of boycotts and extraditing their leaders.

“But they will never, never, never end the blockade. Never take down their wall. Never allow you to have a state where you and your children can be free. They will never do these things, unless you formally reject those who are sworn to destroy them. So you’ve got just two paths out of this living hell. The first is to convince your leaders to give up their maximalist position, recognize Israel and end the violence.

“You’ll probably want to try the first option, since the second way is quite a bit messier. That is, you’ll need to shoot every Hamas official you can find until the rest get on board with your plan. Don’t have a gun? Stab them in the gut. Throw them off a building. Beat them with frying pans. Whatever it takes.

“Anyway, those are your options. Good luck with that, because I really can’t help you. As usual, you’re on your own.”

Those who call themselves friends to the Palestinian people, including our own parliamentarians, now need to tell them the truth. They need to make sure they understand their incentives to get rid of Hamas and to do it quickly. When the Palestinians stop waiting for the international community to pressure Israel to subvert its own security and instead are prepared to do what is necessary to give their children a future, they will take charge of their own destiny.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

UN Votes for Balanced, Moral Resolution on Israelis and Palestinians

jnarvey — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:21:07 +0000

Actually, not. But I thought it made a more interesting headline.

The real story, to absolutely no one’s surprise:

The action in Geneva by the 47-nation council was a sharp setback for Israel, which had labored to discredit the month-old U.N. report. The council’s vote could force Israel to defend itself for months or perhaps years — in diplomatic forums, if not criminal tribunals — as U.N. bodies grapple with highly charged fallout from last winter’s conflict in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

While the council embraced a report that condemned both sides, the resolution itself criticized only Israel and was adopted by a wide margin.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Bring Khadr Home. Put Him On Trial

jnarvey — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:37:55 +0000

How many times do the courts have to tell our government to make efforts to bring Omar Khadr back to Canada?

Bring him back. Let him have his day in a Canadian court, presumably charged with the murder of the American soldier he allegedly killed with a grenade. Throw in some anti-terror charges if they also apply.

Finish this, already.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Hamas Takes on the Loyal Opposition

jnarvey — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 16:47:02 +0000

Blue on blue urban combat in Gaza, as Hamas (Islamic Resistance) goes toe to toe with the Jund Ansar Allah (Army of the Helpers of God). It begs the question, now that the fighting is over, will God really sort them out?

Evidently, Jund Ansar Allah accused Hamas of “not being Islamist enough”. The upstarts got sick and tired of waiting for Gaza’s rulers to declare an “Islamic Emirate” and went ahead and did it themselves (perhaps even these whackos recognized a territory the size of Gaza wouldn’t quite cut it as a “Caliphate”, given the grand imperial connotation).

Anyone else sick of the latest demonstration that while ordinary Palestinian people suffer from shortages of food, fuel and medicine brought on by the closure of Gaza’s borders by Israel and Egypt, the Hamas rulers and this terror group seem to have no problem at all smuggling in endless supplies of ammunition and rockets? Priorities, people? Just throwing it out there.

The video below provides ample insight into Hamas’ moderate views that Jund Ansar Allah thinks don’t quite make the cut

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Unwarranted, Unjustified, and Vindictive

jnarvey — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:54:28 +0000

See? You don’t have to be an American president to blast rogue regimes with both barrels (well, rhetorically, anyway). Our PM has some harsh words for Burma’s generals. The junta may not listen, but this is what Canadians need to hear:

Canada strongly condemns the Burmese regime’s decision to sentence Aung San Suu Kyi to a further 18 months house arrest.

This decision is clearly not in accordance with the rule of law: the charges laid against her were baseless and her trial did not come close to meeting international standards of due process. Her continued detention is unwarranted, unjustified, and vindictive…

We will continue to stand with the people of Burma and insist that their human rights be respected and their voices heard.

Couldn’t have said it any better, Steve-O.

I’m reminded of an article I wrote about Burma eons ago that still seems relevant today. I’ve dredged through my Gmail and discovered it for your reading pleasure:

Ethics 101: Don’t Do Business With a Junta

“Of course it’s a democracy! The people just don’t have the right to vote.”

Mathew’s comment elicited a few chuckles from my colleagues sitting around the staff table. But I could tell I wasn’t the only one who felt a little uneasy.

My workplace in Vancouver had decided to open up a branch in Myanmar. We had just got the memo.

None of us really knew much about the country. Even in 2008, after the cyclone disaster and the mass protests brutally put down by the junta’s troops, I suspect not many Canadians can even find the place on a map.

Still, we were all basically aware the country was located somewhere in Southeast Asia and run by a military regime known for its low regard for human rights.

The Japanese-based owners’ rationale for setting up a branch in Myanmar was that in a global world, business had to reach out to new and emerging markets. Everyone else is going left, so you go right. Since companies were not rushing into Myanmar to invest, management saw an opportunity to get in on the ground floor.

The company heads seemed to have a vague idea of the ethical minefield they were walking into, if only because it was going to be awfully tough to find an employee willing to go over there. Our local manager had come up with the line that Myanmar was showing signs of an emerging democracy to calm our concerns.

That’s when Mathew ran with his one-liner and broke the tension. But I was on edge.

I decided to do a little research and soon discovered that the US first imposed sanctions on Myanmar in 1990. This was after the incumbent junta annulled an election won by Myanmar’s National League for Democracy. The 1991 Nobel Peace Laureate and opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest more than a decade. The European Union imposed its own sanctions soon after.

As for us Canucks, the Canadian government officially discourages investment in the country. Petro Canada pulled out in 1998.

Despite its cash-poor status, trade with Asian countries provides the ruling generals with enough capital to run one of the most the most repressive and pervasive military intelligence systems in the world.

Fifty per cent of Myanmar’s economy goes towards military spending, but apparently there’s no cash to pay for the slave laborers the army dragoons to hack out roads in remote areas, or the child soldiers forced to raid villages inhabited by ethnic minorities.

Our company’s executives had to be aware that the only people able to afford our services would be involved with or related to the ruling junta. The company went ahead, anyway.

It didn’t take long to get things started. In weeks, we had a physical location and they were already printing brochures.

I moved on to greener pastures soon after, but I kept in touch with my old colleagues. Less than six months later, I heard the Myanmar branch had closed.

The customers had all registered in hopes of somehow getting visas and permission to travel abroad – evidently, promises had been made in the promotional materials that had been rushed to the printers. When that didn’t happen, they protested and the branch was forced to shut down. Rumor had it that the big bosses back in Japan had only set up the Myanmar in the first place as an elaborate scam to get a few friends some visas to get into Canada.

A few weeks later, US President George Bush listed Myanmar alongside Iran, North Korea, Belarus, Cuba and Zimbabwe as outposts of tyranny in his inaugural address.

It’s been four years since then. The junta has holed up in their jungle base while their soldiers continue to keep the people terrorized. I’d like to think that Canadians – and foreign executives with interests in Canada, for that matter — are a little more educated now about the downside of doing business in a country where Amnesty International has been collecting evidence of torture and human rights abuses for decades.

We’ll see.

And we’re still waiting.

Myanmar Burma It Can’t Wait – by Tila Tequila

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.