Individuals at Risk

Today we received word that Eritrean priest Zecharias Abraham, church elder Mikias Mekonnen and 78 of their parishoners, arrested April 29 during a church service (UA 119/07), were all released from jail in late May.

This is, obviously, great news, and further evidence that your activism really can make a difference. This success comes on the heels of the release in late 2006 of Eritrean gospel singer Helen Berhane (subject of a campaign for Amnesty's Music for Human Rights), who had been detained for over two years without charge in an army camp.

But despite these bright spots, the situation for members of minority religions in Eritrea remains grave. Amnesty has said there are still around 2,000 other evangelical Christians being held incommunicado in Eritrea, which in 2002 recognized Islam and Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran Christianity as the only officially acceptable religions of the state.

In the five years since then, religious minorities have been hit hard with persecution. Although the vast majority of Eritrea's population is either Muslim or Orthodox Christan, there are also members of the Baha'i faith, Jehovah's Witnesses, and of course evangelicals. According to Amnesty's 2005 report on religion in Eritrea, members of these minority religious groups have has their churches and other places of worship shut down, and some worshippers have been tortured in an attempt to make them renounce their faith.

The Amnesty report (titled, unsurprisingly, "Eritrea: Religious Persecution") contains a horrifyingly long list of specific instances of targeting of religious minorities. Here are just a few examples, all from February, 2005:

▪ On 3 February, Semere Zaid, a lecturer in agriculture at Asmara University, formerly a member of a new Orthodox Church group, and now a member of the Church of the Living God, was arrested in Asmara. He was released on 28 February and ordered to stop attending religious gatherings and to report regularly to the police.
▪ On 16 February, police detained 17 members of the Rema Church at a home in Adikwala. Ten were released after two weeks but the other 17 are reportedly detained at Gelalo army camp.
▪ On 19 February, over 20 children aged between two and 18 years were arrested at a Medhane Alem (Orthodox Church) bible study class in Asmara. The youngest were released the same day, and the others were gradually released over the next few weeks. The five teachers, who work as instructors at Asmara University, are reportedly detained at Mai Serwa army camp.

And while Berhane (pictured right) is now free, during her detentions she was held in a metal shipping container and beaten, ending up in a wheelchair because of the injuries she sustained during her imprisonment.

All for the crime of refusing to deny her faith. 

So, what to do? In the last two years alone, we've issued seven separate Urgent Actions for victims of religious persecution in Eritrea. The only one that is still active right now is on behalf of a patriarch of the Orthodox Church, who is under house arrest after protesting the arrest of his colleagues. And there are guaranteed to be more in the future.

The releases of Abraham, Mekonnen, Berhane and the 78 other prisoners prove that the Eritrean government will cave to international pressure.

We need to take advantage of this knowledge to push them, hard, to stop their campaign of torture and persecution.

Rachel Dempsey

Freedom Writers  

Can a motley bunch of Tampa activists free an African political prisoner?

By Alex Pickett

Published 06.27.2007

http://tampa.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=262092

When her sister, Lilia Alejandra, became one of the hundreds of victims of the serial killings that have been taking place in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico for more than a decade, Maria Luisa Garcia Andrade decided to take action.

17 year-old Lilia Alejandra (her mother shown, left) was working in a maquiladora, or factory, in the border town of Ciudad Juarez. When she didn't come home one day in 2001, her family feared the worst — but the police took no action until her body was found several days later. Lilia Alejandra had been held captive, sexually assaulted and strangled until she died.

Maria Luisa became involved with Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa (Our Daughters Return Home), which has been agitating for justice in the unsolved murders and disappearances.

Now her life, too, is in danger.

For over a decade now, women and girls in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico have been disappearing on their way to and from their jobs. Over 400 female employees of the city's many maquiladoras, or sweatshops, have gone missing since 1993, and many of them turn up dead a few days after they disappear, many of them showing signs of sexual violence or rape.

At this point, the murders in Ciudad Juarez are old news. Several books have been published and a number of documentaries have been filmed about the situation, and a Hollywood movie, Bordertown, starring Jennifer Lopez and supported by Amnesty, is due for limited release at the end of August.

Amnesty's Women's Human Rights campaign has long been active on the Ciudad Juarez murders as well. Its 2003 report Mexico: Intolerable Killings, along with subsequent actions and activism, has played an important role in bringing attention to the lack of accountability in Ciudad Juarez and the mishandling of the murders by local law enforcement authorities.

But the murders continue.

In the last few years, the Mexican government has placed the case under federal oversight to address concerns that police in Ciudad Juarez were not doing enough to investigate the killings. The Federal Special Prosecutor's Office has put out several reports on the situation, and 2005 saw the creation of the Special Commission for the Prevention and Eradication of Violence against Women in Ciudad Juarez.

Yet somehow, despite the international outcry, women continue to disappear on their way home from work, the local government continues to downplay the crisis, and the murderers continue to go unpunished.

To make matters worse, human rights defenders in the area, including Maria Luisa, are coming under attack. Members of Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa are subject to regular harassment, and the organization has been robbed several times (UA 167/07). Marisela Ortiz Rivera, one activist, received a text message on June 22 saying "disfruta de la vida mientras puedas" ("enjoy life while you still can"). And after reporting the theft of documents related to the 2001 murder of her sister, Maria Luisa was told "ya me enteré que nos volvieron a denunciar, porque no dejan las cosas por la paz, total mañana apareces muerta, o yo muerto!" ("I found out that you've complained about us again, why don't you let things be? Either you'll turn up dead tomorrow or I will!").

So what can you do?

• Write letters to the Mexican government to make sure Ortiz Rivera, Garcia Andrade and the other activists involved with Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa get the protection they need and deserve.
• Sign a petition to Mexican president Felipe Calderon urging him to take action.
• Participate in the "Cross Petition," a campaign to call attention to violence against women in both Mexico and Guatemala.
• Contact your congressperson in support of the "Concurrent Congressional Resolution on Juarez," passed unanimously in May 2006.

After more than a decade, the only things that are clear are that the murders aren't going to stop anytime soon, and that the only tool we have to halt them is shame. So do whatever you can to make sure the Mexican government feels pressure to remedy the situation — before more women die.

Rachel Dempsey

A few weeks ago, I posted a blog entry on what you could do to help the situation in Darfur. One of my suggestions was to look into divestment from corporations that help fund human rights abuses in Sudan.

But I wrote that before I spoke with Amy O'Meara, Business and Human Rights Campaigner with the Corporate Action Network. Amnesty doesn't generally support divestment, Amy told me, and while the policy is currently under review she said there are lots of other ways you can influence businesses and corporations to uphold human rights without the risk of doing more harm than good. And with the September launch of SHARE POWER campaign, it will soon be easier than ever to be aware of your money's impact on human rights.

What exactly is SHARE POWER?

"SHARE POWER is a campaign we started a couple of years ago to make it easier for grassroots activists to get involved with shareholder activism," Amy said. Amnesty already owns stock in several companies with particularly bad human rights records, she said, because "if we own a few shares in bad companies, it makes it possible for us to file resolutions and to attend their shareholder meetings." While Amnesty doesn't make any profit off the stocks, and the shares it owns are very small, they allow us greater influence over the way the companies are run. The idea behind SHARE POWER is to extend this shareholder activism beyond Amnesty itself. "We help people find out how they're connected [to human rights abusers], and then we give them strategies and tools to help reform those investors." The chart below lists the many links between our investments and our impact on human rights.

How can businesses impact human rights?

At the Corporate Action Network, Amy said, "Our focus is primarily on stopping abuses." One instance of a company that refuses to address its human rights responsibilities is Chevron Corporation. "They've been connected to human rights abuses through environmental contamination," Amy said. "They are refuing to clean up a mess left by their subsidiary, Texaco, and indigenous populations are suffering for it." Other cases, she said, are "companies that have been collaborating with oppressive governments, like the Chinese, to censor the Internet" - Yahoo, Google and Microsoft, for example - or private military contractors, some of which were implicated in abuses like those that took place at Abu Ghraib."

What is the best way for people to make sure their own financial decisions don't end up hurting human rights?

"It's a challenging question," Amy said. She said the first step is to research corporations' human rights records. While Amnesty is only able to keep tabs on a handful of companies, she recommended visiting the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre website for more information. "Deciding how you want to impact the way companies operate is a personal choice.A lot of people feel that they would rather not own companies at all that have human rights violations." But, Amy said, shareholders have certain rights and responsibilities that can help them influence company policies and practives, and ultimately can play an important role in helping companies improve their human rights impacts. "The important thing is for people who own stocks to be responsible shareholders."

Amy also said even if you don't have a direct stake in a company, you can still impact its policies and practices through your indirect connections to powerful investors -for example, your university endowment, city or state treasury, or retirement account. She recommends that budding activists start by pushing for transparency, to make sure information about investments is publicly available.

Amnesty's SHARE POWER and Corporate Action Network websites provide all of the tools you need to find out how you might be connected, and to start asking the right questions.  If you're especially interested in the issue of companies operating in Sudan and how shareholder activism can make a difference, be sure to join a special online chat with Amy and Denise Bell, Amnesty's Sudan Country Specialist, on September 27th. Contact corpaction@aiusa.org for more information about the chat or Amnesty's work to hold corporations accountable.

Rachel Dempsey

Human rights are a pretty idealistic concept. At some level, it's common sense, or at least common decency, to believe that everyone has the right to retain their dignity as a human being regardless of circumstances. And sometimes applying this principle is pretty straightforward: Genocide is an obvious instance of the violation of human rights. No one should be murdered just for their ethnic background. Simple, right?

Actually, not so much. Sometimes the boundary between those freedoms that we have a right to and those that would be nice if we can get them becomes blurry. Economic, social and cultural rights sit just to one side of this nebulous line.

But which side is it? If we have a right to health, doesn't cancer violate it? Or even the common cold? Even the most ardent supporter of human rights has to admit that trying to prosecute a disease is just plain silly.

In 2001, Amnesty International made the decision to concentrate more of its resources on promoting the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR). Before then, Amnesty's activism followed a broader agenda of remedying the violation of human rights, which often ended up being the set of rights known as civil and political rights.

When most people think of human rights, they think of civil and political rights, also known as first-generation human rights. These include the right to be free from torture, the right to a fair trial and freedom of speech, as outlined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

But economic, social and cultural rights, sometimes called second-generation human rights, are also recognized in several major human rights documents, most importantly in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights itself and in the ICCPR's counterpart, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). This covenant includes such rights as the right to work, the right to social security and the right to "the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health."

But several countries, including the United States (come on, are you really surprised?) object to the validity of including economic, social and cultural rights on the same level as civil and political rights. The USA has stated that "at best, economic, social and cultural rights are goals that can only be achieved progressively, not guarantees. Therefore, while access to food, health services and quality education are the top of any list of development goals, to speak of them as rights turns the citizens of developing countries into objects of development rather than subjects in control of their own destiny."

Amnesty's stance, however, is that civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights are inextricably connected. As stated on the section of its website devoted to ESCR, "Just as full enjoyment of the right to freedom of expression requires concerted efforts to realize the right to education, so the right to life requires steps to reduce maternal mortality, epidemics and malnutrition."

When you put it that way, suddenly economic, social and cultural rights seem a lot more reasonable. Surely the babies starving to death in third-world countries — more than 6 million a year under the age of 5, according to the humanitarian organization CARE — deserve better, simply because they are human beings like us. And watching while people die turns them into objects more than anything, despite what the US government might say.

This isn't to say that the United States needs to make it a mission to ensure that everyone everywhere has equal access to food, healthcare, education and whatever else will help ensure a decent quality of life for those in need. What is does mean is that economic, social and cultural rights need to be recognized, not relegated to secondary importance behind more explosive issues like political violence.

For more information about why economic, social and cultural rights matter, read Amnesty's report Human Rights for Human Dignity. We currently have several actions you can take to promote ESCR, so whether you're interested in public health, women's issues, or the environment, there's something you can do.

The right to health doesn't mean the right not to get sick. It means the right to live in an environment where it's possible to be healthy, and the right to receive medical care when you do fall ill. At this point, many of the world's deadliest diseases — like malaria, which kills millions of people each year — are easily preventable, and can be treated relatively inexpensively. Don't the people who live in malaria-prone areas have the right to live — just as much as the protestor in a Chinese jail?

Rachel Dempsey

To go along with yesterday's post about how to make your action as effective as possible, I thought I'd draw attention today to a few recent successes we've seen here at the Urgent Action Network. It's easy to get discouraged when every day brings news of another pending execution or imprisoned human rights activist, but I tried to convince you yesterday that it really is possible to make a difference. Here's proof.

• Bulgarian health workers released in Libya: In breaking news, five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were freed today after more than eight years in a Libyan jail. The medical workers were accused in 1999 of deliberately infecting 400 Libyan children with HIV, and were the subject of several Urgent Actions, the most recent of which dates from 2004. The Libyan government's recent change of heart is probably largely the result of action on the part of Celicia Sarozsky, the wife of the French Prime Minister. But while Urgent Action volunteers have not been asked to send any letters for almost three years, anyone who put pressure on the Libyan government to free these workers deserves some of the credit for their release.
• Saudi activists released without charge: Sometimes it takes years for an Urgent Action case to come to a resolution. But sometimes, the turnaround can take place in mere days, like in UA 187/07 on Saudi Arabia, issued on July 19. We have received notice that all of the women arrested for protesting the detainment of their family members were released yesterday, along with those family members whose arrest prompted the demonstration in the first place. Their lawyer thanked Amnesty International (that's you guys, UAN activists!) for all its efforts.
• Mesfin Woldemariam freed in Ethiopia: On July 20, the Ethiopian government pardoned 38 opposition leaders, including Woldemariam (a subject of UAs 284/05 and 224/06 and, more recently, of Amnesty's Summer Postcard Action), just days after the men were sentenced to various prison terms including life. Woldemariam, along with the other prisoners, had been accused of plotting to overthrow the government after criticizing an allegedly rigged election. According to the AP, the international pressure placed on the Ethiopian government was the main reason for the prisoners' release.
• Bablu Rai receiving treatment for injuries in Nepal: Bablu Rai (UA 138/07), a Nepalese national accused of drug smuggling, was tortured for hours on end and refused medical treatment in early June. But as of July 13, Rai was deemed no longer at risk of torture, and was receiving, according to Amnesty, "regular and adequate medical treatment" for the injuries he had sustained. This case hasn't received nearly as much attention as Woldemariam's, but it shows that even in the less publicized cases, situations can and do improve — even if you don't hear about it in the newspaper.
• Dushyantha Basnayake released in Sri Lanka: In another lesser-known case, Sri Lankan newspaper editor Dushyantha Basnayake was detained in February in reported connection with several articles published in his paper about human rights abuses in Sri Lanka. He was held incommunicado and at risk of torture, but was released on the 15 of May without charge, on the orders of the Supreme Court.
• Troy Davis granted stay of execution in USA: In one of Amnesty's biggest successes since I've been working here, Troy Davis (UA 170/07 and the subject of a huge online action campaign) was granted a stay of execution less than a day before his scheduled death. Davis was convicted of killing police officer Mark MacPhail, but since his trial evidence has emerged pointing to his innocence. Although the fight isn't over yet - he could still be executed after the 90-day stay expires - the attention activists like you have brought to Davis' case could get an innocent man off death row, and has served to ignite a national debate that focuses on the problems with the current use of the death penalty.

For more stories, check out this month's Amnesty Voices. 

As you can see, you really do have an impact. So get writing. There's lots more to be done.

Rachel Dempsey

If you're reading this blog right now, chances are you already feel like something needs to be done about the gross violations of human rights that are taking place all the time, all over the world. You may already be a member of Amnesty International, and you may belong to the Urgent Action Network, writing a couple of letters a month to government officials from Morocco to Mexico.

Amnesty International's focus on grassroots activism is a big part of why I chose to spend my summer in muggy D.C., in a windowless room, working full-time for no pay. As cheesy as it sounds, I love that Amnesty provides regular people the opportunity to enter the dialogue on international human rights issues by talking directly to government officials. Not everyone can risk their lives to enter the Sudan and provide internally displaced people with food and medical care. But anyone can pick up a pen and write a letter urging the Sudanese government to treat its citizens with the humanity they deserve.

But do you ever feel like you're shouting into a void? Ever wonder if your everyday activism makes a difference?

I know I do. Sometimes I can't help thinking that maybe the Shah of Iran doesn't really care what an American college girl has to say about his liberal use of the death penalty (and conservative views on almost everything else.)

Still, I process dozens of government replies every month. Whenever an Urgent Action activist gets a response to his or her letter, I enter it into a database and then send it on to Amnesty headquarters in London. So I know for a fact that some of the letters people send get read. Some of them even lead to the release of prisoners.

That said, some letters are more effective than others. In order to make sure your efforts get the best results possible, I've put together a few tips for the everyday activist.

• Write efficiently: Tempting as it might be to write a manifesto on why human rights matter to you, people are busy and get bored easily. If you're writing a letter to a government official, keep it short and sweet. That way, it's more likely to actually be read, and if you get all the important facts down concisely, for the person reading it to actually end up informed. One tip that I've found helpful is to mention the name of the person you're writing about as much as possible. It personalizes the case and makes the name stick out in the reader's mind, so he or she is more likely to remember if it comes up again.
• Choose something you care about: This seems like obvious advice, but if you really care about something your urgency is more likely to come across than if you're just taking up a cause because it's there. There's no need to write an epic about why the rights of librarians matters to you, but it's really rewarding to feel like you're acting for a cause that matters on a personal level, whether it's women's rights or free speech. Figure out what interests you, and then sign up to receive Urgent Actions only on that particular topic.
• Don't forget who you're writing to: To build on the last suggestion, when you're writing a letter for an Urgent Action case, it's easy to forget that you're writing to a human being, not a piece of bureaucratic machinery. And yes, often your letter will be read and answered by some unpaid intern, or just skimmed and tossed into a to-do pile or the trash. But appeal to the humanity of the person you write to and you might get someone to act humanely in return.
• Get help: Often what matters isn't the content of the letters you write, but rather the number of letters an official receives on a given subject. If you've found something that really matters to you, get friends and family to write their own letters expressing their concern. It can be as easy as sending out a link to an Online Action to your e-mail panlist. Sure, some people might get annoyed at the extra inbox clutter. But if just a couple of people choose to act on it, it makes you message that much stronger.

Rachel Dempsey

In the United States we normally hear about Mexico in the context of immigration or trade- people or goods coming into America.  Rarely do we hear about the domestic situation within the country, or how we affect them. 

For seventy years, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (or PRI) held onto control of the government.  Elections in 1997 saw an opposition break away from the main party, and then in 2000 Vicente Fox became the first president from the opposition.

Mexico is very rich in oil and other natural resources- nearly one third of government revenue comes from the oil industry, and much of the crude is bought by the US.  However, prosperity is out of reach for most Mexicans.  Rural areas are neglected, and there are often large slums around urban areas.  Many poor Mexicans attempt to cross the border into the United States- over a million are arrested each year.

Despite the recent change in government, human rights abuses have continued largely unabated.  According to the Human Rights Watch:

The presidency of Vicente Fox ended in 2006 with the ambitious human rights agenda that he had brought to office left largely unfulfilled. While the Fox administration succeeded in promoting greater transparency in government, including greater receptivity to international scrutiny of Mexico's human rights practices, the administration made little progress in curbing longstanding abusive practices. When Fox stepped down, the Special Prosecutor's Office that he created in 2001 to address past atrocities had yet to win a single conviction and his comprehensive 2004 proposal to reform the justice system had not been passed by Mexico's Congress.  

Currently, there are several dire situations in Mexico.

The first is in Oaxaca, which I talked about in my blog post here. 

At least 40 people were arrested on 16 July in Oaxaca during violent clashes between demonstrators and state police during a Oaxaca festival, the Guelaguetza. Local human rights organizations and the detainees' families claim they are being held incommunicado, and fear for their safety. Two human rights defenders were beaten by police at the festival and had to receive hospital treatment for their injuries. They now fear reprisals for having filed a complaint with the authorities against the police.

There have been cotinuing clashes between police forces and members of the Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca, or APPO, since a protest sparked by a teacher's strike in June of 2006.  Members of a human rights group working to free those who were arrested during protests have been harassed and detained. 

You can take action by going to Urgent Action 184/07.

Many human rights abuses in Mexico have to do with women.  In many cases women are mistreated, threatened, or even killed with impunity.  Mexican laws do not meet the needs of women at risk- there are still provisions in Mexico's laws that define sactions for sexual crimes with reference to the victim's 'chastity', and provisions against domestic abuse that only penalize offenders once a victim has been battered repeatedly.  Women and girls who report sexual assault are often looked on with hostility and suspicion.

Since 1993, almost 400 women and girls have been murdered and more than 70 remain missing in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua, Mexico. While Amnesty International commends the recent measures taken by the Mexican government, the response remains inadequate.

More than just failing to act upon these cases, police forces have failed to protect members of groups who are trying to fight to end the violence.  Maria Luisa Garcia Andrade and Marisela Ortiz Rivera are members of Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa (Our daughters return home). Since 10 June, they, and lawyers of the Asociacion Nacional de Abogados Democraticos, National Association of Democratic Lawyers, have been receiving emails with insults, death threats and warnings to stop their human rights work.

Go here to urge Mexican authorities to protect human rights defenders in Ciudad Juárez. 

Lydia Cacho Ribeiro spent many years fighting for the rights of women and children in Mexico.  She was detained for writing a book revealing the existence of a child pornography ring involving members of the government and police, and she is the president of a women's organization providing assistance to women and girls who have experienced violence, especially domestic violence. Ms. Cacho and her staff have been repeatedly threatened by a former police officer, because his wife has sought protection from Ms. Cacho's organization. Despite repeated complaints to the Mexican authorities, little has been done to protect Ms. Cacho and to stop the threats. 

Once again, Mexican authorities need to be told to protect human rights defenders. 

Journalists also face many obstacles in Mexico.  The defamation laws that allowed the government to target Lydia Cacho mean that journalists can be punished for writing stories critical of the government. 

Isabel Arvide was sentenced to a year in prison (which was later suspended) and ordered to pay US$19,000 for 'defamation' after she published an article in 2001 which alleged a link between state officials and organized crime.

Other reporters, especially those who cover drug trafficking and organized crime, are harassed or attacked.  Reporters Without Borders said that in 2006, Mexico was the second most dangerous country for journalists.  Nine journalists were killed there for reporting on trafficking or violent social unrest.

The Mexican judicial system also needs work, as some judges still accept evidence gained through torture.  Jails in Mexico are also overcrowded, with many people kept for years before they even come to trial.

~Jessica Beardsley

The illicit romance has been the subject of more teen movies than I can count. Innocent young girl falls in love with boy from the wrong side of the tracks, parents forbid relationship, relationship continues anyway, parents get over themselves and everyone lives happily ever after.

But in real life, things don't always work out that way. And for some girls in fundamentalist religious families, falling in love can be a death sentence.

Take the horrifying case of Banaz Mahmod (right), a 20-year old Kurdish immingrant to London whose father and uncle ordered her rape and killing last year. Mahmod had shamed her family by committing the inexcusable crime of leaving an abusive marriage and entering into a new relationship with a man who did not come from her family's village. Her body was found in a suitcase.

If something like this can happen in London, one of the world's most modern and cosmopolitan cities, it really can happen anywhere — and it does. Although many honor killings take place in majority Muslim countries, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions has reported on honor killings in places ranging from Iran to Sweden and Ecuador, and not all of the victims were Muslim.

In one particularly shocking case that received worldwide attention earlier this year, Dua Khalil, a 17-year old Iraqi Kurd and follower of the ancient Yadzi religion, was kicked, beaten and stoned to death in an honor killing caught on cell phone video camera. Her crime? Being seen with a Sunni Muslim man.

According to a 2000 estimate by the United Nations Population Fund, up to 5,000 girls and women are murdered every year by family members seeking to remedy a perceived slight to their honor. Justifications for honor killings range from accusations of adultery to alleged disrespect to men. In some situations, rape victims are killed by their own families for calling attention to the crime.

Here in the U.S., we take for granted our right to determine our own romantic destiny, mistakes and all. And sure, we all end up with a few battle scars — broken hearts, maybe a few broken friendships, and those memories we wish we could just erase.

But it's unconscionable that a woman should have to pay for a relationship with her life.

To take action to stop honor killings, show your support for women's rights worldwide and urge your Senator to support the Treaty for the Rights of Women. For more information, you can also check out the websites of the Global Fund for Women and Gendercide's case study on honor killings and blood feuds.

Rachel Dempsey

Education in Afghanistan is under attack.

The well-publicized killing of two young women last month at a school in Qalai Sayedan is just one of more than 400 attacks on Afghan schools since last August, ranging from thefts to cold-blooded murder. The girls from Qalai Sayedan — 13-year old Shukria and 25-year old Saadia — left school early June 12 along with a group of eight other students. Targeted for their gender, they were attacked by gunmen and left to die, meant to serve as a warning to other females seeking an education.

Unfortunately, it seems to have worked. Although the Qalai Sayedan school, renamed the Martyred Saadia School after one of the murder victims, reopened mid-July, only about a quarter of its students have returned. Parents are being forced to make the unimaginable choice between providing their children with an education and protecting their lives.

Almost as appalling, the New York Times reports that more than half the schools in Afghanistan do not have access to buildings, and have to hold classes in tents or under trees. Students take tests surrounded by swarming flies and blowing sand, or if they're really lucky, crammed into classrooms far too small to hold them. Very few teachers are even minimally qualified, and textbooks are incredibly outdated, with millions of newer volumes yet to be printed. According to a report by UNICEF, in 2004 there were still nine provinces in the country where girls' non-enrollment stood at 80% or higher.

Not all the news is bad. Under the Taliban, female education in Afghanistan was banned. Now, a third of the six million children enrolled in school are girls. But if this pattern of intimidation continues, that number will only decrease.

Which is exactly what those attacking schools want to see happen.

The United States, which invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and still maintains troops there, bears some of the responsibility to stop these unconscionable attacks and improve access to education throughout the country. Right now, 30% of the U.S. budget for Afghanistan is being spent on roads, and 14% on power. Only 5% goes to fund education.

Write or call your representatives urging them to push for more funding for education in Afghanistan, and check out the UNICEF website on women's education for more information. This is the next generation of Afghans, and if we are ever going to achieve stability in their country, we need to make sure these children grow up adequately educated. 

Ensuring that they won't be killed on their way home from school is a good first step.

Since June 22nd, farmers and peasants have been on protest in Ho Chi Minh City.

Reportedly in the hundreds to thousands, protestors are demonstrating against government land seizures that are becoming more and more common as Viet Nam's booming economy looks to expand. Protestors have travelled from all over the country to stage one of the longest post-war demonstrations in front of Congress House 2 in Ho Chi Minh City. Efforts to send in water, food and sanitation supplies have been blocked by police who have surrounded protestors.

The People's Democratic Party of Viet Nam issued a press release this afternoon citing its sources in Viet Nam who reported on police suppression. Starting today at 10pm Vietnam time, (11am this morning in DC) protestors are apparently being arrested in the hundreds and are being hit with tear gas and water hoses, as well as police beatings. As you can see from this recent AP photo, the Vietnamese police are pretty much roughing up a bunch of grannies and poor folk.

GO HERE to see their list of demands 

and

HERE for a daily log from a journalist on the ground in Ho Chi Minh City

With the humidity here in DC reaching brain-frying highs and midsummer lethargy sapping us of any and all initiative, there's no better time to hide in the shade with a good book.

My totally smart and sophisticated fellow intern Bien has some good suggestions this week, so take your pick and crack one open!

And yes, I know Saturday is the biggest day, like, ever for all you Harry Potter nerds out there (and in here — I'm counting the hours), but you'll need something to take the edge off when you finally finish the last chapter in the saga of everyone's favorite Chosen One. So welcome to Part III of the Human Rights Summer Reading Series!

I, Rigoberta Menchu (1983), Rigoberta Menchu and Elizabeth Burgos-Debray — Almost a decade before she won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in support of indigenous rights in Guatemala, Menchu dictated this memoir of oppression and activism to Burgos-Debray, who preserved the narrative stream-of-consciousness sensibility in the published book. I, Rigoberta Menchu details both the everyday life of members of the Guatemalan Quiche tribe and Menchu's journey towards becoming an activist, including the brutal torture of her father. A 1999 book by anthropologist David Stoll claimed that some of Menchu's story was fabricated, and she later admitted she made certain falsifications, but the book remains both a compelling story and an important piece of human-rights history.

Orientalism (1978), Edward Said — As Bien concisely puts it, this book is a classic examination of colonial structures, and its influence throughout literary and cultural history has been enormous. Using representations of the Middle and Far East in art and literature, Said argues that the Orient as percieved by Westerners is defined by its opposition to the cultural norms of the Occident. Orientalism's invaluable insights into the relationship between East and West jumpstarted the poscolonial theoretical movement, and his conclusions about the relationship between the Western and Arab worlds remain especially prescient remains even 30 years after the book's publication.

The Colonial Present (2004), Derek Gregory — Gregory picks up the colonialist critique where Said left off, in a tome about the handling of the war on terror that focuses on Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. He uses the history of the Middle East and the stories of everyday people in the area to construct a geopolitical profile of the current conflict, arguing that United States involvement in Muslim countries is part of a long pattern of colonial domination. As a geographer, Gregory focuses on the geographical history of the region, supporting his rhetoric with well-researched empirical facts.

The Wretched of the Earth (1961), Frantz Fanon — According to Bien, this classic book is "an examination of colonialism and a deconstruction of colonial structures both physical and psychological." Published during the Algerian independence movement, Fanon uses Marxism as a framework to discuss his experiences in Algeria's war against France and evaluate the role violence plays in decolonization. His psychological insights about the long-term impacts of colonization and oppression, and about the dangers of intertribal and interfaith rivalries in decolonized peoples, provide profound revelations about the long-lasting aftershocks of imperialist rule.

The New Imperialism (2003), David Harvey — In this scholarly but accessible book, Harvey argues that the war on Iraq has been orchestrated as a diversion from domestic issues, and that the war on terror is just one more part of a long pattern of United States' imperialist ambitions. Using a combination of geopolitical and economic history, Harvey finds connections between Wall Street, the U.S. Treasury and the International Monetary Fund and asserts that neoconservative in the U.S. are using the current political climate to push a hegemonic agenda.

That's it for this week, but thank Bien for her thoughtful suggestions!