Ahead of the Super Bowl game the Washington Post pointedly observes a “grass ceiling,” i.e. that female sports reporters are confined to reporting from the sidelines rather than being involved in live commentary and other content reporting.
Outrage in Davos, where a shop owner was forced to remove a Tibet flag on orders of the police as the Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China visited the World Economic Forum, reports the NZZ.
Australia seems to continue along its path of reconciliation, naming Mick Dodson, one of the “stolen generation” as Australian of the Year and announcing that action is to be taken on ensuring that indigenous people have access to birth certificates – addressing a long lingering “identiy crisis,” which creates a major barrier in accessing mainstream services, among others.
The first trial of the International Criminal Court in The Hague starts today. It will – as a first in international law – ensure the participation of victims of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo,who stands accused of having committed, as co-perpetrator, war crimes consisting of enlisting and conscripting of children under the age of 15 years and using them to participate actively in hostilities.”
As Fred Kaplan reports in Slate, one of the first memoranda by President Barack Obama is a “restoration of the purpose” of the Freedom of Information Act. The Memorandum states, inter alia, “A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency,” and: “The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.”
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” the famous line from President Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Speech is the buzz-line ahead of the Obama inauguration on Tuesday.
Along those lines, a few words on “fear” from someone close to Obama:
“I am tired of being afraid. I am tired of living in a country where every decision that we’ve made over the last ten years wasn’t for something but it was because people told us that we had to fear something. We had to fear people who looked different from us. Fear people who believed in things that were different from us. Fear of one another right here in our own backyards. I am so tired of fear and I don’t want my girls to live in a country, in a world based on fear.” – Michelle Obama, February 2008.
We honor and we apologize, states the editorial of the Meridian Star today. Opening with a quote by Martin Luther King – “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy” – the editorial board says sorry:
“There was a time when this newspaper – and many others across the south — acted with gross neglect by largely ignoring the unfairness of segregated schools, buses, restaurants, washrooms, theaters and other public places. We did it through omission, by not recording for our readers many of the most important civil rights activities that happened in our midst, including protests and sit-ins. That was wrong. We should have loudly protested segregation and the efforts to block voter registration of black East Mississippians. Current management understands while we can’t go back and undo some past wrongs, we can offer our sincere apology — and promise never again to neglect our responsibility to inform you, our readers, about the human rights and dignity every individual is entitled to in America — no matter their religion, their ethnic background or the color of their skin.”
One of the issues one may easily forget is the dismissal of several judges in the Bush administration, which ultimately led to the resignation of the Attorney-General, Gonzalez. As the LATimes reports, the political apointee in charge of supervising the career lawyers in the Justice Department’s civil and voting rights divisions, referred to his staff as “commies,” “crazy libs,” and reportedly confided in a friend that “he hoped to get rid of the “Democrats” and “liberals” because they were “disloyal” and replace them with “real Americans” and “right-thinking Americans.”
Relieving to read an unrelated story in Slate about the history of Supreme Court Presidents – who preside over the inauguration – and Presidents of the United States. The piece highlights the fact that the Chief Justice who swore in Lincoln, Roger Brooke Taney, stated in Dred Scott v. Sanford that blacks were “beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Lincoln obviously opposed the decision. Obama and Roberts start out on opposite ground: Obama voted against Chief Justice Roberts.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has put together a catalogue of actions necessary to restore “freedom”, particularly in the realm of civil and human rights.
In this vein one may also want to read the Open Letter written by Julie Mertus, Professor of Human Rights at American University, to President-Elect Barack Obama, published by truthout. Mertus among others calls on Obama to repair the US’ relationship with UN human rights bodies by reaffirming the committment to the UN human rights framework, to investigate all acts that gave – and give – the impression of the US being above international law, and to sign as well as implement some of the international human rights treaties such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a convention signed by every country in the world except for the United States and Somalia, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The former Arch-Bishop and Nobel Peace Laurate, Desmond Tutu gave The Atlantic one of his trademark serious & funny interviews: In addition to some peace building wisdom – “If you want peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.” And: “How does peace come? Peace doesn’t come because allies agree. Allies are allies—they already agree! Peace comes when you talk to the guy you most hate.” – the tirless fighter for a more just and peaceful world also shares some thoughts on justice: “Most of us think of justice as being retributive. But I say, there is this other kind of justice—restorative justice—where the basic thrust is not punitive, it is healing. Healing both for the victim and the perpetrator.”
Given the current conflict in Israel and Gaza one may also want to recall his critical and critized words in 2002: “In our struggle against apartheid, the great supporters were Jews. They almost instinctively had to be on the side of the disenfranchised, of the voiceless, fighting injustice, oppression and evil … (…) My heart aches. Why are our memories so short? Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? (..) Israel will never get true security and safety through oppressing another people. A true peace can ultimately be built only on justice. We condemn the violence of suicide bombers, and we condemn the corruption of young minds taught hatred; but we also condemn the violence of military incursions in the occupied lands, and the inhumanity that won’t let ambulances reach the injured. The military action of recent days, I predict with certainty, will not provide the security and peace Israelis want; it will only intensify the hatred … .”
The BBC reports on one of the many asylum seekers across Europe who would love to work but is prohibited to do so.
The situation of asylum seekers is comparably dire in Austria. One of the high-profile entities assisting asylum seekers, the Integrations-Haus — Integration House — urged the responsible Minister for Interior to reflect both the State’s responsibility and the obligation to treat everyone equally in policies protecting and supporting asylum seekers:
The NYTimes reports the sad state of persons with disabilities, particularly those with psycho-social (mental) disabilities in former Easter Europe. Regulations dating from Communist times are still enacting, leaving little to no appreciation for the (human) rights of persons with disabilities.
Meanwhile, the Disability Organizations in Britain are pushing hard for an early ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which the government is holding off, citing concerns over not being fully compliant.
Beware – divorce in the Holy See! Citing concerning over implications of some of the European Union laws on the Vatican’s legislation, particularly potential conflicts with church principles, the Vatican will seize to automatically adopt the laws of the Italian legislature.
This is hardly surprising, given the EU’s latest push at the UN’s General Assembly for adoption of a declaration on decriminalizing homosexuality. A move that – equally unsurprising – met with some fearce resistance, leading to support from “only” 66 countries.