Reporting on Conflict | Media Watch Blog

• News source:
• 27 February 2010
• Toronto Star
• By Mike Funston

A former U.S. army colonel who has been barred from Canada for her peace activism will make another attempt to enter the country on Monday.

Ann Wright will attempt to cross the border at Windsor and if successful will attend a speaking engagement at the University of Toronto’s International Student Centre on Tuesday, organizers of the event said.

An outspoken critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Wright was blocked from entering the country on three prior attempts in 2007.

• News source:
• vimeo.com
• By John Richardson, Pivot Legal Society

John Richardson of Pivot Legal Society @ THE RIGHT TO THE CITY: RALLY FOR A NATIONAL HOUSING PROGRAM from working TV on Vimeo.

• News source:
• Nobel Women's Initiative

Under the leadership of women Nobel Peace Prize Laureates and our partner organization, the Women’s League of Burma, the Nobel Women’s Initiative is planning an International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women in Burma.

The Tribunal will take place in New York City on March 2, 2010 and will coincide with the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women meeting. Eminent Judges (including Nobel Peace Laureates) will hear personal testimony from several women of Burma who will share their personal stories of having lived through a range of human rights violations under the military regime in Burma.

• News source:
• 10 February 2010
• Ha'aretz
• By Nir Hasson and Barak Ravid

The High Court of Justice yesterday ordered two pro-Palestinian foreign activists to be freed on bail, and said immigration officers had overstepped their authority by arresting them in the West Bank…

Both women belong to the International Solidarity Movement, which is at the forefront of demonstrations against Israel’s separation barrier.

• News source:
• 9 February 2010
• Jerusalem Post
• By YAAKOV KATZ

Approximately 50 foreign nationals are currently residing in the West Bank and working together with Palestinian groups to disrupt and interfere with IDF operations, military sources said on Monday.

The High Court of Justice on Monday released two women from Spain and Australia who had been arrested in Ramallah for involvement in the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Troops raided their apartment on Sunday on the grounds that the women had overstayed their tourist visa and were involved in violent anti-Israel protests.

Overnight Monday, IDF troops raided the Ramallah offices of an organization called ‘Stop the Wall,’ which protests the construction of the West Bank security barrier. According to the organization, some 40 of its activists are currently being held by authorities. In January, another ISM activist from the Czech Republic was arrested in the West Bank and deported from Israel.

• News source:
• 9 February 2010
• Epoch Times
• By Su Xiuxian & Weng Yuxin, Sound of Hope Radio Network

The one-year anniversary of the disappearance of renowned Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng was marked on Feb. 5 by the filing of a petition with the United Nations (UN) Working Group on Involuntary Disappearances. And it received strong support from big names in international human rights. Filed by Freedom Now, a panel of international human rights experts put their names behind it, including Jerome A. Cohen, Irwin Cotler MP, David Matas and David Kilgour.

• News source:
• 4 February 2010
• Reporting on Conflict
• B'Tselem Press Release
• By B'Tselem

B’Tselem has written to demand that Board members of the Canadian organization Rights and Democracy stop maligning B’Tselem’s name. In a letter by B’Tselem Executive Director Jessica Montell, to Aurel Braun, Chairman of Rights and Democracy, Montell demands that he cease his ongoing public attacks on the Israeli human rights NGO.

B’Tselem read in the Canadian press that the board of Rights and Democracy voted to “repudiate” its grant to the organization. “We were outraged to read quotes in the press in which some members of the Board cast baseless aspersions on B’Tselem and the integrity of our work”, writes Montell. “These statements reveal profound, even offensive ignorance about B’Tselem’s work and its role in Israeli society”.

In its twenty years of activity, B’Tselem has earned a reputation both in Israel and around the world as the most reliable source for information on human rights in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Leading journalists, policymakers and academics consistently cite B’Tselem as their primary source for reliable information about human rights and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. B’Tselem is proud of its role in generating Israeli public discussion regarding human rights, and in fostering real improvements in Israel ’s human rights policies.

In addition to its documentation and advocacy activities, B’Tselem works closely with the Israeli military authorities in order to promote accountability. Israel ’s Judge-Advocate General has repeatedly praised his cooperation with B’Tselem, including in a recent feature in Israel ’s Haaretz newspaper: “My goal is to get at the truth, and they definitely help us do that. The cooperation with B’Tselem stands out in particular. They help us speak to witness, to examine complaints. They do their job and I do mine. The interests are not identical, but with all the criticism of these organizations of us, their goal is to seek out the truth.”

B’Tselem is motivated by a deep commitment to Israeli society, as well as a commitment to universal human rights principles. It strives for a future in which Israelis and Palestinians alike will live in freedom and dignity.

Two Palestinian organizations – al-Haq and al-Mezan – were similarly attacked in the Canadian press. B’Tselem also protested these attacks, citing the reputation both organizations have earned for their courageous work against human rights violations by Israeli as well as Palestinian authorities.

For further information contact:

Sarit Michael i, Press Officer, at +972 (0)50-5387230 or saritm@btselem.org

Mitchell Plitnick, Director of US Communications mitchell@btselem.org Phone: +1-202-783-0629

Sarit Michaeli
Press Officer
B’Tselem
+972 (0) 73-2509305 (office)
+972 (0)50 5387230 (cell)
http://www.btselem.org/

• News source:

The first ever Amnesty International Human Rights Art Festival will be held in Silver Spring, MD (just outside of Washington D.C.) from April 23-25, 2010. This multi-venue, multi-media event will bring together artists, local businesses and politicians to use socially transformative art to raise awareness of human rights and justice issues, as well as the important work of Amnesty International.

• News source:
• 29 January 2010
• Human Rights Examiner
• By Veterans for Peace

The death of a loved one or someone significant in our life often leaves us saying, “There weren’t many like him,” or “she’ll really leave a hole in this world.” In the case of Dr. Howard Zinn, there was no one else like him and his passing will leave a hole we can only hope will be filled some day…

As a renowned historian, he made no attempt to appear objective, indeed he thought it impossible. In an opening section of “A People’s History of the United States,” he said he preferred “to tell the story of the discovery of America from the viewpoint of the Arawaks, of the Constitution from the standpoint of the slaves…the Gilded Age as seen by southern farmers.”

• News source:
• 22 January 2010
• Haaretz
• By Linoy Bar-Gefen and Meron Rapoport

In a Palestinian village somewhere between Hebron and Bethlehem, it was so cold and misty one day last month that you could barely see more than a meter away. It was as if the fog served as camouflage, a hiding place behind which a few dozen settlers and Palestinians were concealed. They had crowded together in the hall of a local school, ostensibly to talk about joint prayers for rain – which came even without the prayers – but in essence to talk about themselves. This time, for a change, within earshot of the other side.

• News source:
• originally published 6 January 2010
• New Jersey Jewish News
• By Robert Wiener

On an interfaith mission to Israel, a local rabbi said her commitment to fostering peace in the region was tested in ways she and the other Americans on the trip had not anticipated.

Rabbi Amy Small of Congregation Beth Hatikvah in Summit was one of three rabbis who took part in a peacemaking trip to Jordan, Israel, and the West Bank led by the National Interreligious Leadership Initiative.

The 15 delegates, all from the United States, included two high-ranking Catholic clergy, a Greek Orthodox priest, four Islamic leaders, and ministers from four different Protestant denominations.

The trip, held Dec. 16-23, included moments of intimate bonding among the Muslims, Christians, and Jews, “who often live in their own worlds,” Small noted last week, back in her synagogue office.

• News source:
• originally published 6-8 January 2010
• Counter Puhcn
• By ALISON WEIR

Dear Bono,

In your recent column in the New York Times, “Ten for the Next Ten,” you wrote: “I’ll place my hopes on the possibility — however remote at the moment — that…people in places filled with rage and despair, places like the Palestinian territories, will in the days ahead find among them their Gandhi, their King, their Aung San Suu Kyi.”

Your hope has already been fulfilled in the Palestinian territories.

Unfortunately, these Palestinian Gandhis and Kings are being killed and imprisoned.

• News source:
• 19 January 2010
• Democracy Now
• By Amy Goodman, playing and commenting on excepts of speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today [January 19] is the [US] federal holiday that honors Dr. Martin Luther King… We play his “Beyond Vietnam” speech, which he delivered at New York’s Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, as well as his last speech, “I Have Been to the Mountain Top,” that he gave on April 3, 1968, the night before he was assassinated.

• News source:
• 17 January 2009
• Washington Post
• By Manuel Roig-Franzia

PORT-AU-PRINCE — At night, voices rise in the street. Sweet, joyful, musical voices in lyric Creole. A symphony of hope in a landscape of despair…

Seekers stream into the parking lot of the ruined Sacre Coeur Catholic church, a 105-year-old brick gem that was turned into a grim, hollowed-out shell, its stunning stained-glass windows tossed to the ground in shards. There, the Catholics and the Protestants and others seek solace from Father Hans Alexander, a Haitian priest who took his decidedly un-Haitian first name from his German father. He doesn’t ask them about their religion; he asks them about their pain.

“Catholics and Protestants and other religions are praying together now,” Alexander says, as two tearful women slump over his thick, broad shoulders. “We are saying, ‘We love Jesus; we don’t care about religions. We just care about the Lord.’ ” He has tried to teach his followers this lesson for years but did not always succeed in changing the minds of parishioners who thought their religion was better or truer than others. The quake, he says, has done much to convince those he could not.

• News source:

Competition Dates: May 23 – 28, 2010

Description

2010 Deadlines & Schedule of Events

• Registration Opens, Official Rules Available November 2, 2009
• Hypothetical Case Available December 7, 2009 (projected date)
• Clarification Questions on Hypothetical Case Due January 29, 2010, 5pm Eastern Standard Time (EST)
• Answers to Clarification Questions on Hypothetical Available February 19, 2010
• Team Registration Deadline March 22, 2010, 5pm Eastern Standard Time (EST)
• Team Memorial Due March 29, 2010, 5pm Eastern Standard Time (EST)
• Observer Registration Deadline April 16, 2010
• Housing Registration Deadline April 30, 2010
• Judge Registration Deadline May 5, 2010
• Check-in and Opening Ceremony at American University Washington College of Law May 23, 2010 (Mandatory Attendance for Teams)
• Oral Rounds at American University Washington College of Law May 24 – May 28, 2010

Inter-American Human Rights Moot Court Competition
Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law
American University Washington College of Law
4801 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20016
Email: iamoot@wcl.american.edu
Phone: +1-202-274-4215
Fax: +1-202-274-4198

• News source:
• 4 January 2010
• Huffington Post
• By Riane Eisler

Dr. Riane Eisler was one of the 2009 recipients of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Distinguished Peace Leadership Award. The NAPF has been recognizing “peace mongers” for 26 years. Not only is Eisler a peace advocate, she’s also a social scientist, lawyer and author of many books, including the bestseller “The Chalice and The Blade” and the more recent “The Real Wealth of Nations”. Unlike Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations”, Eisler’s book delves into the real market costs of economic structures that are basically temples of worship in support of patriarchal and warrior cultures.

• News source:
• 29 December 2009
• Pressenza
• By Iván Novotny

Today, Cristina Fernandez welcomed the international team from the World March for Peace and Non-Violence in the presidential office. In the meeting, which lasted close to half an hour, they discussed international military conflicts and investment in weapons, among other topics. The activists said they felt very satisfied with the president’s reception.

• News source:

Peace Brigades International (PBI) would like to express our deep concern regarding the contents of the article “The FARC and the ‘Peace Community‘” by Mary Anastasia O’Grady (Americas, Dec. 14). PBI emphatically rejects the article’s assertion that the leaders of the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartadó are collaborators with the guerrilla organization known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

We find it especially troubling and irresponsible that the only evidence for this accusation, despite its profound implications for the safety of members of the Peace Community, are statements made by Daniel Sierra Martinez, alias “Samir,” a demobilized member of the FARC.

The Peace Community of San Jose de Apartadó was founded in 1997 as an effort to resist violence from all sides of the internal armed conflict and to prevent forced internal displacement.

• News source:
• 28 December 2009
• Christian Science Monitor
• By Ilene R. Prusher

Rawya Hamam was watching her son deteriorate. Hisham wouldn’t sleep, clung to her incessantly, and said he wanted to go back into her belly so he’d be safe. “Grandma is lucky she died so she doesn’t have to live here now,” the boy told his mother.

It’s not a normal statement to expect from a five-year-old child, but neither were these normal times. A year ago, at the outbreak of war between the militant Palestinian group Hamas and Israel, anything resembling a normal life disappeared into a violent maelstrom that wreaked unprecedented destruction on the Gaza Strip…

… Estimates from several organizations hold that between 30 and 40 percent of the Gaza population is suffering from signs of PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. A study by the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme in June found that two-thirds of Gaza’s children have exhibited abnormal levels of anxiety, and 61.5 percent of Gaza’s parents reported the emergence of unusual behaviors among their children.

Ms. Hamam considers herself one of the fortunate ones, in that she’s recently been trained in the use of new tools to help others she works with professionally – as well as her own children. Last week, she completed a second, advanced training program in Gaza that is part of the Healing the Wounds of War (HWW) program, launched by the Center for Mind-Body Medicine, based in Washington.

• News source:
• 22 December 2009
• Ekklesia
• By Ecumenical News International

A Catholic human rights activist who denounced the atrocities of white minority rule in the country then called Rhodesia, has charted what he describes as the “descent to tyranny” of Zimbabwe’s post-independence ruler Robert Mugabe – writes Trevor Grundy.

For more than 20 years until 1999, Mike Auret worked for Zimbabwe’s Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, set up by the country’s Catholic bishops.

In his new book, From Liberator to Dictator: An Insider’s Account of Robert Mugabe’s Descent into Tyranny, Auret records how he met Mugabe several times and was captivated by the man’s intelligence and apparent sincerity…