Liquid Lust in India's Parliament

Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-ChiefLast Modified: 21:32 PM EDT, 8 February 2012

NEW DELHI, India - News channels have broadcast footage of three Indian politicians from a morally conservative party watching pornography during a session of state parliament. This revelation would have been noteworthy in itself, but what captured our attention was the fact that one of the men is the minister for women and child development.

The broadcast showed footage of Karnataka state Minister for Cooperation Laxman Savadi sharing a porn clip with his colleague C.C. Patil, the minister for women and child development. The phone is purported to belong to Krishna Palema, the state Minister for Ports, Science and Technology.

All three men have subsequently resigned, though they each categorically deny deliberately watching the porn. The three state politicians explained that they tendered their resignations because they did not want to cause any embarrassment for their party, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which rules the state and is in opposition at a national level.

Pornography is not harmless as some would assert. Proponents of this billion dollar industry advertise that all the actors in the industry are willing participants who are well compensated. On the revenue side, porn moguls defend their massive profits by claiming any type of restriction would infringe upon freedom of expression.

Many men and women who have become addicted to porn, in particular internet and video, have seen their lives ruined because of their unnatural attachment to unrealistic body types and contrived sexual situations. As the addiction progresses they are only able to achieve sexual gratification through the images presented in this LCD universe.

Since most men and women do not look like the people featured in these movies, it becomes difficult for those addicted to porn to develop conflict resolutions skills that are required to maintain intimate relationships in the non-LCD world. Though the industry would be loathed to admit it, pornography contributes to the objectification of the women and men who perform in these films. With regard to women, who in many societies are already marginalized or objectified, pornography can further inure men to their humanity and thus the suffering of all women in their societies.

Girls and women in largely patriarchal India face a barrage of threats including rape, dowry-related murder, forced marriage, domestic violence, honor killings and human trafficking. For these ministers to watch pornography further reinforces the rights of men over women in a country where there already is this social mindset that women are disposable commodities and are seen as transferable property.

Renuka Chowdhary, a former federal minister for women's development and a member of the Congress Party told CNN-IBC that "it really is troubling that the people who are in positions of power and have the responsibility to change things actually have the same mindset and are busy watching porn."

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Aboriginal Anger on Australia Day

Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-ChiefLast Modified: 23:25 p.m. EDT, 26 January 2012

PORT JACKSON, Australia - Today is Australia Day which commemorates the establishment of the first settlement at Port Jackson, now part of Sydney, in 1788. Originally, instituted for the exclusive enjoyment of the white settlers, the country has more recently tried to promote the holiday as an opportunity for Australians to come together to celebrate their country and culture.

However, this celebration is a painful reminder to the Indigenous Australians of their relegation to second class citizenry and the extreme racism they face on a daily basis.  According to the website Creative Spirits, "87% percent of Australians agree that there is racial prejudice in Australia. 42% percent believe that Australians with a British background enjoy a privileged position.

26% percent of Australians have anti-Indigenous concerns. 41% percent of Australians agree that 'Australia is weakened by people of different ethnic origins sticking to their old ways.' 11% percent of Australians don't think that all races of people are equal. 35% percent of applications job seekers with Indigenous-sounding names had to submit their resumes numerous times to get the same number of interviews as an Anglo-Australian applicant with equivalent experience and qualifications in a study in 2009. 70% percent of surveyed Australians thought India's media was wrong to brand Australians as being racist toward Indians, after several attacks on students."

Today, in opposition to the racist treatment of Indigenous people in Australia, some 200 supporters of indigenous rights surrounded a Canberra restaurant and banged its windows while Prime Minister Julia Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott were inside officiating at an award ceremony. Around 50 police escorted the political leaders from a side door to a car.

The protester were encamped at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, which in true sit-in fashion, is a collection of tents and temporary shelters in the national capital. This de facto Embassy serves as the focal point for the anti-Australia Day movement. The Tent Embassy celebrated its 40th anniversary on Thursday. Many Aborigines refer to the national holiday as Invasion Day because the land was stolen from them and settled without a treaty or fair compensation.

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Yu Jie, Chinese Dissident | U.S. Asylum?

Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-ChiefLast Modified: 22:43 PM EDT, 16 January 2012

CHINA - Yu Jie, age 38,  is a writer and Chinese dissident who was born in Chengdu, Sichuan, China. Yu has been a strong proponent of freedom of speech and an active participant in China's human rights movement. In 2006 as vice-president of the Independent Chinese PEN Center he and two other dissidents met with President George W. Bush at the White House.

On Friday, January 13, 2011, Yu petitioned for exile in the United States, vowing to give a graphic account of the year he was confined under house arrest, including episodes of torture endured by he and other Chinese dissidents during last year's crackdown.

Yu has openly expressed his own views about the increased suppression of free speech in China, and as one of China's most prominent Christian dissidents, he is vociferous in his condemnation of the Communist Party's antipathy toward religion and political criticism.

Unlike Liu Xiabo, who is currently jailed by the Chinese government, Yu is allowed to travel. Liu was convicted in 2009 on charges of inciting subversion and sentenced to 11 years in jail. His jailing and secretive house arrest of his wife Liu Xia, have become the focus of an international outcry over China's punishment of dissent.

Yu said authorities became heavy-handed after Liu Xiaobo, won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. Similar to Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi; Yu was confined under house arrest in an attempt to intimidate and silence him. As the Arab Spring spread across the Middle East the Chinese Communist Party directed police to detain hundreds of dissidents, activists and protest organizers to quash similar uprisings.

The announcement by Yu of his desire to seek asylum, precedes a possible visit to Washington by Chinese leader-in-waiting, Vice President Xi Jinping. China's Communist Party is preparing for a leadership handover late this year to Vice President Xi, and the party is determined to fend off challenges to its rule by tightly controlling its media image.

Yu's writings have been censored in mainland China, and 5 years ago after he drew nationwide attention because his dissidence, his works were banned completely. However, his writings continue to be published in Hong Kong and abroad.

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The Hell Holes of North Korean Gulags

 LONDON, England - Today Amnesty International released a report claiming the North Korean camps for political prisoners are expanding in size.  A political prisoner in an interview recounted a horrific tale of histhree-year internment in the sprawling camp.

There is a global pandemic of human rights abuses from post conflict rape of women in Africa to collateral death of innocent people at the hands ofhomicide bombers of all persuasions. However, the systematic and organized machinery of suppression practiced in these North Korean internment camps recall the forced labor camp system of the former USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) known as The Gulag.

The Gulag camp system was officially created on "April 25, 1930 and claims have been made that it was dismantled on January 13, 1960.  Wherever there is political oppression, lack of freedom of speech, and dissidence is viewed as sedition the conditions exist for internment camps to operate with relative impunity.

More than 14 million people passed through the Gulag from 1929 to 1953, with a further 6 to 7 million being deported and exiled to remote areas of the USSR. According to a 1993 study of incomplete archival Soviet data, a total of 1,053,829 people died in the Gulag from 1934 to 1953.

More complete data puts the death toll for this same time period at 1,258,537, with an estimated 1.6 million casualties from 1929 to 1953.These estimates exclude those who died shortly after their release but whose death resulted from the harsh treatment in the camps;such deaths happened frequently.The total population of the camps varied from 510,307 (in 1934) to 1,727,970 (in 1953).

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Published: 4 May 2011 (Page 2 of 2)

Most Gulag inmates were not political prisoners, although the political prisoner population was always significant. People could be imprisoned in a Gulag camp for crimes such as petty theft, unexcused absences from work, and anti-government jokes.About half of the political prisoners were sent to Gulag prison camps without trial; official data suggest that there were more than 2.6 million imprisonment sentences in cases investigated by the secret police, 1921-1953."(Source: Wikipedia)

Amnesty International asserts that there are currently about 200,000 people in the North Korean prison camps.  Critics counter that thesatellite photos do not prove that the areas identified actually show four of the six prison camps believed to exist in North Korea’s South Pyongyang, South Hamkyung and North Hamkyung provinces.

However, the former prisoner, Kyoung-il Jeong, who spent three years in the notorious Yodok prison camp, told western media: "The main reason for the deaths [in the prisons] was malnutrition. With such poorly prepared food people couldn't stand the harsh labor and died."

Kyoung-il Jeong testified that prisoners were fed 200 grams of corn gruel per daily and were often tossed into a cube-shaped "torture cell" where it was impossible to either stand or lie down.  Those caught trying to escape were often executed.

"Seeing people die happened frequently – every day." Jeong said. "When an officer told me to, I gathered some people and buried the bodies. After receiving extra food for the job, we felt glad rather than feeling sad."

"North Korea can no longer deny the undeniable," Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia Pacific director, said in a statement. "Hundreds of thousands of people exist with virtually no rights, treated essentially as slaves, in some of the worst circumstances we’ve documented in the last 50 years.”

Like the Gulags before them North Korean prison camps have been operating since the 1950s and can be divided into two types:  "total control zones" where inmates are detained forever without any proper trials; and "revolutionary zones" where conditions are more lenient.

As America wages war in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan it seems to have minimal bandwidth to tackle the internal human rights abuses inside North Korea's borders.  It seems instead to have chosen to invests its efforts in aligning international pressure to force the North Korean government to dismantle its nuclear arms program.

It is for this reason that organizations like Amnesty International play such a vital role in keeping human rights abuses in the forefront of our awareness.  I hope that you will take the time to view this powerful video interview with Kyoung-il Jeong.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y0yhV6IT7o&feature=player_embedded]

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The Rape of the Dalit

Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-ChiefLast Modified: 01:10 AM EDT, 3 May 2010

NEW DELHI, India - "Dalits are not allowed to drink from the same wells, attend the same temples, wear shoes in the presence of an upper caste, or drink from the same cups in tea stalls," said Smita Narula, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch, the worldwide activist organization based in New York. Smita is author of Broken People: Caste Violence Against India's "Untouchables."

The heinous treatment of India's Untouchables is well documented and though the recent "human sacrifices" in the West Indian Bengal State are not related to caste system, it does highlight the issue  of poverty and illiteracy in Indian.  Police suspect that illiteracy and superstition led to the April 2010 decapitation sacrifice to the goddess Kali, when some of the poorest citizens conducted the sacrificial ritual in the hope of improving their position in society.

India's poor, especially the Dalit, are relegated to the lowest jobs, and live in constant fear of being publicly humiliated, paraded naked, beaten, and raped with impunity by upper-caste Hindus seeking to keep them in their place. Merely walking through an upper-caste neighborhood is a life-threatening offense.  According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), for the period of 2007-2008, the city of Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh was the second most unsafe city for  women in India after Delhi. Gender violence is on the rise, and according to the latest statistics released by the NCRB, and the state of Andhra Pradesh had the worst record for crimes against women during this same period.

For this same time period which is the last year for which figures are available, 24,738 cases of crimes against women in India occurred.  This included 1,070 cases of rape, 1,564 cases of kidnapping and abduction, 613 cases of dowry death, and 11,335 cases of domestic violence in Andhra Pradesh. Basically, every hour two Dalits are assaulted; every day three Dalit women are raped, two Dalits are murdered, and two Dalit homes are torched.

Thousands of preteen Dalit girls are forced into prostitution under cover of a religious practice known as Devadasis, which means a female servant of god." The girls are dedicated or "married" to a deity or a temple. Once dedicated, they are unable to marry, forced to have sex with upper-caste community members, and eventually sold to an urban brothel.

In August 2002, the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (UN CERD) approved a resolution condemning caste or descent-based discrimination.  For more information about this appalling human right's abuse watch the video below.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOvU-Dwg-_Y]

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Liu Xiaobo | The Power of Words

Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-ChiefLast Modified: 14:07 PM EDT, 27 December 2009

CHINA - This blog addresses many issues regarding human rights and seeks to encourage the reader to act even if it is through sharing a post or video. Somewhere in the world today, some person or group of people are being treated inhumanely. We blithely read about such abuses, but we live in a society where we can insulate and anesthetize ourselves to their suffering.

It is true that sometimes all of the evil and hatred in the world seems ubiquitous and insurmountable, and the natural human reaction is to shrink away and adopt a protective sphere around family and personal friends, or to remain silent and bury one's head like the proverbial ostrich. These however are not the only choices available to us.

In Christianity, Judaism and Islam, the spoken word is accorded with reverence because of the creative power inherent in thought, which leads to spoken communication, which leads to action otherwise known as creation. It is a simple concept, but in our current world where spiritual, faith-based, intangible concepts are under attack as being childish and atavistic, the need to control our thoughts and words and thus what we creatively manifest is of the utmost importance and urgency.

In the recent past, we have had many great souls stand up on behalf of humanity, however, just as many quietly but effectively work in the shadows and are never elevated onto the world stage. People like Nelson Mandela, Mohandas K. Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Jr. are notable and internationally recognized figures. Now Liu Xiaobo joins their ranks as one who is less known today, but who may in the future be the defining face of freedom of speech in China.  Because of this Xiaobo was  sentenced this past Friday to 11 years imprisonment by the Chinese government.

The video below was disseminated to Amnesty International supporters with instructions to share it with as wide an audience as possible. Although I am not an ardent supporter of the United Nations, because I feel it has not lived up to the ideals for which it was created; I also recognize that its ineffectiveness lies in its membership, which is composed of individuals who are representatives of governments and corporations with interests that are often contrary to human dignity and well-being.  This does not, however, diminish the power of the dream, for in dreams are the realities of tomorrow.

The poem by Martin Niemöller, a Protestant pastor and social activist sums up the essence of this post, and will I hope provide you with a reminder that tyranny and abuse does not stop with its intended victim.

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews, I remained silent; I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.

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