GPHC 2018-2019

You are an ethic and religious minority, forced from your home to a desolate and cramped political "reeducation" camp. There are thousands of you there. You have not been charged with any crime, and many have already been there for many months. You have no idea how long you'll be here for. This isn't the beginning of a biography of a Holocaust survivor from 1939, but rather the real life of current Uighur minorities in modern day China, where thousands of them are being separated from their families and detained in these camps to be forcibly assimilated into a single, unitary state. This atrocity is happening almost exclusively in the far western province of Xinjiang. The Uighurs, being a Turkish ethic group that primarily practice Islam, are routinely discriminated against for their appearance and religion, and are being supplanted by Xi Jinping's government by having the majority population, Han Chinese, being brought into the province to have the Uighurs assi...

Women's rights have historically been overlooked by the government in Saudi Arabia. However, as Salman has began to make some changes to the law the public believes things are going to get better for women. In 2017, a law, to be put in place by 2018, was passed to allow women to drive in Saudi Arabia. What the public doesn't realize is everything going on in the background that is still impeding on women's rights. A women named Loujain al-Hathloul is a strong women's rights activist. In 2014, she drove into Saudi Arabia using a United Arab Emirates and was arrested. United Arab Emirates licenses are usually valid in Saudi Arabia but because of Saudi Arabia's old laws against women drivers her actions were considered illegal. She, along with other women's right activists she was working with, was arrested again just months before the driving band was lifted in 2018. During this time she says she was tortured with waterboarding, beatings, confinement, and electric...

According to a landmark paper published in 2014, titled Respect for Human Rights has Improved Over Time: Modeling the Changing Standard of Accountability , it was found that the way we measure human rights has changed overtime. The standards for human rights protection have gotten higher over the last 65 years that this study was analyzing (1949-2014). In response to this, the author created the “dynamic standard model” which uses different statistical techniques to adjust the “bias in measurements so that human right protection measurements can be compared over time” ( Fariss ; Roser). Below is an adaptation of the data he collected for the year 2014, where zero is the mean internationally over time, and any number below or above zero accounts for a standard deviation in the respective direction (Roser): Notice that the United States is in fact below average (below 0). This is more evident by plotting a graph comparing different countries using the data from the study mentio...

An article in the Human Rights section of UN News discussed serious concerns among experts about the French government’s treatment of yellow vest protestors, citing excessive use of force as nearing violation of the protestor’s rights. They said of an additional law the French government wanted to pass to further restrict the protestors that it was “not in line with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which France is a Party.” Perhaps especially coming from a country founded on freedom of speech and assembly, it’s chilling to see these rights violated, especially in a first-world European democracy. While the government may argue that they have only resorted to measures as extreme as they have because of the violent nature of the protests, the article explained most experts agree the response is hugely disproportionate to the actual threat posed by the protestors. Seeing an argument so widely agreed to be false stand as defense on an international level is ...

As part of my research for my Human Rights presentation, I read an article from BBC News titled “Myanmar Rohingya: What you need to know about the crisis.” It was very clear and succinct about the issue, and it also contained a lot of images and statistics that were a lot easier to understand than some of the other sources that I saw. It talked about human rights violations about the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar since August 2017, which is when the most recent attacks by the military started. Myanmar is a majority Buddhist country, so the Rohingya have faced a lot of discrimination for a long time. The majority of them live in the Rakhine state of Myanmar and face a lot of restrictions due to the fact that they are considered by Myanmar to have illegally immigrated from Bangladesh, so they are not considered citizens of Myanmar. Since the violence against them started up again in August 2017, the military has commited many acts of what is considered “ethnic cleansing” and even “mass g...

Currently, the country of Venezuela is suffering from both a humanitarian crisis and political warfare. It can be inferred that the human rights abuses citizens of Venezuela face are a direct result of the political power struggle between Nicolas Maduro and Juan Guaido. It’s worth mentioning, that Venezuela technically has two presidents. Aside from Maduro, Juan Guiado is also the president of Venezuela, however, self declared. Different from Maduro, Guaido is backed by the people, so perhaps he is the country’s true president or at least the people’s president. Under the rule of the country’s current President and de-facto dictator, Nicolas Maduro, who came to power in 2013, the once great democratic country is now on the brink of collapsing. Presently, Venezuela is in the mist of an economic crisis, one of the worst economic crises in the country's history. As a result, citizens of Venezuela are living without access to basic human necessities. As of 2018, 80% of households in...

       South Sudan is there world’s youngest nation, having gained independence in 2011, effectively cutting what was the old Sudan in half. The country has been involved in conflict every year of its existence, likely correlated to conflict in Darfur, in southwestern Sudan, although also likely brought upon on its own. The United Nations has reported that multiple human rights abuses are being committed upon its people by numerous groups who are using the instability of the nation as an advantage. These include but are not limited to sexual mutilation, gang rape, and the burning of villages. Despite attempts at peace building on a governmental level, the problems remain rampant. According to UNICEF, a quarter of sexual attacks reported in the country are being committed on children. Many more are committed on the pregnant and the elderly, and sexual crimes against men and boys exist too; these are often never reported due to the stigma attached to them. Now, governm...

By: Jadyn Cleary Child Dies at US-Mexico Border    In April of 2018, President Trump enacted a policy that calls for the separation of families and detainment of children at the US-Mexico border. This resulted in lots of outrage from US citizens concerning the ethics of the policy. Along with the fact that young children were being separated from their parents, many people were horrified by the way the care of the detained children was handled. One of the most egregious instances of this was when an eight-year-old Guatemalan boy died while in custody of the US border agency in December of 2018. The boy died of the flu and was given medical attention beforehand, however, they were not able to properly diagnose him until an autopsy revealed the cause of death. This sparked outrage from many people, including President Trump, about the poor conditions the children were in, as well as the lack of sufficient care. He blamed the incident on Democrats who refused to pay fo...

Cole Barger Mr. Roddy GPHC 24 February 2019 Human Rights in Brazil Brazil inaugurated its new president, Jair Bolsonaro, on January 1, 2019. One of the very first things he did was abolish the human rights ministry in Brazil, and replace it with a new ministry that will look after women, human and family rights. The person in charge of this is an evangelical preacher who is against abortion and thinks that women were born to be mothers. She is also in favor of the government being led by the church. This decision was immediately criticized by many people, claiming that it would be a downgrade from the original one. It is not surprising that President Bolsonaro chose to do this given what he believes and has said in the past, specifically about indigenous people and the LGBT community. Tempers are rising and people are no longer afraid to physically express their opinions due to the election of President Bolsonaro. Brazil is a very dangerous place to be if you are apart of the L...

Juan Guaidó, the leader of the National Assembly of Venezuela as of January 2019, declared Maduro's leadership "illegitimate" and claimed the presidency. He was recognized as Venezuela's interim president by the U.S., most European countries, and several Latin American countries. Just a few months before, the UN had released a statement on the situation of Venezuela. The statement said that the number of people that have left the country due to the crisis exceeds three million, and that widespread shortage of food and medicine is becoming a serious problem. Guaido's actions brought attention to the social and economic crisis Venezuela has been experiencing for the past few years, and emphazised the need for humanitarian aid. However, Maduro denies the accusations of human rights violations under his leadership, and refuses to allow aid into the country. The Venezuelan Army, which supports Maduro's leadership, blocked the Colombian border with oil tanks to prev...

Human Rights: Dakota Pipelines Diminish Native American Tribal Sovereignty     Tribal Sovereignty has been toyed with for many years and to top that, it will continue to be thrown around as long as President Trump is in office. Yes, it is true American Indians are in trouble with trump in office and their sovereignty is threatened due to decisions made by Trump. Mr.Trump, on January 21, 2017, signed off for two oil pipelines to be constructed. These pipelines going through Native American land, and diminishing their sovereignty. -"Mr. Trump, any comment to the Standing Rock community and the protesters out there?" a reporter in the Oval Office asked after the president finished signing five executive orders. Trump put his head down, pursed his lips and looked in the opposite direction. He then responded to a question about when he expected to make a Supreme Court nomination.”       Standing Rock Sioux and other tribe all have t...

Emily Routbort Mr. Roddy GPHC R 23 February 2019 Ethiopia Lets in Human Rights Watch for the First Time in 8 Years      Its taken 2 years of protests for power to change in Ethiopia.  Last April, after 8 years, the new Prime Minister of Ethiopia took action to get rid of the reputation the country holds.  Abiy Ahmed, the new Prime Minister is working to abolish the reputation of being a country who tortures, detainees and spies on its people.  Ethiopia has released thousands of political prisoners and let abusive security force officers go. Furthermore, the conflict with Eritrea came to a halt after a whole decade. The country who was involved with gang violence, displacement of people from their homes,  and many more, has began to improve. Although there were over 2 million people displaced in Ethiopia and we are worried that the government may be forcing people back into their homes before it is safe, the new power change in Ethiopia has...

The Xinjiang province of China has reportedly been turned into a “massive internment camp” for the Uighur Muslim minority. People in these camps are forced to learn Mandarin Chinese, swear loyalty to President Xi Jinping, and renounce their Muslim faith. Media is banned from the Xinjiang, so reporting on the issue has been difficult and undercover for years. The first report of China’s mistreatment of Uighur citizens emerged last year, and the international outrage has been growing. The Chinese government has backed its actions by saying it is responding to "ethnic separatism and violent terrorist criminal activities". Chinese officials have denounced reports of human rights abuses as false news, arguing that people willingly attend the “vocational schools.” State-run news sites and television reports have been used to spread propaganda that these “re-education” sites are consensual and citizens are not being subjected to human rights abuses. Satellite images of the in...

According to the US State Department, Chinese authorities have indefinitely detained at least 800,000 Uyghur, ethnic Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities since April 2017. The estimates for the amount of individuals detained go as high as 2 million. This has been happening in the Xinjiang region of China, where many Muslim minorities (however especially the Uyghur), have been detained in what the Chinese government refers to as "re-education centers." According to the Chinese government, this is to teach them to read and write Mandarin, provide vocational training, and assimilate them into Chinese culture. While this attempt at eradicating this minority's culture and cultural identity would be bad enough on its own, it seems that what the government has been saying is not totally accurate, and largely propaganda. Reports from individuals such as Mihrigul Tursun have told a different story. Tursun grew up in China, but went to Egypt for more employment opportunities. Upon r...

Callista Wilson Mr. Roddy Global Politics and Historical Contexts 21 February 2019 Human Rights In Somalia Since 1991, Somalia has experienced a strong lack of security and human rights. This has occurred because a large variety of militant groups have managed to remain in control, and the power of the Somali government has been weakened. Currently, the terrorist group Al-Shabab has control over the majority of southern Somalia, and the Somali National Army (SNA) has been continuously pushed back towards the coastal capital of Mogadishu. This civil war has lead to the direct violation of human rights, as thousands of children are being recruited by both sides to fight on the front lines of the conflict. For example, members of Al-Shabab have raided villages and have taken control of community water supplies. For this reason, people have been left with no choice but to remain loyal to the Al-Shabab’s command. Additionally, schools in rural areas of Somalia have been raided...

Article:  Sierra Leone Rebels Forcefully Recruit Child Soldiers NPR Interview:  Ishmael Beah's Memoirs of a Boy Soldier      One of the most infamous areas of the Sierra Leone Civil War (1991-2002)was the use of child soldiers in combat. The civil war began when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) tried to overthrow the current government. The RUF is still active today as a political party, however, during the war it was the RUF that began kidnapping children and forcing them to fight in their ranks. The amount of children who were forced to serve is unknown, but the number is thought to be around 11,000. Most of these children were among the ages of 7-12, but they kidnapped children as young as 5. Often children were scared into recruitment while staying in refugee camps. The RUF would visit them and force them into joining their ranks. The boys kidnapped would be forced to fight, sometimes at the front lines of combat, or to help transport military resourc...

Zoey Weinstein Mr. Roddy GPHC 2/20/19 New York City to Ban Discrimination Based on Hair New guidelines are underway this week by the New York City Commission on Human Rights. These guidelines are being put in place to eliminate the issue of discriminating against people based on their hair or hairstyle at the workplace or in any other public place. This offense will now be considered a form of racial discrimination. This law is directed toward the people of new York City, but the goal is to completely eliminate the discrimination of black people based on their hair or hairstyle everywhere. The guidelines specifically say that New Yorkers have the right to maintain their natural hair or any hairstyle without the fear of being targeted. A statement from the commission reads, "The New York City Human Law protects the rights of New Yorkers to maintain natural hair or hairstyles that are closely associated with their racial, ethnic, or cultural identities...For Black people,...

George Larach GPHC 2/7/19 Immigration Blog https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as-an-undocumented-immigrant.html I read an article called “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant”. It is an autobiographical recollection of events by Jose Antonio Vargas, a Filipino native who illegally immigrated to the U.S at the age of 12. It details the massive shift of culture and lifestyle and coming to terms with knowing he shouldn’t legally be in the U.S. There’s also a “B- Plot” of him coming to terms with his sexuality and coming out as gay to his family and friends. This article is an announcement to the world that, despite being a well established journalist who has worked for multiple major companies, and sharing a Pulitzer prize for a work on writing about HIV, he is still an illegal immigrant. He talks about his close encounters with the law, and the terrible stress-inducing paradox of not drawing too much attention to himself, but at the same time worki...

A poll was recently conducted in Finland following police statistics stating that 1/5th of sexual assault suspects are migrants asking whether the sample believed that this number was a result of culture and religion. Specifically, the question was (as translated from Finnish) “The differing culture and religion of migrants is a primary cause of sexual crimes” and the survey asked for an answer in an agree/disagree form. The results are shown below with blue being agree and pink being disagree. Depending on how one chooses to interpret the data available, one can come to many, many different conclusions, so I will be talking mostly about the perceptions of the populace. Finland has never been the best place for migrants, with many leaving due to weather, racism, and everything in between. This has only gotten worse with the migrant crisis, as Perussuomalaiset, the conservative nationalist party operating farther to the right than the mainstream Kokomuus, surged in popularity,...