“We are beckoned to see the world through a one-way mirror, as if we are threatened and innocent and the rest of humanity is threatening, or wretched, or expendable. Our memory is struggling to rescue the truth that human rights were not handed down as privileges from a parliament, or a boardroom, or an institution, but that peace is only possible with justice and with information that gives us the power to act justly.”
John Pilger

Friday, March 18, 2016

The human rights record of the 'human rights defender'

CCTV.com - 03-13-2016 

BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) -- The state-run China Central Television on Sunday aired a documentary that reveals the United States' double standards on human rights-related issues, whereby the U.S. pokes its nose into other countries' internal affairs while leaving many of its own problems unsolved.  Based on extensive media reports both inside and outside the U.S., and interviews of many human rights experts from China, the U.S., France, Canada, Russia and Switzerland, the 45-minute TV program revealed the U.S. trampling on American people's human rights in all walks of life.  In 2015, more than 560,000 people across the United States were homeless, 25 percent of whom were under age; the country's primary women's prison Lowell Correctional Institution, where 2,696 convicts are held, is rampant with corruption, torture of prisoners, and sexual abuse; women are subject to sexual harassment and sexual assaults of different forms, and career women subject to discrimination at work, the documentary showed, citing media reports.  Of teenagers aged 15 and above who succumb to injuries in the States, one quarter die in shooting incidents; the Federal Bureau of Investigation forces Internet companies to provide clients' information without a court approval, according to the documentary.  The United States has been using double standards on practically every human rights-related issue, which is showcased both by its invasion of citizens' privacy through online surveillance and civilian deaths caused by its drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and other countries, it showed.  For a very long time, the United States has been quite condescending, with the belief that it has the best system and human rights record, and as a result, it tends to find fault with other countries, Ji Hong, researcher with the Institute of American Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in the program.

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Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Humanitarian Imperialism: Sow Chaos, Then Force People to Reap Consequences

SPUTNIK 28.02.2016

Jean Bricmont, the author of 'Humanitarian Imperialism', a study of how the idea of human rights has been used to justify Western imperialism, finds it troubling that the Western powers engaged in 'humanitarian interventions' abroad have the gall to tell their own populations to 'welcome the refugees' when things go awry. 
Recently interviewed by independent journalist Maidhc O Cathail for CounterPunch Magazine, Bricmont explained that Europeans have every right to be angry about the influx of refugees from countries embroiled in war and unrest, but that it's worth recalling the roots of the present crisis. 
"The same people who encouraged 'humanitarian' interventions and 'support' for armed insurrections abroad, that have led to perpetual wars, generating a constant flow of refugees, are now demanding that the population of our countries 'welcome the refugees'. They first generate chaos there, then they applaud chaos here. It cannot last forever," Bricmont noted. 

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