Civil liberties – Page 3

The Amnesty rule

Published on May 29, 2010

Bouncing off my own post yesterday, Alex proposes the Amnesty rule:

I don’t think I’ve ever seen this happen when B actually had a point – time after bleeding time, it followed this exact course. I therefore intended to declare this as a law, like Godwin’s Law. The Amnesty rule – anyone who asks “why doesn’t Amnesty speak out on X?” is lying.

This goes for Human Rights Watch as well. Though I couldn’t find it yesterday, I’m sure I’ve done posts before either here or at Prog Gold on this subject, showing some rightwinger bozo that no, AI doesn’t just criticise the US or Israel and yes, has actually spent more time campaigning on some cause or other he pulled out of his ass and never wrote about before or since…

It’s worse when this sort of thing comes from alleged lefties, masking as honest critics of Amnesty or whatever other human rights organisation which dared to criticise one of their hobby horses, when whatever miniscule amount of dirt that can be brought up is blown up out of all proportions but what AI actually does is completely ignored. Rightwing critics are bad enough, but relatively honest in their hatred of AI; the motivations of their supposedly leftwing “critics” is much more petty. Flying Rodent put it best, back when the whole sorry Gita Sahgal mess first came to light:

This excerpt represents the clearest statement of what I believe has motivated this whole sorry affair – a small group of like-minded journalists and bloggers determined to crush Amnesty, in the insane belief that a spontaneous uprising of somebody else will magic a deus ex machina human rights organisation into existence… that will say nasty things about Noam Chomsky.

Gita Sahgal: Amnesty International tortures people?!?

Published on May 28, 20103 Comments

You really don’t need to read further than the second paragraph in Gita Sahgal’s latest rant to understand she’s completely lost the plot:

This week, Amnesty International launches its Annual Report and starts year long preparations for a jamboree titled Amnesty@50. From a small group of activists it has grown into a gigantic, global organization. And in many ways, has come to resemble the forces that it has done so much to oppose. Its record of handling one of the greatest challenges to its reputation suggests that it is entirely unable to examine the story of itself or the story of its times. So difficult is it for Amnesty International to provide a coherent account of what has happened over the last few months, that it has chosen to provide no account at all.

Really? Amnesty International has started to disappear, torture and murder people? Why isn’t this frontpage news rather than a blogpost? Or is it’s just that AI choose not to pay much attentions to the over the top accusations of encouraging “Islamofascism” leveled against them by you, nobody else found them credible either but for a handful of nutters gunning for AI anyway because Amnesty has dared to criticise Israel and the The War Against Terror?

It gets better.

Their programmes of social control such as promotion of the hijab are supported quite uncritically. The actions of human rights advocates mirror those of governments from Chechnya to the UK. Recruit former insurgents or fundamentalists and subcontract them to provide surveillance and control over the mass of the population. Defeat one form of fundamentalism by supporting another.

How does this even make sense? How the hell is AI using “former insurgents or fundamentalists” to “provide surveillance and control over the mass of the population”? does she thinks AI is some sort of government or what?

Those are the two nuttiest propositions in the article; the rest is the usual wingnut boilerplate about how AI gives comfort to the enemy yadda yadda and how it always criticises “us” but not “them”. For instance:

Those who make this allegation are immediately accused of supporting torture or arbitrary detention. Shadi Sadr, the courageous Iranian lawyer who has been sentenced in absentia to lashings and imprisonment, has pointed out that while Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have rushed to condemn the niqab ban in Europe, not a word has been heard against increasing dress code restrictions imposed by the State in Iran and accompanied by draconian punishments.

Let’s see for ourselves, shall we? Here’s the latest A-Z county reports (PDF) from AI and what it says on Iran’s treatment of women:

Women continued to face severe discrimination under the law and in practice, and women’s rights campaigners were harassed, arrested and imprisoned.

[…]

Discrimination against women
Women continued to face discrimination in law, despite some minor improvements. Women’s rights campaigners, including those active in the “One Million Signatures” campaign to end legal discrimination, were harassed, detained, prosecuted and banned from travelling for collecting signatures in support of their petition.

On 1 February, Alieh Eghdam-Doust, a member of the Campaign for Equality, began a three-year prison sentence imposed for participating in a peaceful demonstration. She was among many women arrested during a protest in June 2006 against discriminatory laws, and the first to begin serving a prison sentence.

That’s just from this year’s annual report; much more can be found by simply googling “amnesty international” “dress code” iran. This is not hard or esoteric knowledge and I wish that people stop accusing organisations like AI or Human Rights Watch of not caring about subjects when even five seconds of research would show otherwise. But then Gita Sahgal isn’t that interested in honesty anyway, is she?

Sheer indulgence

Published on February 11, 2010

Cuttlefish.

Twenty years ago today…

One of those moments where you knew the world you grew up in had changed. Those two-three years between the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Gulf War were incredible, when it seemed the whole world would be set free. I grew up in the eighties with regular nightmares about nuclear war and all of a sudden not only was the Cold War finished, but the worst oppressive regime in the world had actually freed the symbol of the resistance against it and was negotiating how to end itself. things looked so great and then it all turned to shit again, with South Africa today being the best evidence for the idea that having equal rights is a necessary, but not a complete condition for creating an equal society.

Antifascists are the real terrorists!

Published on February 10, 2010

With local elections to be held early next month, the AIVD, the Dutch security and intelligence service warns about an insidious new threat in the runup to these elections: the threat of antifascist demonstrations (Dutch). In a letter sent to all mayors in the Netherlands, the AIVD describes the sinister group responsible for this threat: AFA, Anti Fascistisch Actie and its methods. It makes for chilling reason the way this group is in the habit of contacting local governments to advice them on racism, organises counterdemonstrations against nazi intimidation and even organises within local communities to defend against racist aggression! Worse, they even deliberately cause the racists and fascists they organise against to attack them and beat them up.

Ironically, the AIVD even accuses AFA from infiltrating rightwing groups in order to gather intelligence on them — something the intelligence services have never done themselves, at least succesfully.

This piece of fearmongering, silly at it is, does show the mindset of those supposedly guarding us. Rightwing, racist and even fascist intimidation is not a problem, but attempts to defend against it are beyond the pale. This is of course neither new nor surprising, considering the rightwing sympathies of most intelligence services. As long as rightwing violence doesn’t threaten the state directly it’s tolerated, even encouraged, while leftwing activism is always a threat, no matter how legitimite or innocent, even in supposedly democratic states. What is new is how blatant this warning was, something we have not seen in a while. A more paranoid person might wonder about possible connections between this, the economic situation and the way this is used as an excuse for the drastic budget cuts the government wants to force through parliament…

Terry Pratchett calls for legal assisted suicide

Published on February 1, 2010

Though I’ve got every desire to live forever and make it to the ships, I do think the right to die, to decide for myself when and where I want to end my life is as fundamental a human right as you can have. If you do not have this control over your own life, what control do you have? But as we all know, often from personal experience with loved ones at the end of their life, the gap between desire and ability can be large. That’s why having some form of legal assisted suicide available is so important. There have always been cases in which some terminally ill patient has been “helped along” by a caring nurse, doctor or family member, but in the UK these helping hands always run the risk of being prosecuted for murder. Convictions have been rare, but it no doubt prevented some people from doing the right thing, leading to the unnecessary suffering of their loved ones.

For Terry Pratchett the issue went from abstract to personal when he was diagnosed with Alzheimers a few years back. He has said before he would like to decide for himself when to make an end to it and has now called for legalisation of assisted suicide through the establishment of medical tribunals:

In his lecture, Shaking Hands With Death, the author will volunteer to be a test case before a euthanasia tribunal himself.

The tribunal panels would include a legal expert in family matters and a doctor with experience of serious long-term illness.

“If granny walks up to the tribunal and bangs her walking stick on the table and says ‘Look, I’ve really had enough, I hate this bloody disease, and I’d like to die thank you very much young man’, I don’t see why anyone should stand in her way.”

I’m a bit skeptical about the idea of tribunals myself; the system we have in the Netherlands seems more flexible and less bureaucratic for everybody involved. Instead of making the sufferers establish a case for euthanasia beforehand, it provides a protocol for doctors afterwards to protect themselves from prosecution for murder:

The law allows medical review board to suspend prosecution of doctors who performed euthanasia when each of the following conditions is fulfilled:

the patient’s suffering is unbearable with no prospect of improvement

the patient’s request for euthanasia must be voluntary and persist over time (the request cannot be granted when under the influence of others, psychological illness or drugs)

the patient must be fully aware of his/her condition, prospects and options

there must be consultation with at least one other independent doctor who needs to confirm the conditions mentioned above

the death must be carried out in a medically appropriate fashion by the doctor or patient, in which case the doctor must be present

the patient is at least 12 years old (patients between 12 and 16 years of age require the consent of their parents)

This law includes provisions for “a written declaration of will of the patient regarding euthanasia”, in which a patient can declare when they’re still sound of body and mind if and when they would like to end their lives. In this way there’s the option of euthanasia for everybody while still protecting helpless people from murder disguised as euthanasia. With tribunals, the power to decide whether or not somebody can end their lives lies too much on the doctors’ side, in my opinion.