NEW ISSUE ON OUR NEW WEBSITE
We have moved. Click below to read posts and view our new issue on our new website:
www.theyalejournalofhumanrights.com
Try Again Arizona
At Yale, by the end of the semester, the above image had become the Facebook profile picture of several undergraduate students, especially from the Hispanic and Latin American communities.
It’s true though: whoever he is, he is one cute kid.
What’s Going on in Puerto Rico
This is an email from a friend in Puerto Rico.
RE: What’s Going on in Puerto Rico
May 16
Hey guys,
I hope everyone finished the semester well and that you’ve had some time to party and relax. I just wanted to share with you a little bit about the political situation at home right now, in case it ever makes it to the press in the US or if you’re interested in hearing about blatant civil rights violations. My family is very personally involved in this, and I wanted to tell you about it.
Don’t Make Friends: Watch Tyrants
Contributed by Carolina Cooper
Amnesty International in Portugal introduces Tyrannybook.
Dine Out, Fight AIDS!
SAVE THE DATE! Thursday, April 29th – Dine Out, Fight AIDS!
Plan now to eat at a participating restaurant on Thursday, April 29, 2010 and feel satiated just knowing you are helping in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
DOFL, hosted by Subaru is a one-day fundraising event that last year alone raised over $3.9 million dollars for HIV/AIDS service providers across North America. First held in Philadelphia 20 years ago, Dining Out For Life is now held in over 50 cities in the U.S. and Canada. Over a quarter of a million people dine out at more than 3,500 participating restaurants, which donate a generous portion of the day’s proceeds to their local AIDS agency.
AIDS Project New Haven (APNH), the oldest AIDS service organization in CT, brought DOFL to Connecticut 4 years ago and continues to produce the event as a successful fundraiser. Through the ongoing efforts of APNH Executive Director, Christopher Cole, the CT DOFL has doubled its participation. More than 2,000 diners and over 35 restaurants in Connecticut will participate in Dining Out For Life 2010.
“Dining Out For Life is a great way to make a meaningful contribution to the fight against AIDS while also supporting the hardworking restaurant community—right in your own backyard,” explains TV’s Ted Allen. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 7,500 new cases of HIV infections are reported worldwide. “Now more than ever Subaru and its drivers understand the importance of volunteerism and support for charitable and community causes,” states Chief Marketing Officer Tim Mahoney.
For a list of restaurants in your area visit www.diningoutforlife.com (from the map, select New Haven, select Participating Restaurants.
For information on becoming a participating restaurant please contact Fran McMullen at AIDS Project New Haven, 203.624-0947 ext 229 or fran.mcmullen@apnh.org
The Power of Creativity & Innovation
by Roni Druks
Stop for a minute and think as I paint a hypothetical situation which although grotesque in its over simplification is equally troubling in its historical reality. You are sitting in the cafeteria eating lunch next to one of your friends. You chat about your weekend your holiday plans. The next day you sit down once again with your friend, yet this time over the loud speakers an announcement is made that your companion is part of a treacherous ethnic group and should be killed—military forces are beginning to enforce the new policy, a collective fervor to commit murder fills the room. What do you do?
Read more…
The Habits of Brothers
by Shahla Naimi
As we sit in our dorm rooms denouncing countries’ horrendous human rights records, let’s not be so quick to blame the government. Sure, it’s easy and, sure, we look to our governments to secure our homeland. We’ve been born to believe that it is the government’s job to keep us safe and happy. The government’s role in a citizen’s life, however, is a question for another day. For now, I ask that we consider the other point of view.
Read more…
SUB: Memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Email from Lowell Dempsey to The Yale Journal of Human Rights
Hi,
The month of April marks the 42nd anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We are commemorating the life and work of Dr. King by creating a memorial in our nation’s capital. The Washington, DC, Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial will honor his life and contributions to the world through non violent social change. I’m reaching out to ask if you and your readers would help spread the word by posting about this wonderful project on The Yale Journal Of Human Rights.
I’ve put together this blogger-friendly micro-site to help get the message out – there are videos, photos, banners, and even a web toolbar that, when used, donates money to the creation of the memorial:
After years of fund raising, the memorial is now $14 million away from its $120 million goal. This will be more than a monument to a great humanitarian, the National Memorial will be a place for visitors from around the world to share the spirit of love, freedom, and peace. If you are able to post or tweet about this please let me know so I can share it with the team. If you have any questions please pop me an email. And if you are able to help, thank you so much.
Lowell
–
Lowell Dempsey,
BuildTheDream.org
Twitter @mlkmemorial
Facebook.com/MLKNationalMemorial
“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity”
–Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
When Video Games Go Too Far
The game is RapeLay, and the goal, as the title indicates, is to rape a teenage girl. You can choose how to do it and where to do it; you can invite friends to join you; you can even impregnate the girl and then convince her to have an abortion.
by Sarah Sloan
Video games often come under attack for promoting or condoning violence. Fighting—in a variety of forms—plays a central role in many video games. These games range from Alien vs. Predator, a science fiction game that takes place on another planet but nonetheless involves killing as a crucial part of the plot, to games like Grand Theft Auto, where players take on the role of criminals in real cities and participate in assassinations as part of their missions. Critics argue that these games encourage violence and lead to aggression, while supporters maintain that no studies conclusively link video games to increased aggression, and that the games actually have positive benefits, like increasing hand-eye coordination.
Personally, I think these video games are disgusting. I’m shocked at their blasé presentation of brutality. Perhaps I’m too sensitive, but I don’t want to be desensitized. To me, it hardly matters whether these games actually increase physical violence or not; what is worrisome is that violence against others is being promoted and consumed by popular culture.
Although I disapprove of these video games and have no desire to play them, I have reluctantly accepted them as part of our society. But a recent video game from Japan goes too far. It is simply unacceptable, and should be condemned and rejected by gamers everywhere.
The game is RapeLay, and the goal, as the title indicates, is to rape a teenage girl. You can choose how to do it and where to do it; you can invite friends to join you; you can even impregnate the girl and then convince her to have an abortion. The reason you are raping her? Revenge—she claimed that you molested her. The game is despicable; rape is a horrific act of violence, not a form of entertainment, and it is never ever justified. Indeed, the game caused an international uproar, and stores soon stopped carrying it. However, unbelievably, games like RapeLay, where raping women is the central objective, are still popular and widely available in Japan, and the internet has allowed them to go viral. Critics have advocated the banning of such games, yet one defender argued that legally these games should not be restricted because doing so would limit freedom of expression.
But the question we need to ask ourselves as a culture and world community is not whether these games can be outlawed, but why these games are being created in the first place. The idea that engaging in graphic simulations of rape is fun baffles and appalls me. Who is playing them? Why are they playing them? And what can we do to make people stop playing them?
Rape is a problem confronting women around the world—from those in the Democratic Republic of Congo to students at Yale. Games that make light of rape absolutely cannot be tolerated, and it is every video game player’s responsibility to condemn them.
Read more about RapeLay here.
POSTPONED: Resolved.
THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL:
APRIL 7th, 7:30PM IN BRANFORD COMMON ROOM
Concert for Cambodia
by Niraj Patel
To most in the Western world, knowledge of Cambodia is limited to one event – a brutal genocide that took place from 1975 to 1979. 31 years later and just 10 years after real peace was established, Cambodia continues to confront a variety of challenges brought on by the conflict and by the plight of those in the developing world: intense poverty, an almost non-existent justice system, public health challenges, and human rights concerns. One of the most heartbreaking problems today is the massive amount of human trafficking occurring all over the country.
Women and children are often sold for sexual exploitation – reports tell of victims as young as 7 or 8 years old. Some are even sold by their own families, struggling in the rural areas of the country where 80% of the population lives on less than a dollar a day. Men are sold into forced labor for agriculture and factory work, where they work for little or no wage in life threatening conditions. Though the Cambodian Government has made fighting human trafficking a priority, the well-established black market and corrupted areas provide a haven for the sale of human beings, which sometimes occurs in broad daylight.
Combating this evil is extremely difficult – it involves disrupting trafficking rings, rehabilitating the victims and providing them with new opportunities, and fighting the poverty that gave rise to the problem in the first place. There are a wealth of NGOs in Cambodia, many of whom are having a very positive impact. AIESEC Yale, in conjunction with AIESEC in Cambodia and Pierson College, is committed to taking a stand on this issue.
On April 9th, AIESEC Yale is hosting a concert featuring Kyle Patrick, the lead singer of pop/rock artists The Click Five, and singer/songwriter Jesse Ruben, both of whom are active in fighting social injustice in Southeast Asia. The event will begin at 8 PM in the Pierson Dining Hall.
Proceeds from the concert will go to Not for Sale, an anti-trafficking organization active in Cambodia and other countries across the globe.
Artists’ Revolution
by Max Budovitch, Yale University/ Calhoun College 2013
Nestled in some of the most isolated hills of the West Bank, The Freedom Theatre of Jenin is leading the way in a rare strain of Palestinian activism. Founded by Juliano Mer-Khamis (General Director), Jonatan Stanczak (Administrative and Financial Director), Zakaria Zubeidi, and Dror Feiler in 2006, the Freedom Theatre has become a flourishing center of creativity and change in the historically violent and unstable Jenin Refugee Camp. As founder and host of the Middle Eastern politics and culture program, CrossTalk, on WYBCX Yale College Radio, I interviewed Jonatan Stanczak over the phone last week about the Freedom Theatre.
Mr. Stanczak is a Swedish-Israeli activist and splits his time between the West Bank and Sweden. He was shocked when he first visited the West Bank in 2005 and witnessed the Israeli Occupation and the daily violence as a result of the Second Intifada. At that time, Mr. Stanczak met Juliano Mer-Khamis, the son of Arna Mer, who had formed a children’s theater troupe in Jenin during the 1980s. Mr. Stanczak, Mer-Khamis, and several others founded the Freedom Theatre in its current form in 2006. The Freedom Theatre is named for the goal of the Palestinian Resistance; the Theatre fights “the Occupation without firing a bullet.” When asked how the Theatre fits into the arc of Palestinian Resistance movements and ideologies, Mr. Stanczak replied that the Freedom Theatre is
not violent or non-violent. [It] gives the youth and children the experiences and the option to…determine the right strategies according to the present situation.
The Freedom Theatre serves as both a drama school for the youth of Jenin’s Refugee Camp, as well as a performance space for the children’s plays. This unusual organization has created a safe space outside of the constant onslaught of the political and social realities of the Jenin Refugee Camp, a space in which children can develop their creative capabilities and ability to think independently.
You can listen to the interview with Jonatan Stanczak at www.crosstalkwybcx.blogspot.com
To read an article about The Freedom Theater, check out Issue I, Fall 2009 of The Yale Journal of Human Rights
“Land of the free”
by Shahla Naimi
When you are desperate, it’s easy to be taken advantage of. Human Rights Watch released a report late last month chronicling over 80 migrant workers’ abuse in Thailand. Thousands of workers from from Cambodia, Laos and Burma (see map below) have no voice before police officers in Thailand, leaving them vulnerable to abuse. Ironically enough, Thailand means the “land of the free.”
Here are a few excerpts from the report:
From the moment they arrive in Thailand, many migrants face an existence straight out of a Thai proverb—escaping from the tiger, but then meeting the crocodile—that is commonly used to describe fleeing from one difficult or deadly situation into another that is equally bad, or sometimes worse. Migrant workers are effectively bonded to their employers and at risk of rights violations from government authorities. In many cases, police, military, and immigration officers, and other government officials threaten, physically harm, and extort migrant workers with impunity.
BAD ROMANCE @ YALE
By: The Bad Romantics
A Glittery Salute to Drag History and Queer Performance
Sat Apr 3 8:00 pm
Sun Apr 4 8:00 pm
At Calhoun Cabaret
TICKETS? CLICK HERE.
As featured on the YJHR Yale Crush
Kosovo Calling: AUK Summer Program
by Professor William Wechsler
In the summer of 2010, the American University in Kosovo will host a summer program, providing both undergraduate and graduate students from around the world unique opportunities to learn about peace-building, post-conflict reconstruction, economic development and prospects for regional co-operation in Prishtina, Kosovo.
The goal of the program is to bridge the gap between theory and practice, paying particular attention to the myriad of challenges associated with international interventions, refugees, transitional justice, conflict transformation, the quest for a viable and sustainable peace, and long-term development. The faculty will include a wide range of renowned international scholars, retired diplomats, ex-combatants, former military personnel who served in the region and experienced governmental practitioners involved in regional conflict and peace efforts. As a post-conflict country, Kosovo offers practical opportunities to explore past, present, and future challenges within a ‘living laboratory.’
The program shall consist of two modules:
Module A, focusing on Peace-building and Development, will last from July, 12th until August, 6th and shall consist of three courses:
- Historical Context of the Kosovo War
- International Community and Conflict Transformation
- Lessons of Kosovo, the Changing Nature of Security, and 21st-Century Peace-building; and
Module B, centering on European Integration, will last from August 9th, until August, 27th, and offer the following courses:
- Politics of the European Union
- Economics of the European Union
- European Identity and Regional Co-operation
For further information see: http://www.aukonline.org/summer/index.php
Please feel free to contact: summerinfo@aukonline.org
Chinese Media: Google Lost
Taken from The Guardian website: “Beijing even restricts media outlets from showing photographs of flowers left at Google’s Chinese headquarters.”
by Charles Loi
Xinhua and China Daily on Google:
I’m not sure if Google knows that its arrogance can easily remind the Chinese people of the “big powers” who cracked open China’s door by warships and cannons in the 19th century.
The current “China Threat” theory shows Western countries are actually in fear of being dominated by China one day. The same goes for Google, who is insinuating a “you can’t do without me” message to China.
International Women’s Day
by Sarika Arya
Girls especially, take heart. As Madeline Albright once said, “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.”
March 8, 2010 marked 100 years of International Women’s Day, a national holiday in countries like China, Bulgaria, Vietnam, and Russia. According to the official organization, the day is marked by “celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.” Reflections on the future of women truly characterize the day, as different experts cast their predictions on the progress of women’s rights and new ways to revitalize the movement.
To see long-term improvements in the status of women give her this: an education. Give a woman a book and you give her: literacy, ideas, inspiration, mental and emotional strength, employment, and self- sufficiency. Give a woman a book and you give her: values, discipline, and authority. A woman then passes these things on to her family, especially her children. She turns her sons into respectful men who believe in the success of women after seeing their own beloved mothers benefit from good education. These men become better husbands and fathers. They raise motivated daughters- and sons. Children who live the benefits of gender equality, and rightfully question when it is not given to others. A women’s rights culture develops; a positive cycle becomes implemented. So, through her children, a woman can indirectly (and directly) impact a village, a community, a country, and the world. Invest in a women’s education, and you invest in a brighter world future.
In commemoration of International Women’s Day, click below to read about 5 women (who you have probably never heard of) helping other women, and consequently, helping everyone.
T-Shirt Day
On March 9th, alumni of the conflict resolution group Seeds of Peace (SOP), will show their solidarity by donning their SOP T-Shirts all around the world. Every summer, teenagers from America and war-torn regions in the Middle East and South Asia gather at Pleasant Lake in Maine. The cabins and soccer pitch represented a traditional camp, but everyday for 90 minutes we met in dialogue huts to discuss the conflict. For many, this is the first time they meet “the enemy.” The camp mantra, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there,” a statement from Rumi, the 13th century Persian poet, sums up the camp’s goal for the ‘Seeds’ to find common ground in one another’s humanity, rather than continue to be divided by their principles.
These Seeds have started sowing a new future.
Name: Ron Shehtman
Age: 15
Home: Alia st. 33/9 Afula, Israel.
Greatest Lesson Learned through SOP: Don’t treat a person strangely and differently if he is different because for him, he is ordinary and you are the stranger.
What I do now: A 10th grader in Ort Afula High School
____________________________________________________________________
This picture is of various students at Dexter Regional High School in Dexter, Main; the school that Tim Wilson[SOP Senior International Adviser] coaches at. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of Tim, although he was there with his Seeds shirt, but [above] is the picture from the morning!
Included in the picture is: (back row, left to right) Jake Sherburne, 2nd session 2009/ Andrew Levanselor, 2nd session 2010/ Sarah Wallace/ Jake Stuzman, 2nd session 2009/ Alison Pease, 2nd session 2010/ Lauren Crane, 2nd Session 2010/ Hayley Loving & (front row, left to right) Mika Cookson, Becca Mason, 2nd session 2010/ Danielle Iverson/ Catherine Strauch, 2nd session 2008/ Elaina Fogler/ Moriah Day, 2nd session 2009/ Jane Strauch, 2nd session 2010/ Jordyn Bell, 2nd session 2010
The most important thing I learned at SOP is that you really can’t judge a book by its cover. Every person is different, and you can’t tell who a person is by their exterior. SOP changed my life, and it was the best experience of my life.
Above is another picture of me and a friend – he didn’t attend SOP but has participated in many SOP activities at our school.
Thanks, Catherine Strauch 2nd session 2008 (Green Team all the way! Table 10! Bunk 3!)
To read about more Seeds’ experiences, click here: Read more…
Israeli Apartheid Week
contributed by Shaina Low
Students at Columbia marked the end of Israeli Apartheid Week, a week devoted to demonstrating discriminatory policies in Israel against Palestinians, by making their alma mater join in on their cause.
Read more about the students’ efforts here.
Bulldogs in Rwanda
contributed by Josh Gordon
Check out the group’s blog by clicking here.
The juxtaposition of its beautiful countryside and the bloody events of its recent past make Rwanda an incredibly interesting place to do service abroad. The genocide, one of the worst in recorded history, levied untold psychological damage on the survivors.
This March, we will travel with 12 other Yale students to volunteer at Agahozo Shalom Youth Village, an organization that aims to help orphans of the Rwandan genocide cope with their traumatic pasts by providing them with a stable living environment, formal education and psychotherapy. We are leading the trip through a student run organization called Reach Out that coordinates international community service trips over spring and summer Breaks. The Reach Out mission hinges on service and cultural immersion and trip itineraries are usually divided to be half volunteering and half traveling, to get a good sense of the host country.
