Human Rights
Dear Veneziani, this is why boycotting Teheran is right
Opposing Teheran’s candidature to host the next World Philosophy Day does not mean inflicting “philosophical sanctions” on Iran, nor does it mean “boycotting” a UNESCO initiative in the name of an assumed “priority of democracy over philosophy.” Marcello Veneziani is mistaken when in Il Giornale he attributes such ideas to those who, like Giuliano Amato and the members of Resedoc’s scientific committe, emphasise it would be grotesque to make a place “in which one can risk one’s life in the name of one’s ideas” the capital of doubt and critical debate. Veneziani is wrong, because if it is true that philosophy is exalted wherever humankind needs saving, it is equally true that it is certainly not the executioner who concedes a philosopher’s right to citizenship. What is at stake is understanding who or what could guarantee a free exchange of ideas between participants, should they meet in November 2010 in the capital of Ahmedinejad’s regime. Veneziani himself perhaps?
«We should address human rights, not only the nuclear issue»
A country with an stoppable demand for change and one where not even “state terrorism” has managed to triumph over those opposing it. That is the Iran that PD Senator and President of the Senate’s Human Rights Committee Pietro Marcenaro saw. The Senator has just returned from a private visit to the Islamic Republic. With its mass protests, conflict affecting both the clergy and the ruling classes, as well as international pressure about its nuclear programme, this country seems to be at a crossroads. “It is our great responsibility,” says Marcenaro, “to listen to these people and not abandon those fighting for freedom.”
«We need targeted sanctions, not bombs»
“In Iran we are seeing a back to front revolution with the upper-middle classes protesting against a governing power managed by the poorer and less-educated classes, the main recruitment group for the basiji and for President Ahmedinejad’s base of support.” According to Karim Mezran, director of the Centre for American Studies and a professor at Johns Hopkins School of International Advanced Studies in Bologna, this is however a “leaderless protest” organised by a generation that has only known the Islamic Republic and that sees Moussavi and Karroubi as reference points, “certainly not as leaders.”
Interview by Ernesto Pagano.
The regime is tottering but the U.S would do better not to intervene
Several moderate and reformist parties which had been regarded as members of the family of the Revolution are now being castigated as counter-revolutionary. Now – however – is the worst time for the U.S. government to pursue a policy of engagement, as the regime in Iran is at its worst; it should have tried when the Iranian regime was at its best, that is during the Khatami presidency (of course the Iranian fundamentalist groups were opposed to it at the time).
«I criticize Gay Internationalists, not gays»
Like many Zionist propagandists who often conflate Jews and Zionists and often want to claim that any attack on Zionists is an attack on Jews, Mr. Makarem thinks that any criticisms of Gay Internationalists is an attack on gays, or on homosexuals, or on people who have same-sex contact. But this is not borne out by anything I say in my interview with Reset Doc or in my scholarship. I am clear in the interview that the object of my criticisms is Gay Internationalists and Gay Internationalism and not gays in the West or those who follow them in the Arab world, any more than it is an attack on homosexuality or same-sex contact. What I say (which is hardly even controversial in academic scholarship) is that homosexuality and heterosexuality were both produced in Western Europe and the United States in the nineteenth century.
We are not agents of the West
The real problem with Massad’s interview is the lies, fabrications, and insinuations of being agents of the West against the people in Helem. This is an opinion we have heard many times from Salafists and chauvinists. The contention that homosexuals are agents of the West, that they are “imposing Western values”, and that they belong to the upper classes was also used by Khomeini before rounding up homosexuals and executing them. It is the same justification given to call for the arrest of HIV positive persons in Egypt and elsewhere and to pass a viciously homophobic law in Uganda.
The language issue and the role played by Turkey
It is very interesting that the importance of “language” passes over European borders and spreads and rises in a country like China.And the fact results also more interesting considering the attitude of Turkey – Turkey itself is at the centre of European debate for what concern its entering European Union, that implies, among the indispensable acquis to adhere EU, the respect of diversities and minorities – towards Chinese government, its claim for the strategic role as a bridge between Europe and China and its claim for the protection of the rights of the Uyghurs, that Turkey considers “own”, due to language and culture.
«Muslims and also without leaders, so the West has ignored them»
"The process involving the erosion of the Uyghur identity concerns their literature as well as their religion. Powerful anti-Uyghur racism contributes to excluding this ethnic minority from Chinese economic development. If Beijing does not stop using authoritarian methods against the Islamic people in Xinjiang, the risk that the Uyghurs will return to embrace terrorism will become reality." Michael Dillon, an expert on Islam in China and author of the book Xinjiang: China's Muslim Far Northwest (Routledge, 2009), comments for Resetdoc the worst Chinese violence since the Tiananmen Square events and explains why the Uyghur issue is not so similar to the Tibetan problem.
A Petition Against the Government-Sponsored Violence in Iran
We, the undersigned scholars, academics and writers around the world, are concerned about the human rights crisis in Iran. We request the United Nations to condemn the current coup d’état and support Iranians in their demand for a fair and democratic election. Deeply worried by the reports of Iranian paramilitary groups and security forces firing upon and arresting peaceful civilian demonstrators, we demand that the international community act now to prevent further violence and bloodshed. We call on the government of Iran to respect and uphold the right to peaceful protest. We call upon democratic institutions and organizations around the world to condemn government-sponsored violence against peaceful Iranian protesters. We also call on governments around the world to ask the UN Secretary General, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Human Rights Council to appoint a UN special commission to monitor the post-election situation in Iran and to inform the Security Council about the arbitrary arrest and detention of student activists and leading reformists in Iran. (From Dissent Magazine)
“Why Europe ought to be worried”
“These elections are a farce and addressed only at consolidating the Bouteflika regime”. These are the words of Algerian journalist and author Mohammed Benchicou. Founder of the Movement of Algerian Journalists (MJA) and former editor-in-chief of the opposition’s newspaper Le Matin, Benchicou spent two years in prison for having exported Algerian Treasury Bonds from the country (at the end of a trial vitiated by many anomalies and in 2006 was awarded the Pen Award for freedom of expression. He is the author of a book that greatly criticises Bouteflika (Bouteflika: an Algerian Deception, published by Picollec), published in France but not in Algeria.
Defining identity, the dilemma facing Arabs in Israel
Nowadays what does being an Arab actually mean? It doesn't define a nationality. Maybe it defines an ethnicity, but it is not enough to provide an identity or a deep sense of belonging to a people. Furthermore, the term "Arab-Israeli" defines a minority in Israel, one not even fully integrated into Israeli society. Israelis often refer to Arab-Israelis as "the sector" (Migzar) as well, which doesn't help the community to feel part of a society. Let alone clarify its own identity. The Arab world, in contrast, refers to Arab-Israelis as "Palestinians of 1948" or as "Palestinians of the interior," meaning that Israel represents the interior of Palestine. But even this terminology doesn't lead to clear outcomes.
Obama's Racial Wisdom
The scam of trading a grant white racial innocence for a cheap certificate of black equality offers no way out of racism. This phony bargaining strategy, still beloved of brainless and weak deans on privileged campuses, has been shed quietly not only by Obama but also by many Americans in their 20s. Obama has liberated himself in certain important ways from the black identity politics he explored in Chicago. He has done it not by running away from it or dancing around it, or by being trapped in it but denying it. He has done it not by running away from it or dancing around it, or by being trapped in it but denying it, as Steele variously imagines. He has outgrown it by going straight through it with some good old fashioned conservative introspection, making a Pilgrim’s Progress that tested his faith in himself and society.
A god-given opportunity for Beijing
In the wake of the brutal suppression, senior officials from the Bush administration pressed Chinese officials in private conversations to use their leverage with Myanmar’s authorities to help manage a transition to a new government in Myanmar. However, the Chinese officials “deflected the entreaties by describing Myanmar's turmoil as an internal matter.” Chinese UN Ambassador Wang Guangya argued that the problems facing Myanmar are “basically internal. No international-imposed solution can help the situation.” It is a god-given opportunity for China to demonstrate to the world that China’s is “a responsible partner” of the international community. The reluctant cooperation between the two superpowers in the region is working.
Haleh Esfandiari and the persecuted women of Iran
Evin is Tehran'’s hardest, most feared and most dangerous prison. Political dissidents and opponents of the regime all find their way here, and they, since May 8th, have been joined by Haleh Esfandiari, the Iranian-American Director of the Middle East Program at Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. Haleh is 67 years old, and had returned to her home country in December to visit her mother. Ahmadinejad'’s regime prooved unwilling to forgive her holding both American and Iranian passports, however, and she was finally moved to Evin prison after more than four months under house arrest.
Is multiculturalism bad for women?
The anthropologist Carla Pasquinelli, author of Infibulazione. Il corpo violato (Infibulation. The violated body) (Meltemi), invites the champions of human rights to judge with the same coin, all the violations of the human body, before railing against mutilation of female genitals. But for Susan Moller Okin, author of Is Multiculturalism bad for women?, there are many cases in which the conditions of the individual would improve “if their culture put itself out”, and with this proposes a liberalism which demands “that the education of babies not be circumscribed to the knowledge of the cultures or religions of their parents, and much less make them believe that that is the ‘only’ right way to live”.
"Islam? Perfectly compatible with Women Rights"
“Do you know what our first president George Washington said, writing to the Quakers about why he was not going to require them to perform military service? ‘The conscientious scruples of all men should be treated with the greatest delicacy and tenderness’. Well, I wish I saw more of this delicacy and tenderness in Europe today”. According to the famous political philosopher Martha Craven Nussbaum, “it’s just appalling that nations want to ban wearing of traditional Islamic dress”. Religion, and in particular Islam, says Nussbaum, is compatible not only with democracy but also with women rights (see the Indian case). What’s really wrong are Western stereotypes about Muslims and the so (badly) called “Islamic world”.
“Western sisters, don’t play the role of teacher”
“The French Revolution took place in the eighteenth century, and we absolutely cannot think of applying such a historical experience across the entire globe. In the same way, Western women must, at all costs, avoid playing the role of teacher and telling non-Western women ‘If you want to be free, be like us’. What they need to show, rather, is an understanding and sympathetic attitude.” Thus Adriana Cavarero, lecturer in Political Philosophy at the University of Verona, and one of the best-known Italian exponents of the ‘philosophy of difference’, expresses her unease towards those who believe in westernising by force worlds with histories and cultures very different to our own.
Gay Parade? No, thanks. For Moscow it is a “Satanic Happening”
The new gay pride parade is set for May 27th, like last year, like 1993 when Eltsin decided that homosexuality was no longer a crime. City mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, didn’t think twice about it, and announced that he would never allow a gay parade in the capital city. The organizers of the gay parade say the mayor’s statements are medieval, something that reminds them of the Inquisition. They are optimistic: this year the gay pride parade will take place, and for good, without authorities bans. Because there is the European Court and because it is impossible not to recognize that homosexual human rights were trampled on.
Bin Laden's War Against ''Freethinkers''
In his latest speech Osama Bin Laden urged the killing of “heretics” and free Muslim intellectuals. According to the Memri Institute, only one eminent Arab columnist rebelled against the call: Tariq Alhomayed, the Editor-in-Chief of Asharq Al-Awsat.