Alright maybe it’s not exactly the same, but had anyone else seen this before?

MTVs campaign called EXIT (End eXploitation and Trafficking). Whilst they don’t seem to be doing much at the moment, Radiohead have released this video with them:

I haven’t listened to it yet, library with no sound, but just thought I’d share as we need to be using the blog more apparently…

Amnesty is calling for four main issue’s to be addressed by the Chinese Governement, these are: executions, fair trials, respect the rights of human rights defenders and freedom of censorship. These will be the main areas that we will focus on when we begin our campaign regarding China.

Executions:

Amnesty are calling for the Chinese Government to reduce; with the intention to later abolish, the death penalty. Currently there are 68 crimes that can be punishable by death. On January 1st 2007 an important reform took place; which saw the restoration of the Supreme People’s Court, a court which reviews all death sentences passed in china. This is a positive reform but is only a beginning to ending the death penalty. Further to this reform Amnesty would like the Chinese Government to ensure that families and lawyers of those condemned to death are given access to them and to the information surrounding their case.

Fair Trails:

Currently a major element of the Chinese punitive system is ‘Re-education through Labour,’ a system that involves the detention of people without charge for extended periods of time, possibly up to three years. This is directly violating international fair trial standards, and Amnesty is calling for China to assess this situation. These so called criminals can range from ‘unlawful advertising, unlicensed taxis, unlicensed businesses, vagrancy and begging,’ hardly crimes worthy of detention for periods up to three years.

Respect for the Rights of Human Rights Defenders:

China gave assurances that the human rights issues within their country would improve during the run up to the Olympic games. However the authorities are still intimidating and harassing human rights defenders. Human rights defenders should have the freedom to highlight issues of concern without fear of penalty and repercussion.

Freedom from Censorship

The promise made by China for media freedom is not being kept. Thousands of internet police monitor cyberspace to censor any information the Chinese Government deem sensitive; phrases such as ‘human rights’ and ‘democracy’ come under such material. Many Chinese people have been imprisoned for acts such as signing petitions online, it is said that china have the most effective form of internet censorship, sometimes referred to as, ‘The Great Firewall of China.’ Currently there has been more leeway given to foreign journalists and media, however domestic media is still very effectively censored.

These four issues combine to create the major aspects to the Amnesty campaign, if we can campaign around these issues we have the chance to help the people of China, and allow human rights abuses to be confronted and realized fully in terms of international law.

Amnesty has released two new videos. The first is intended to raise awareness of waterboarding torture; the second is to draw attention to China’s terrible human rights record.

Stuff Of Life:

Part of the unsubscribe campaign. See the related blog post and news item.

‘Torchure’:

Part of Amnesty International’s efforts to raise awareness of China’s record on human rights. Read the related post here.

What are your thoughts on these videos? Do they get the message across well, or are they too in-your-face – or esoteric? Did the waterboarding video go too far?

Minutes after the jump
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According to Al-Jazeera news:

A new report has said that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is at its worst since Israel seized the territory in 1967.

The study released on Thursday was conducted by a coalition of eight British-based human rights organisations, including Amnesty International and Save the Children.

Kate Allen, the UK director of Amnesty international said:

“Israel has the right and obligation to protect its citizens, but as the occupying power in Gaza it also has a legal duty to ensure that Gazans have access to food, clean water, electricity and medical care.

“Punishing the entire Gazan population by denying them these basic human rights is utterly indefensible. The current situation is man-made and must be reversed.”

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D5E2E344-E9E7-42E3-8CEB-71EBC35152BC.htm

Reuters

DUBAI, March 3 (Reuters) – Outspoken Arab broadcasters said they would not cave in to a charter designed to force them to self-censor their programmes or risk going off air.

The satellite broadcasting charter, endorsed at a meeting of Arab information ministers in Cairo last month, will entrench state control over broadcasts and curtail political expression on the airwaves in a region of some 300 million.

Analysts said the obvious targets of the document, led by U.S. allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia, were the Qatar-based Al Jazeera channel and Lebanon’s al-Manar TV owned by the Shi’ite Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrilla group.

Al Jazeera are of course the channel renowned for broadcasting al Qaeda videos.

I found this interesting. Some are praising it, some are not. Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org) are condemning it as a restriction of free speech. (http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2008/02/26/mena18153.htm)

Personally I think I’d like to see what it says before making a judgement. It could be a good thing, especially where Al Jazeera are concerned. It might be a restriction of freedom of speech, which of course is to be avoided.

I also find this quote from HRW interesting:

The document, intended as guidelines that carry no legal obligations, recommends that the regulatory bodies of Arab League members states confiscate equipment, impose fines, and suspend, refuse to renew or withdraw licenses from satellite channels that authorities deem to have violated those “principles.â€Â

So they’re just guidelines, not obligations, but there are to be sanctions imposed. I wonder how far this will go?

What are your thoughts, anyone?

Click here:
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Somehow don’t think that these are the only 2 that happened on British territory…

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7256587.stm

 However, it’s good to hear an admisison of guilt of some sort from the government.

Click to read minutes:

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