· May, 2008

Stories about Human Rights from May, 2008

South Africa: Bloggers need to do more than just write

  31 May 2008

A few South African bloggers are thinking about positive steps to take with regard to the current xenophobia crisis in South Africa. Stii asks, “What can we as bloggers do about the Xenophobia crisis?” and Mike Stopforth calls on South African bloggers to do something. Meanwhile, Afrigator has launched a special Xenophobia Crisis Page.

Ukraine, Russia: Personae Non Gratae

On May 12, Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov was declared persona non grata in Ukraine, following his calls for Russia to take ownership of Sevastopol, a Ukrainian Black Sea naval port. On May 15, Russia denied entry to Vladyslav Kaskiv, one of the leaders of the 2004 protests in Kyiv and member of the Our Ukraine/People's Self-Defense faction in the Ukrainian parliament. LJ user varfolomeev66, a Russian journalist, compares the two cases.

  30 May 2008

Cédric Kalonji blogs the arrest of Jean-Pierre Bemba [Fr], Congolese president Joseph Kabila's main rival, in Belgium last weekend. The Central African Republic brought charges of war crimes and crimes...

Trinidad and Tobago: Shame

  29 May 2008

As an eight-year-old girl is found dead in a canefield in Trinidad, Coffeewallah says: “They're killing the children…casually, as though they are no more than sand through our fingers”, while...

Bermuda: Freedom or Manipulation?

  29 May 2008

Bermudian bloggers are incensed about the Premier's statement that making certain information public is “akin to asking a neural surgeon to come out of the operating room in the middle...

Hungary: Ferenc Szálasi

Hungarian Spectrum writes about Ferenc Szálasi and Hungarian nationalist politics – here and here: “Perhaps no one will be surprised to discover that the man who came up with “Hungarism”...

Egypt: Torture Acceptable

Egyptian blogger Mostafa is surprised that some of his friends find torture as an acceptable form of extracting confessions from people being interrogated – after an experiment he conducted on...

Cuba: Free Speech?

  28 May 2008

Child of the Revolution sees the irony of the editor of Granma calling for a further restriction on freedom of speech laws in Cuba: “Instead of demanding greater freedom of...

Bahrain: Ban on Bangladeshis

Following a tragic incident a few days ago, when a Bahraini was killed after he refused to pay a Bangladeshi mechanic the 500 fils (1.3 USD) extra he was demanding for a job, Bahrain has now stopped issuing work permits to Bangladeshi nationals. A group of MPs are planning to submit a proposal to parliament to expel all Bangladeshi workers, who might be as many as 90,000, from the country because allegedly they commit more ‘shocking and gruesome crimes‘ than any other community.

Cuba: Incipient Crackdown?

  27 May 2008

Both Uncommon Sense and Ninety miles away…in another country blog about an incident in which “police and thugs from a ‘rapid response brigade’ swarmed about two dozen people as they...

Jamaica: Gays and Golding

  27 May 2008

Kadene Porter at Jamaica's Abeng News Magazine analyzes the Prime Minister's controversial BBC interview in which he said that there would be no gays in his Cabinet: “It is rather...