The Human Rights Blog

Calgary street preacher files human rights complaint against city for ...

Arturo Pawlowki said he laid the complaint after being ticketed nearly 40 times for allegedly violating city bylaws. He says what the city wants to do is to stop him from preaching on the street to homeless people. Pawlowki says he's now videotaping his sermons so he can show how bylaw officers are "harassing and attacking" him based on his beliefs. He says the basis of his human rights complaint is that he is being discriminated against because of his religious beliefs. The commission will look at his complaint and determine whether it has merit and whether to launch an investigation. .

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Human Rights director to address luncheon

Beverly L. Watts, executive director of the Tennessee Human Rights Commission (THRC), will be the featured speaker at the International Women�s Day Luncheon slated for 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, in the Hazlewood Dining Room of the James Union Building at MTSU. Prior to joining the THRC, Watts was Special Advisor to the Chair at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where state and local relations came under her purview. Her resume also includes stints as Executive Director of the National Fair Housing Training Academy and Executive Director of the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights. .

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Approach 3: Promoting Democratization and Human Rights

The National Issues Forum split about 175 participants into 11 groups to discuss four approaches to building a more secure future in the context of Americans� Role in the World. The four approaches are: preserving and sharing global resources, seeking security through free trade, promoting democracy and human rights and using military power to secure the peace. Approach 3: Promoting Democratization and Human Rights In order to work collaboratively toward democracy overseas, Americans should understand each other, in terms of what they believe a democracy is. A number of people identified the distinction Saturday while discussing America�s role in promoting democracy and human rights overseas. �Big business and the government are talking about democracy, but we�re talking about a different democracy � a different definition,� Wappingers Falls resident Richard Carlson said.

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Human rights defenders group launched in MM

Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA) launched Saturday at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani in Quezon City a new organization to defend human rights in Metro Manila. PAHRA launched the Human Rights Defenders – National Capital Region. Human Rights Defenders is a program initiated by the United Nations to help local communities form their own groups to monitor the human rights situation in their areas. According to PAHRA, there are many cases of human rights violations in the Philippines but the evidence to prosecute these violations in courts are lacking. Through training seminars and legal assistance, the organization hopes to be able to instruct the local communities on the standard operating procedures when recording violations of human rights.

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Head of International Society of Human Rights in Austria Calls ...

VIENNA, Austria�Divine Performing Arts held its first Vienna performance of the Chinese Spectacular on Thursday at the Vienna Stadthalle. Katharina Grieb, the head of the Austrian Section of the International Society of Human Rights, attended the show. "It's wonderful, very interesting," she said. "The sea in the water dance [in the piece "Nymphs of the Sea"], I think it was very nice." Through classical Chinese dance, performers displayed the essence of China's 5,000 years of culture, from antiquity to the present, while also presenting the values upheld in Chinese traditional culture. With Buddhist and Daoist spiritual elements, the show has been the target of disruption from the Chinese Communist regime, as it also includes two dances about the peaceful of response of people who practice Falun Dafa, a meditation practice based on truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, that is currently persecuted in China.

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Beautiful Miss Idaho in LCHS Parade

BTW, Phil has a Little-Ears-Have-Big-Windows post here. *HBO's still trying to figure out what Stebbijo/Your Choice means by done-r here. *CDADave/Thin Air is trying out a new look as he prepares to return to the HBO blogosphere in a big way on Monday. He's asking folks what they think here. *Amy Crooks/That's Life. Life Goes On sounds as though she's been working hard for her money and not blogging too much here. *Marianne Love/Slight Detour has some fascinating historical info about Bonner County, including how Hoodoo Creek was formed and how Sagle got its name after losing out to Eagle in southern Idaho here. Also: Herb Huseland/Bay Views puts in his 2 cents about the inheritance tax here, Digital Fog has another fine parody here, ErinG/Idaho Native is getting nervous about the birth process here and Cis Gors/From A Simple Mind analyzes an online quiz she took here.

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We don't work for the 'baas' - FBJ

The Forum of Black Journalists (FBJ) has told the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) that black reporters have the right to form an exclusive organisation that can determine its own path forward. The hearing on Wednesday comes after Talk Radio 702 lodged a complaint with the SAHRC after one of its white journalists was barred from attending the relaunch of the FBJ. Separately, Yusuf Abramjee, group head of news and talk programming for Primedia Broadcasting, which owns 702, and talk show host Kieno Kammies have also complained to the commission after being referred to as "coconuts" by veteran journalist John Qwelane. .

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Cuba signs UN human rights pact

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque announced at a Feb. 28 press conference at UN headquarters in New York that he had just signed two human rights accords originally introduced in the world body in 1976. Opponents of Cuba�s revolutionary government have long criticized Cuba�s reluctance to sign the treaties until now. James McKinley, writing in The New York Times, raised the possibility that Cuba�s action signified a loosening of restraints under the presidency of Raul Castro. Yet the government�s intention to sign the agreements had been announced on Human Rights Day, Dec. 10, 2007. Perez Roque said the change of course was inspired by the United Nations� decision in 2006 to replace its widely criticized Commission on Human Rights with a refurbished Human Rights Council.

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City, human rights commission, sign partnership

A partnership designed to promote ethnic diversity through public education was signed Monday at city hall. The signing celebrated the start of Cultural Diversity and Race Relations Month in Saskatoon. Mayor Don Atchison and Marilou McPhedran, chief commissioner of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission, signed the agreement in council chambers. "I'm impressed and I'm encouraged by how the City of Saskatoon makes cultural diversity and race relations a priority," said McPhedran. "This emphasis on education in a formal agreement is going to be a prototype for what we hope to take to communities across the province." Atchison spoke highly of community events, such as Folkfest, that celebrate cultural traditions. "I think that's what makes the city of Saskatoon so special," he said.

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Olympics can't cure human rights problems: Rogge

Jacques Rogge says its not the job of the Olympics to solve human rights problems, but that this summer's Games in Beijing may help bring change to China. The IOC president, who was in Vancouver to review the city's preparations for the 2010 Winter Games, addressed ongoing human rights concerns in communist China during an interview with CBC Sports' Ron MacLean on Thursday. International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge, left, was in Vancouver on Thursday to review the city's preparations for the 2010 Winter Games.(Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press) "I'm saying that the Games are a force for the world that will promote the social evolution in China, and the Games are a catalyst for change in China," Rogge said. "But the Games, at the same time, are not the panacea for all the ills of the world." Excerpts of the interview were shown Thursday on CBC's The National.

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