Two Kinds of Human Dignity

 

I recommend reading this paper by Dr. David Bradshaw, Philosophy professor at the University of Kentucky. "Making Human Rights Orthodox," International Conference on Post-Humanism and Artificial Intelligence, Athens, Greece, November 2024.

Dr. Bradshaw often speaks at Eastern Orthodox conferences and is an expert in early Greek theology. His book Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom is fascinating and challenging (Cambridge U Press, 2004).

Bradshaw writes, "From an Orthodox standpoint, contemporary human rights discourse is problematic in two ways: many rights that are widely advocated are contrary to Orthodox moral teaching, and even those that are acceptable (such as, for example, the right to life) are often justified through faulty reasoning. Hence it is important to articulate a legitimately Orthodox framework for human rights.

 
The approach suggested here is based on a distinction between two kinds of human dignity: ‘mere’ human dignity, consisting in being accorded respect and appropriate treatment by others, and ‘true’ human dignity, consisting of possessing a pure conscience before God. These give rise to two distinct categories of human rights, which I refer to, respectively, as rights of non-abuse and rights of agency."

American Evangelicals Fail to Support Palestinian Christians

Alice C. Linsley

American Evangelicals seem to turn a blind eye to the human rights abuses in Israel. They generally support Israel as the Holy Land promised to Abraham the Hebrew. This unexamined claim is both historically and biblically inaccurate. Abraham's territory was in the land of ancient Edom, between Hebron and Beersheba. It did not correspond to the boundaries of the modern state of Israel.

Israel justifies its continued land grab based on the erroneous claim that Jews have a special religious connection to the land. This effort to achieve legitimacy through an appeal to religion fails when examined in detail. 

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has gone on for more than 100 years with no end in sight.

Israeli authorities have expropriated thousands of acres of Palestinian land for settlements and their supporting infrastructure. Discriminatory burdens, including making it nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits in East Jerusalem and in the 60 percent of the West Bank under exclusive Israeli control (Area C), have effectively forced Palestinians to leave their homes or to build at the risk of seeing their “unauthorized” structures bulldozed. For decades, Israeli authorities have demolished homes on the grounds that they lacked permits, even though the law of occupation prohibits destruction of property except for military necessity, or punitively as collective punishment against families of Palestinians suspected of attacking Israelis.

The law of occupation, designed to regulate the exceptional and temporary situation in which a foreign military power displaces the lawful sovereign and rules by force, grants an occupier broad but limited powers to restrict individuals and their rights to meet security needs.

After more than 50 years of failure to rein in abuses associated with the occupation, the international community should take more active measures to hold Israeli and Palestinian authorities to their obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law. Other countries and businesses should cease activities carried out inside settlements and change policies that support settlement-related activities and infrastructure, in keeping with their respective human rights responsibilities. 

Before 1948, Jerusalem was almost half Christian, now it is barely 2% due to wars, violence, and discriminatory policies practiced by the Israeli government.

Christians fail to support their fellow Christians

Ironically, the support of Israel's policies by American Evangelicals puts tremendous burden upon Christians, especially in places such as Bethlehem where they are already persecuted by the Muslim authorities.

Samir Qumsieh, director of the Catholic television station Al-Mahed Nativity TV in Bethlehem, reported in AsiaNews that "the emigration of Christians is growing, even if the authorities refuse to give precise numbers. Every day there are people who flee to other countries. As Christians, we live in a constant feeling of fear and uncertainty, and if you live in constant tension and pessimism, you cannot plan anything."

Many Palestinian Christians have immigrated to other countries where they find greater opportunities for their children. Sadly, it is possible that in the near future there may be no Christians living in the homeland of Jesus Messiah.

The Christian population of Taybeh is beginning to stabilize due to initiatives within the village that have stimulated the economy. One cause of celebration is the October Beer Festival which draws tourists from Jerusalem in spite of the many roadblocks maintained by the State of Israel. The beer is produced at Palestine's only micro-brewery.

A housing area for Jews only has been built in the area. It receives water 7 days a week while the nearly 2000 residents of Taybeh receive water only 3 days a week.

About three and a half million Palestinians live in the West Bank and Gaza, but only a small percentage are Christian. While Jews and Muslims slaughter each other the Christian minority is caught in the middle. It is trying to live in peace and to practice Christ's command to love even those who seek to harm them.

Archbishop Atallah Hannah (Orthodox Church of Sebastia) reports that, "Palestinians, Christian or Muslim, are deprived [by Israel] of visiting holy sites in Jerusalem."

Israeli expansionism punishes all Palestinians, regardless of their religion.

Related reading: Palestinian Territories - Open Doors USA

The Taliban Has Not Changed

Afghan girls go to school in the western Afghan city of Herat on March 23.

When the Taliban returned to power, they promised a softer rule compared with their first regime from 1996 to 2001.

However, the Taliban has returned to its former repressive ways. They have imposed restrictions on women, banning them from many government jobs, policing what they wear, preventing them from traveling outside of their cities, and visiting medical facilities without a chaperone. 

Taliban militants have erected posters in some areas to inform residents of the new regulations. In other places, insurgents have driven around with loudspeakers and made announcements at mosques.

Sara, a 17-year-old student, says the Taliban shut down her school in the district of Aqcha, in the northern province of Jawzjan, after the militants captured it two weeks ago. 

Adeeba Haidari, age 13, feels as if she is in prison. She is one of thousands of jubilant girls who flocked back to secondary schools reopening across the country for the first time since the Taliban seized power in August.

But just hours into classes, the education ministry announced a reversal that left schoolgirls feeling betrayed and the international community outraged.

“Not only me but everyone you asked believed that the Taliban had changed,” said Adeeba, who briefly returned to Al-Fatah Girls School in the capital, Kabul.

“When they sent everyone back home from school, we understood that the Taliban were the same Taliban of 25 years ago,” her 11-year-old sister Malahat added.

“We are being treated like criminals just because we are girls. Afghanistan has turned into a jail for us.”

Read more here and here.

Malala book launch stopped in Pakistan

Malala Yousufzai

PESHAWAR: A ceremony to launch Malala Yousufzai’s book ‘I am Malala’ scheduled at the University of Peshawar on Tuesday was stopped by the university after intervention by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government.

The Bacha Khan Education Foundation (BKEF), Strengthening Participatory Organisation (SPO) and Area Study Centre had planned the ceremony.

“It is against the spirit of freedom of expression and promotion of education because holding a ceremony in honour of Malala Yousufzai means to scale up awareness about child rights,” Dr Khadim Hussain, director of the BKEF, told Dawn.

He said they had been informed by police late on Monday that they could not provide security for the programme.

“I was stopped by many people, including ministers, the vice-chancellor, registrar and police, from holding the programme,” Area Study Centre’s director Sarfraz Khan said.

Source: Pakistan Dawn


Related reading:  Malala's Book Expected to Make Millions

Pakistan a Deadly Country for Journalists

On 2 January 2014, the International Federation of Journalists called on authorities in Pakistan to carry out an immediate investigation into the murder of journalist Shan Dahar (Odhor) in the Badha area of the country's Larkana district.

According to reports, Dahar, a senior reporter for the Aaab Tak News Channel, was shot by unidentified assailants on his way home last Tuesday, 31 December 2013. He was taken to hospital with critical injuries and passed away in the early hours of New Year's Day.

Following Dahar's death, a series of protests led by IFJ affiliate, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), have been held by journalists across Pakistan to call for the government to step up its efforts to protect the safety of journalists in the country.

"We express our deepest sympathies with the family and colleagues of the highly respected journalist Shan Dahar, who we believe is the first journalist to be killed in 2014," said IFJ President Jim Boumelha. "We call for authorities in Pakistan to carry out an immediate and thorough investigation into his murder and to take every step necessary to ensure that the perpetrators of this horrific crime face the full weight of justice."

On 31 December, the IFJ released its annual list of journalists and media staff killed in 2013 which showed that Pakistan remains one of the deadliest countries in the world for media workers, with 10 journalists and media staff killed in the country last year.

Read it all here.

Private Conversations of Adel and Maher Aired on "Black Box"

Egyptian rights organizations filed a formal request on 31 December 2013 with the Attorney General demanding an immediate investigation into the broadcasting of activists' private telephone conversations by a TV talk show host.

Earlier this week, the host, Abdel Raheem Ali, who presents a programme called 'Black Box' on Al-Kahira Wal Nas TV channel, aired the private telephone conversations of political activists Mohamed Adel and Ahmed Maher. Adel and Maher are symbols of the protest movement that ignited the revolt that toppled President Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

The rights organizations demanded that an investigation be also conducted into the Vodafone company, the operator of the phone service used by the two activists, to determine whether it conspired to record and leak these conversations.

"This is a violation of the sanctity of private life and an illegal act which returns us to the hateful practices of the Mubarak era and his State Security Police. It is also a crime under Egyptian law," stated the organizations.

Under Egyptian law, the violation of privacy including eavesdropping or illegally recording or broadcasting conversation conducted privately without the consent of those concerned is an offence punishable by imprisonment.

'Black Box' TV Host Abdel Raheem Ali announced that he has even more private conversations to broadcast, "which goes to show his disregard for the law and his ability to act as if he had impunity. The Attorney General's office has a major responsibility to ensure its credibility and impartiality regardless of the political affiliations of all parties involved," said the organizations.

Source: Arabic Network for Human Rights

Malala Yousafzai Awarded Sakharov Prize

Malala Yousafzai, the 16-year-old Pakistani who was shot by the Taliban while walking home from school, has been awarded the 2013 Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament, the most prestigious human rights award given by the Eureopean Union.

Martin Schulz, the president of the EU legislature, said that the award was in acknowledgement of Malala's "incredible strength" in standing up for the rights of girls seeking to be educated.

Schultz said. "[She] is a young girl, a young adult, from the violence-filled Swat Valley in Pakistan; who showed incredible courage against an enemy in a male-dominated, violent environment. Who had the courage to say 'I am going to school. I will insist on my right to a [normal] childhood. I am, as a girl, an equal member of this society.'"

Read more here.

Canada: Unethical Nutritional "Research" on Indian Children

A controversial report in the journal Social History - recounting details of grossly unethical 'nutritional research' carried out by the Canadian government on native Indian children in the 1940s and 50s - has sparked outrage among Canada's aboriginal community.

The article, 'Admistering Colonial Science', describes a range of trials run by three key Canadian scientists to discover the effects of different nutritional interventions on malnourished children. Thousands of Indians from reserves and church schools took part in the trials. Many of them were, for scientific purposes, denied basic dietary requirements and health care, putting their short and long-term health in jeopardy.

In one trial, after the discovery of widespread malnourishment in Northern Manitoba, the government deliberately withheld vitamin supplements from 175 children so as to create a 'control group' for impending research. In another trial, 1000 children from state-funded boarding schools were given less than half the necessary daily intake of milk, thus creating a 'baseline' against which to test vitamin C supplements. Later, children from six schools were denied dental care.

As Nature reported, the Assembly of First Nations has demanded the release of all information relating to the studies. The Aboriginal affairs department labeled the experiments "abhorrent", and said they had given 900 documents to a commission investigating abuses in residential schools.

California sterilization of women prisoners

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has been accused of forcing female prisoners to have tubal ligations. In an article that has sparked public outcry, the Centre for Investigative Reporting (CIR) claimed that 150 inmates had been pressured into being sterilized. This included a woman who was told during labour; she barely escaped after protesting.

The CIR says that "doctors under contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sterilized nearly 150 female inmates from 2006 to 2010 without required state approvals." The report also states "At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules during those five years."

Many of the sterilizations were performed by Dr James Heinrich, the former Valley State Prison obstetrician. In an interview with the CIR, Heinrich felt the need to justify the spending of tax payers money on the procedure - he said that "this isn't a huge amount of money compared to what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children - as they procreated more."

The shocking report has raised the spectre of eugenics in a state which sterilized about 20,000 people between 1910 and 1964. "I was like, 'Oh my God, that's not right,' " a former inmate who worked in the infirmary, Crystal Nguyen, told CIR. "Do they think they're animals, and they don't want them to breed anymore?"

In fact, in 2003, Governor Gray Davis issued a formal apology for eugenic sterilisations. "Our hearts are heavy for the pain caused by eugenics. It was a sad and regrettable chapter in the state's history, and it is one that must never be repeated again," he said.

State politicians have reacted strongly to the report and a number of groups are calling for a government enquiry. Senator Ted Lieu has sent a letter to California's medical board demanding answers. The California Legislative Women's Caucus has sent a letter to the head of California Correctional Health Care Services.

Source: BioLogos

Egypt's Removal of Morsi not a Military Coup

"Australians and people worldwide should be in no doubt whatsoever that this was the will of the people. Millions of Egyptians were unhappy that Muslim Brotherhood backed-Morsi was not following democratic processes as expected and instead was imposing Sunni Muslim ideology on the entire Egyptian nation."-- Bishop Suriel of Australia

Australia's highest ranking Coptic cleric, Bishop Anba Suriel and leader of Australia's 80,000 Coptic Christians says it is critical Foreign Minister Bob Carr and the international community understand the overthrow of Egypt's elected President Mohammed Morsi was not a military coup but a response to the will of more than 33 million Egyptians who signed a petition for his removal.

Read more here.

Secular squatters on Biblical land

Jeff Fountain

Human dignity and rights needed to be set free from religious foundations. Only a secular basis can maintain their continued existence free from religious violence and tensions.

At least, that was the learned opinion one of Holland’s best-known atheists as expressed in a seminar last week in The Hague. Dr Margriet Krijtenburg, who spoke in Dublin at a recent State of Europe Forum, was presenting her doctoral thesis on Robert Schuman to an invited audience, and had invited her supervising professor, Paul Cliteur, to be one of her respondents.

As in Dublin, Margriet had described Schuman’s conviction that the Christian faith had a significant role to play in restoring unity in Europe and in Europe’s future. Concepts such as human dignity and solidarity were, in Schuman’s understanding, intrinsically linked with a Christian concept of humanity.

Margriet’s professor agreed that the identification of such values as the freedom of expression, of religion and of assembly had laid foundations for the unique European project. But fortunately, he said, those values had been set free from their religious roots and redefined within a sustainable secular framework. Such a framework protected human dignity from religious intolerance and offered it a tolerant pluriform context.

A few days after attending this seminar, an engagement near Den Bosch gave me the opportunity to visit the former Nazi concentration camp in Vught while in the neighbourhood.

Some 31,000 Jews, political prisoners, resistance fighters, students, Jehovah’s Witnesses, tramps, black marketeers and criminals were thrown together into Kamp Vught, some for short periods, others longer. Almost all of the 12,000 Jewish internees, over a third of the camp population, were later murdered in extermination camps in Poland.

A reconstructed cell remind visitors of the so-called “bunker drama” of January 15, 1944. In response to a protest by prisoners, the camp commandant ordered 74 women to be locked up together in one cell in a space of nine square metres, without ventilation. When the doors were finally opened after 14 hours, ten of the women had died.

Most sobering, however, was a memorial to the 1,800 Jewish children taken away from the camp on June 6 and 7, 1943, to a “special children’s camp” -- or so the parents were told. Some parents were allowed to accompany the children. After a three-day train ride to the Sobibor extermination camp in Poland, almost every person perished.

The cold metal monument carried those names and ages of 1,269 of the children that are known. I stood there transfixed and emotionally disturbed reading the ages of these little defenceless human beings. I sought out the ages of my own three grandchildren: three months, two years and four years.



At the base of the monument was a sculptured teddy bear, a truck and other toys. In the trunk of my car was a wrapped present for my grandson celebrating his second birthday. What if he had been born 70 years earlier, to Jewish parents?

What was the source of the evil that had led to this vile crime? Was it not a denial of the Biblical truth that the dignity of every human is rooted in the understanding that life is a gift of the Creator? and that each one of us has been created in His image, Imago Dei?

Had not the “freeing from religious foundations”, the rejection of the Biblical view of humanity, by Hitler and his henchmen caused this European tragedy? Was it not this very tragedy that had led Schuman and others to formulate the European Convention on Human Rights, to which every member nation of the Council of Europe had to agree? Was it not their aim to render such “state gangsterism” impossible, to prevent for ever the atrocities of Kamp Vught, Dachau and Auschwitz?

How quickly we are forgetting this most important lesson of modern times! No, Professor, it is not “fortunate” that in the minds of millions of Europeans today human dignity has been freed from its historical and transcendent foundations. For there are no other foundations. We can’t invent foundations or roots. A process of materialistic evolution in which only the fittest survive can never result in protection and rights for the weak and vulnerable.

As (non-believer) John Gray, formerly of the London School of Economics, wrote in his 2007 book Straw Dogs: humanists are simply Christians in disguise. If there is no God, there is no basis for human dignity and human exceptionalism. Humanism is the creed of those who have “given up an irrational belief in God for an irrational belief in humans”.

The truth is, many Europeans are squatters living in a house built on Judeo-Christian foundations -- but they don’t want to pay the rent.

Jeff Fountain and his wife Romkje are the initiators of the Schuman Centre for European Studies in The Netherlands. This article has been republished here with permission from the Centre’s website.

Another Media Fact-Checking Failure

Fathers Rights Group protested Enda's house, not pro-lifers; major media fail

17 June 2013


Pro-life groups have criticised the Irish media for their failure to carry out basic fact-checking in their rush to demonise pro-life activists.

Niamh Uí Bhriain of the Life Institute said that media reports that pro-life activists had carried out a protest at Enda Kenny's home were "entirely incorrect and had no basis in fact", and that the Irish media had engaged in "sloppy and unprofessional journalism".

In fact, the Fathers' rights group who carried out the protest had posted it on the internet for any journalist who wanted to check the facts.

Ms Ui Bhriain said that reporters had got the facts inexcusably wrong.

"There was no masked pro-life protest at Mr Kenny's home," she said. "This is a false claim, entirely manufactured by the media. If there was a protest because of some other issue, the media need to investigate and establish the facts rather than jumping to conclusions. "

"It is inexcusable that the media are printing misinformation of this sort, and it smacks of a rush to try to demonise pro-life activists," she said.

"The media need to get their act together and politicians need to discuss the reality of this cruel and unacceptable abortion legislation and stop trying to deflect from the issue with unsubstantiated claims and false allegations," added the Life Institute spokeswoman.

"Last week we saw that Fine Gael TDs were upset when attempts were made at the top level of the party to carry out a 'political hanging' of the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. Now we are seeing similar dirty tricks where baseless allegations and false stories are being circulated in order to try to silence genuine pro-life people who are fully entitled to make their voices heard against abortion," she said.

"The notion of former Worker's Party members, who now run Labour, complaining about imagined intimidation was deeply, deeply ironic," she said, adding that it was no surprise that such people supported the taking of innocent unborn life.

END

Myanmar's 2-Child Policy for Muslims

Michael Cook

It is hard to imagine a more inhumane policy than China's one-child policy. But there is one: the two-child policy imposed on Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims. Late last month government authorities in the largely Buddhist country reaffirmed a 2005 policy which punishes Rohingya women who bear more than two children with hefty fines and loss of legal rights for the children.

After a long silence on the issue, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has condemned the measures. She has told the media that if reports of the policy were true, it was illegal. "It is not good to have such discrimination. And it is not in line with human rights either."

According to al-Jazeera, a government spokesman, Win Myaing, explained that the regulations were meant to dampen sectarian tensions. The Rohingya live mostly in two town, which are islands in a sea of Buddhists. "The population growth of Rohingya Muslims is 10 times higher than that of the Rakhine (Buddhists)," he said. "Overpopulation is one of the causes of tension."

The Rohingya number between 800,000 and 1 million, most of them living near the border with Bangladesh. They have been the target of legal discrimination and sectarian violence. Human Rights Watch has accused the Myanmar government of conducting a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" against the Rohingya.

Tensions between Buddhist Burmese and the Muslim Rohingya go back centuries but were greatly heightened during the British colonial period and the Japanese occupation in World War II. Since 1982 Myanmar has not even acknowledged that they are citizens.

In 2005 local authorities began to enforce a two-child policy. Rohingya couples who wish to marry must seek government approval - a process which can take up to two years. They must agree to have no more than two children. More children are punishable with fines and imprisonment. As a result unsafe abortions are common among women who become pregnant before they are legally married or who are carrying a third child.

According to Human Rights Watch, "Rohingya children born out of wedlock or in a family that already has two children do not receive any status whatsoever from the government, making them ineligible for education and other government services, unable to receive travel permissions, and they are later not permitted to marry or acquire property. They are subject to arbitrary arrest and detention."

Source: BioEdge

Musharraf Arrested in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, April 19: Former president retired Gen Pervez Musharraf was finally arrested on Friday in judges’ detention case and was shifted to the Police Line Headquarters from his Chak Shahzad farmhouse. Interestingly, the former military dictator has been detained at a place which is opposite a graveyard where unidentified bodies of people killed during Lal Masjid operation had been buried.

The general who is the first former army chief and head of state to be arrested has been kept at the Officers’ Mess and given the suite of Inspector General of Police. Sources said Gen Musharraf who was wearing a light brown Shalwar Kamiz looked depressed.

“He was not happy over the room given to him and his feelings were visible on his face,” they said, although policemen, including officers, were treating him as if he was still the country’s president.

The sources said the retired general had been assured that he would be shifted to his residence or a better place after some legal proceedings.

Read it all here.

Related reading: Senate Wants Musharraf Tried Under Article 6; The Pakistan Most Americans Don't Know

Omani Activists Missing

Arabic Network for Human Rights Information 19 April 2013

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) holds the Omani government accountable for endangering the lives of human rights defender Saleh Al-Azri and blogger Noah El-Saadi, both of whom had disappeared a few days ago.

Al-Azri, who is quite active on social media networks, is known for his continued demands to reform the health care system in Oman and for his solidarity with those who were accused of insulting the Sultan, for peacefully assembling and for violating the Information Technology Act (IT). He disappeared on 14 April 2013 after being summoned for investigation by the Omani Internal Security Intelligence Department. He was told to appear at the Special Unit's office with his personal documents. Al-Azri has been missing ever since. Certain activists exchanged news on social media networks claiming he had contacted his family from his unknown location.

Blogger and activist El-Saadi disappeared on 16 April 2013 in pretty much the same way as Al-Azri. He was summoned to court then moved to a secret detention centre employed by the country's internal security services. He is one of the participants of the Sahar demonstrations in 2011 where he was detained as part of a campaign of mass arrests conducted by the authorities.

“The arrest of the human rights defender Al-Azri and the blogger El-Saadi and their detention in unknown locations is a serious violation to freedom of expression. It proves that the arbitrary arrest of activists is continuing in the Sultanate,” said ANHRI.

The network calls on the Omani authorities to reveal the activists' locations, release them, and grant their safety. It also demands that authorities publicly provide reasons for the activists' arrest.

Related reading:  World Report 2012: Oman

Suicide Bomb Kills Lawyers and Journalist in Somalia

ARTICLE 19 condemns the killing of a journalist and two human rights lawyers in a suicide attack on a court complex in Mogadishu on 14 April 2013. Mohamed Hassan Habeeb, a journalist who acted as a media adviser to the Bandir regional court, was killed along with the head of the Somali Lawyers Association, Mohamed Mohamud Afrah and the campaigning human rights lawer, Abdikarin Hassan Gorod.

ARTICLE 19 urges the government to launch a prompt and effective investigation into these attacks, for which the militant group Al Shabaab is reported to have claimed responsibility.

"This is one of the deadliest attacks in Mogadishu since 2011. We send our condolences to the families of those who were killed, including the journalists and the lawyers. We strongly urge the government to ensure justice is done for the victims. An urgent investigation is needed, and those responsible should be brought to justice", said Henry Maina ARTICLE 19 Eastern Africa Director.

On Sunday 14 April, two car bombs exploded outside the Mogadishu law courts and gunmen stormed the building. A gun battle followed between the group and the security forces, which lasted for more than two hours. Later, another car bomb exploded at a building housing Somali intelligence whilst Turkish and African Union (AU) vehicles were passing.

No official death toll has been published, but ARTICLE 19's Somali partners estimate over 20 people could have died in the twin attacks.

Journalists and human rights defenders in Somalia are frequently the target of violence.

In 2012, 18 journalists lost their lives in the line of duty.

Source: www.ifex.org

Malala's Book Expected to Make Millions

Malala Yousufzai with her father and brothers

LONDON, March 28: Malala Yousufzai is to tell her story in a book due out later this year, the publishers said on Thursday, in a deal reportedly worth around $3 million. The book will be entitled “I Am Malala”.

“I hope the book will reach people around the world, so they realise how difficult it is for some children to get access to education,” the 15-year-old girl from Swat said in a statement.

“I want to tell my story, but it will also be the story of 61m children who can’t get education. I want it to be part of the campaign to give every boy and girl the right to go to school. It is their basic right.”

Malala was shot at point-blank range by a Taliban gunman as her school bus travelled through Swat Valley on October 9 last year, in an attack that drew worldwide condemnation.

The book will be published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in Commonwealth countries and by Little, Brown elsewhere. It is due to be published in the next six to nine months.—AFP


Related reading:  Malala Survives: Wake up, Biden!; Malala in UK Hospital; Malala Recovering from Surgery; Malala to Pursue Her Dreams

Censorship in Turkey

(Bianet/IFEX) - Three associations representing Turkey's biggest educational, writing and film-making unions organized a panel on 7 March to discuss the The Justice and Development Party (AKP) government's recent censorship of classic literary works, such as Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince and John Steinback's Of Mice and Men.

Turkish students read books in school library

"The government aims to give society a more Islamic identity by censoring classic literary works," said Ünsal Yıldız, chairperson of Egitim-Sen, Turkey's Education and Science Workers Union.

Noting that the early AKP government promised to transform Turkey into a more transparent and pluralistic society, Yıldız claimed that the AKP has finally shown its true colours.

"It is not only about censorship," Yıldız continued. "The government is putting pressure on every opposing opinion. We are experiencing lay-offs at major newspapers. The purpose behind all of these practices is to flourish political Islam in Turkey's mainstream culture." Yıldız further claimed that several classic literary works have been edited to sound more Islamic.

"From Oscar Wilde to Leo Tolstoy, to Heidi and Pinnochio. We see this even in cartoons. This reminds us of the military coup days in 1980, where teachers were facing investigations for what they used in their curriculum. As the union, we strongly encourage our teacher members to keep 'state-censored' classic literary pieces in their curriculum, with the original version."

Mustafa Köz , chairperson of the Writers Union of Turkey, described government censorship as "black humor."

"We have a government that sees writers and literature as adversaries," he said. "They want to form a new society by putting a barrier between people and literature. We won't let that happen."

Poet Ataol Behramoğlu from the Moviemakers Labor Union of Turkey also supported the panel, saying that an intervention on literary works would severely damage their quality.

Turkish women journalists

Related reading:  Freedom of Expression in Turkey; Turkey's Women Journalists Release Statement

German Children to Know Sperm Donor Fathers

A German court has ruled that sperm donor children have a right to know the identity of their biological fathers.

"The interest of the plaintiff in ascertaining her parentage is assessed to be higher than the interests of the defence and the right to a nondisclosure of donor information," the court ruled in the case of a 21-year-old woman known as Sarah P.

The Federal Association of Reproductive Medical Centres was pleased with the decision. It said that doctors would also benefit, as they could not be deemed culpable of breaching patient-doctor confidentiality when they informed the children of sperm donors.

"The government has to introduce a register in which all the sperm donors and the children are kept permanently. At the moment these documents are kept by the doctors who are responsible for the treatment," said Dr. Andreas Hammel, who runs a sperm bank in Cologne. About 100,000 children have been born in Germany through sperm donation.

Related reading: Sperm Donation Needs Regulation; Interview with Dr. Andreas Hammel (in German)

Colorado: the Question of Personhood

Jeremy and Lori Stodghill at their wedding in 2001

On the morning of the day she died, 31-year-old Lori Stodghill balanced her breakfast plate on her very pregnant belly and watched it bob up and down as the twin boys inside her kicked and kicked. The saucer-sized dish was "bouncing back and forth," her husband, Jeremy Stodghill, remembers — a sure sign that at 28 weeks, the babies were alive and well.

The politics of "personhood" has been a big issue in Colorado in recent years. In 2008 and again in 2010 pro-life groups fought for an amendment to the state constitution which would have defined a person as "every human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being." The controversial initiative attracted nationwide publicity but failed both times. Last year supporters tried again but failed to get enough signatures for the November ballot.

That's one reason why Coloradans on both sides of the debate were surprised that lawyers for a Catholic hospital were arguing that a fetus has no rights in a malpractice case.

The circumstances were tragic. In 2006, 31-year-old Lori Stodghill, who was seven months pregnant with twin sons, died of a pulmonary embolism at St Thomas More Hospital & Medical Center in Canon City. The hospital is owned by a group which operates hospitals in 17 states, Catholic Health Initiatives.

Jeremy Stodghill sued CHI, the hospital and two doctors, alleging that the doctors failed to perform an emergency Caesarean to save the twins, who also died. CHI's lawyers countered that under Colorado's Wrongful Death Act, fetuses do not have legal status.

William Kuntz, St. Vincent's trial attorney, defended the hospital's stance at the time.

"We've never contended that a fetus is not a person," Kuntz told the Orlando Sentinel in 1996. "We've always said that an unborn person does not have the right to bring a lawsuit in Florida."

This is clearly at odds with Catholic bioethics. The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Servicesaffirms the sanctity of life 'from the moment of conception until death'".

When Colorado's Catholic bishops found out about the case, they protested vigorously, even though they were not managers of CHI. Now CHI and the hospital have accepted that they erred. "Although the argument was legally correct, recourse to an unjust law was morally wrong," CHI said in a statement.

After losing the initial case and an appeal, Mr Stodghill is trying to appeal to the State Supreme Court. If he succeeds, CHI's lawyers will not cite the Wrongful Death Act. Instead their argument will dispute allegations of negligence.

Related reading: Catholic Hospital Ditches Pro-Life Beliefs