Peace and Justice Post

Extend Labor Protections to Migrant Women and Girls at Home, Abroad

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Cambodia/Malaysia: Domestic Workers Face Abuse – Khmer Translation

(Phnom Penh) – The Cambodian and Malaysian governments’ failure to regulate recruiters and employers leaves Cambodian migrant domestic workers exposed to a wide range of abuses, Human Rights Watch said in a report issued today. Tens of thousands of Cambodian women and girls who migrate to Malaysia have little protection against forced confinement in training centers, heavy debt burdens, and exploitative working conditions.

The 105-page report, “‘They Deceived Us at Every Step’: Abuse of Cambodian Domestic Workers Migrating to Malaysia,”documents Cambodian domestic workers’ experiences during recruitment, work abroad, and upon their return home. It is based on 80 interviews with migrant domestic workers, their families, government officials, nongovernmental organizations, and recruitment agents. The report highlights the numerous obstacles that prevent mistreated women and girls from obtaining justice and redress in both Cambodia and Malaysia.

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Israel is forcing Palestinians out of East Jerusalem as part of a deliberate policy that might constitute a war crime, a prominent Israeli non-governmental organisation said, a charge rejected by Jerusalem’s mayor.

The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) has presented the United Nations with its findings on Monday and demanded an inquiry, saying Israel targeted Palestinians by demolishing homes, revoking residency and eroding quality of life.

“We are witnessing a process of ethnic displacement,” said Michael Sfard, a lawyer who helped draw up a 73-page report into the issue. “Israel is manifestly and seriously violating international law … and the motivation is demographic.”

Stephan Miller, a spokesman for Israel’s mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, dismissed the report. He said in a statement it was based on “misleading facts, blatant lies and political spin about Jerusalem, so I’m sure the UN will enjoy it”.

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Egypt: Press Crackdown, Continued

One of Egypt’s most prominent bloggers and revolutionary activists is behind bars.

Rasha Azab leads a protest outside the military court in Cairo. (Image by Sharif Abdel Kouddous. Egypt, 2011)

Alaa Abdel Fattah, 29, was summoned before a military prosecutor on Sunday to face charges of inciting violence, stealing military weaponry and assaulting military personnel during an Oct. 9 military crackdown on a protest of mostly Coptic demonstrators that left at least 27 people dead and hundreds more wounded. The military court ordered Abdel Fattah to be detained for 15 days, pending further investigation, after he declined to answer any questions as a matter of principle.

The case, which has sparked widespread outrage, delineates a struggle that has been steadily growing against the ruling military council in post-Mubarak Egypt.

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Obama tried his hardest, and in total conjunction with the US military commanders and the Pentagon, to keep US troops there after Dec. 31. He failed, not because of ineptitude, but because the Iraqi political leaders forced the US troops to leave, argues Immanuel Wallerstein.

Middle East Online, November 1, 2011

It is now official. All uniformed US troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011. There are two major ways of describing this. One is by President Obama, who says that he is thereby keeping an electoral promise he made in 2008. The second is by the Republican presidential candidates, who have condemned Obama for not doing what they say the US military wanted, which is to keep some US troops there after Dec. 31 as “trainers” to the Iraqi military. According to Mitt C, Obama’s decision was either “the result of naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude in negotiations with the Iraqi government.”

Both statements are nonsense, and merely represent self-justifying arguments for the American electorate. Obama tried his hardest, and in total conjunction with the US military commanders and the Pentagon, to keep US troops there after Dec. 31. He failed, not because of ineptitude, but because the Iraqi political leaders forced the US troops to leave. The withdrawal marks the culmination of the US defeat in Iraq, one comparable to the US defeat in Vietnam.

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By Gideon Polya, MWC News,  Oct 29, 2011

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Untruth must be repudiated, not punished

Freedom of expression, freedom of speech is vital for democracy, for unimpaired scholarly research and for rational risk management that keeps society safe. But what about hate speech, racial vilification or speech likely to cause dangerous public disorder? The need for democracy, scholarship and risk management means that freedom of speech must be sacrosanct but there is a place for a formal, transparent, expertly-informed judicial process that would make findings on free speech excesses but the only punishment of, for example, holocaust or genocide deniers would simply be the shame and ignominy of public exposure by such a process.

Abuses of freedom of speech can involve lying by commission and lying by omission. A good example involving lying by commission is given by the story of the shepherd boy who repeatedly cried wolf when there was no wolf but when a wolf did come nobody listened to his cries with dire consequences for the boy. This fable is acutely relevant to today. Thus the US Center for Public Integrity has reported that in 2 years after the 9-11 atrocity the Bush Administration told a total of 935 lies about Iraq. Failure of the System to expose Bush Administration lying led to the Iraq War and the utter devastation of that country.

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Ensure Proper Treatment of Detainees

(New York) – Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono should immediately establish an independent investigation into the deaths of at least three protesters and the ongoing violence in Papua, Human Rights Watch said today.

On October 19, 2011, Indonesian police and the army fired warning shots to disperse approximately 1,000 Papuans gathered for a peaceful pro-independence demonstration in the Papua provincial capital, Jayapura, after one of the leaders read out the 1961 Papua Declaration of Independence. In an ensuing crackdown by the security forces on the demonstrators, at least three people were killed and dozens were injured. Witnesses said several had gunshot wounds.

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A popular but largely powerless politician for years, former cricket star and Tehreek-e Insaf leader Imran Khan has parlayed his long-standing opposition to US drone strikes into a massive rally today on the streets of Lahore, where some 100,000 demonstrators marched to condemn the current US alliance and the Zardari government.

“Our leaders owned this war on terror for the sake of dollars,” Khan declared, “let me curse you. You sold out the blood of innocent people.” The ruling Pakistani Peoples Party (PPP) condemned Khan, saying it made “no sense” to call for public protests and civil disobedience when the country’s “democratic institutions are functioning independently.”

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by Richard Falk, Foreign Policy Journal, October 31, 2011

The death of the despised despot who ruled Libya for forty-two years naturally produced celebrations throughout the country. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s end was bloody and vindictive, but we should remember that his rants against his own people—and his violent repression of what was initially a peaceful uprising—invited a harsh popular response. Recalling W.H. Auden’s famous line, “Those to whom evil is done/do evil in return,” it is almost inevitable in the absence of strong moral and political discipline, which was not present, that when a leader refers to his opponents as “rats” and pledges to hunt them down house by house, the stage is set for the unacceptable kind of retribution that played out recently in Sirte where NATO air strikes leveled the city and anti-Qaddafi forces executed at least 53 Qaddafi loyalists. It is an ominous warning sign for the future that this massacre at Sirte, along with the execution and burial of Qaddafi, should have exhibited such vengeful and undisciplined behavior, raising renewed doubts about the character and approach of Transitional National Council leadership, although there still exist possibilities for redeeming this loss of confidence.

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Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi has reportedly taken refuge among Sahara nomads in Niger

© AP GraphicsBank

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi must be allowed to surrender to the International Criminal Court to face investigation for crimes against humanity, Amnesty International said today amid reports that the fugitive son of Colonel al-Gaddafi is willing to turn himself in.

The ICC prosecutors said today the Court is in indirect contact with Saif al-Islam over his possible surrender. Former Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, who is also wanted for crimes against humanity by the ICC, is also reportedly prepared to face justice in The Hague.

“If reports are correct that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and Abdullah al-Senussi are willing to hand themselves over to the International Criminal Court, they must be allowed to do so and their safety and rights must be guaranteed,” said Marek Marczynski from Amnesty International’s International Justice Team.

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United States soldiers performed a closing ceremony on Oct. 20 for a base in Tikrit, now under the control of Iraqi forces. (Photo: Andrea Bruce / The New York Times)

MacDill Air Force Base, FL – The Obama administration plans to bolster the American military presence in the Persian Gulf after it withdraws the remaining troops from Iraq this year, according to officials and diplomats. That repositioning could include new combat forces in Kuwait able to respond to a collapse of security in Iraq or a military confrontation with Iran.

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