To Help-A Moral Obligation or Something Else?

"We were hungry and couldn't get work. We traveled as a family but soon after we arrived my husband died, leaving me a widow and my children without a father. 
I just need help — anything."

— Dainabo, a 30-year-old mother of three, who
arrived in Dadaab after walking for six days.

The situation in Somalia is getting worse. The United Nations has officially declared famine in five different regions of Somalia. According to Amnesty International, Somalia has one of the highest levels of malnutrition in the world, accounting for more than 50% of the country. Due to the drought, and unsuitable environment for living, most people are forced to move out. Many are migrating to refugee camps situated in nearby countries, like Kenya. As Dr. D’s post states, due to these massive shifts of people, these emergency camps are being filled quickly with increased amounts of people and fewer resources. The camp in Dadaab, Kenya, is host to 400,000 refugees. The place was designed for only 90,000 people.

The United Nations can only do so much. Their resources can assist only a fraction of those in turmoil. In times of need like this, many big non-profit organizations and companies are sending help through food, water, clothing, manpower, etc. The Helston-based charity has pitched nearly 3,000 ShelterBox tents and is ensuring that there are sanitary facilities and adequate water. Humanitarian Organizations are assisting with what they can. United States is also sending aid. But it still isn’t enough…

Such a situation brings a controversial thought to mind. Should we, as humans, be REQUIRED to help those in need? Morally, we all want to assist, and think about it, but should there be an external control over our intent to aid and support?

For most of us, this is a situation that speaks to us. We want to help those in need, but because of our busy schedules and external commitments, we tend to forget that such things are happening around the world. At times, some of may feel a moral obligation to help, and we send in a check to a charity and it makes us feel better. But is that it? We just think about it, make a minimal attempt to help, and move on?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-14781426

Famine-ravaged Somalia and the definition of "refugee"

Somalia, the east-African nation (if you can call it that) defined by clan warfare and a perpetual lawlessness, is currently facing a famine of Biblical proportions that the UN suggests could claim the lives of 750,000 people within just four months. Somalis have fled north into Kenya and other neighboring nations due to the instability in their country that has stymied efforts to supply food and medicine - but are these individuals "refugees" and would they be justified in their claims of asylum should they come to the United States?

As we all know, the UN definition of refugee and the US definition of asylum-seeker insist that individuals in each category must have a "well-founded fear of persecution" because of "race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion." Those fleeing famine, however - though certainly warranted in their fear - don't seem to fall under this definition. Lacking food doesn't seem to suggest intentional persecution by the government or another group, and none of the enumerated elements in the definition seem to encompass - at first glance, anyway, those who are going without food.

The situation is undeniably terrible, and no rational person would dispute the reasons that the Somali people have for leaving their country or, hypothetically, seeking to relocate in the United States. The questions about their classification as refugees and therefore as potential asylum-seekers throws into doubt the effectiveness of the definitions of those terms provided by the UN (and the US), rather than the validity of what the Somali people want for their future.

At the very least, I think this provides grounds for an interesting discussion about the refugee/asylum-seeker definitions with respect to the vast array of peoples that they are meant to apply to.

Documentaries on Human Rights

Hi Everyone,

I just watched a truly enlightening documentary on child soldiers in Uganda. There are heartbreaking interviews with children who have escaped the LRA that make the impact of such atrocities hit home in a way that reading about them can't convey. It's not too long (about 36 minutes) and it's definitely worth a watch. Here's the link:
http://documentaryheaven.com/uganda’s-silent-war

This is a great website with a good selection of free documentaries on Human Rights. If you have any other documentary recommendations, please post!

-Anne

Warehousing or Helping Refugees?

The linked NYT article, "Fixes for Refugees: The Price of Dignity", explores a continual problem with what host countries should do with refugees in their countries. Are refugee camps the way to go, or is there a better route? In order to understand why camps have been the preferred route, it seems that we need to look at the motivation of host countries. To be fair to them, they are often burdened with some of the cost of hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees, and the spill-off effects....but is it really humane to put large numbers of people into desolate areas -- give them makeshift homes-- and keep them there -- sometimes for 20+ years?
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, has actually been impacted by some of these international policies. For example, two VOLAGS (Volunteer Agencies) -- Church World Service (CWS) and Lutheran Refugee Service (LRS) will help to resettle over 500 refugees from Bhutan and Burma (Mynamar) this year alone. UNHCR has finally decided to close the camps housing Bhutanese refugees in Nepal -- some who have lived there all their lives -- over 20 years!

What do you think is the answer?

Sixty-Three Years and Counting: Palestinian Refugees

This month, Palestinian diplomats hope to submit a bid to the UN Security Council that would have their territories formally recognized as a Palestinian state. The US promises a veto, but the Palestinians hope that a favorable vote in the General Assembly could still increase the diplomatic pressure on Israel.

Students of refugee law will find a highly complex and controversial case in this situation.  Due to a strange definition by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) tasked to the situation, not only the Palestinians who fled in the 1948 war are classified as refugees, but also their descendents. This means that the half a million refugees from 1948 have ballooned to a current total of nearly five million. Israel, fearful of losing its Jewish demography through a wave of immigrants, refuses to contemplate offering any “Right of Return” to these refugees. Meanwhile, more and more Palestinians are born stateless, having neither Israeli citizenship nor citizenship in the nonexistent Palestinian state. Instead, they merely get refugee status cards from UNRWA (and none are automatically eligible for asylum in the US because they do not have a “well-founded fear of persecution”; a life of poverty does not qualify).

These refugees do not live in the worst of conditions: the refugee slums I saw in the West Bank city of Nablus did have concrete buildings and narrow roads. These are not the tattered tents one would see in Darfur, for example. But existing without rights, having only a hostile Israeli government and a nascent Palestinian one, these people see little hope of ever gaining justice. Accordingly, many turn to violence. I saw many posters idolizing armed teenage boys, “martyrs” against the occupation. (“Idiots,” commented one Palestinian, "This kid was throwing rocks at a tank.”)

Palestinian Refugee Camp in Nablus, West Bank. Note the banner honoring "martyrs" who had died fighting the Israeli occupation. 

What is the answer to the Palestinian refugee problem? I believe that it is impossible to return these refugees to their family hometowns in Israel. It’s been over sixty years and the landscape has been completely changed. Moreover, I know Israel will not grant citizenship status to Palestinians for fear that they would become an electoral majority and take over the “Jewish” state. Thus, I think the only fair thing to do would be to permit the Palestinians to form a state, placing the responsibilities of rectifying the refugees’ social justice claims in the hands of their own people.

Thus, I believe the US should not veto the Palestinian’s bid for statehood. Instead, it should vote in favor of it and immediately begin working with Israel to craft safe, secure borders between the two states. 

New Immigration Reform a Step in the Right Direction, But more Desperately needed

The Obama administration has finally started to address the backlog of pending deportation cases and prioritize the most critical for removal. But what the Obama administration has not addressed is the stunning backlog of Board of Immigration Appeal (BIA) cases. In one case that our class worked on, the asylum seeker was granted asylum by the Immigration judge based on her membership in a particular social group (FGM), but Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) immediately appealed the decision to the BIA, citing that they thought the asylum seeker was a "persecutor" of others because she was (forced) to perform female genital mutilation (FGM) on a young girl. The Government appealed on the basis of an old case Fedorenko v. United States, 449 U.S. 490 (1981), which was questioned by a newer Supreme Court ruling Negusie v. Holder, 555 U.S.___(2009), which argued that the BIA and United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit erred when they evaluated Negusie's asylum petition because they presumed it mandatory that an alien's coercion to persecute was immaterial when determining whether the "persecutor bar" applies.

Her case has been pending since 1997 -- so she has been in limbo for 4 years! Since then, she has had a daughter and is expecting another child this year. The fact that she has 2 U.S. citizen children will not prevent her from been sent back to Sierra Leone if the BIA reverses the Immigration Judge's grant of asylum (although the whole case can then be appealed to the Third Circuit and ultimately the Supreme Court).

But, you can just imagine how stressful this is for her to remain in limbo for so long! You can read about her story at, http://www.lhj.com/health/news/seeking-political-asylum-in-america/

The Right to Cover Up?

France has been getting a lot of flak for the ban on burqas and other face veils they recently began enforcing. According to Christian Science Monitor, the law's supporters claim that the veil "oppresses Muslim women, violates the French value of gender equality, poses security concerns as it allows people to conceal weapons or hide their identity, and undermines social cohesion." Naturally, the law's opponents argue that the ban stigmatizes Muslims and promotes intolerance.

While I realize that the amount of what we call First Amendment Rights isn't the same in Europe as it is in the United States, I think that this ban is going a bit too far. To me, this is the equivalent of banning crosses worn as jewelry or "What Would Jesus Do?" paraphernalia. I was raised Ukrainian Catholic but now consider myself an agnostic, and to be honest, I really don't care what other people do with their religious or cultural iconography so long as they are not shoving it down my throat, but clearly that doesn't fly in France. I think that the French government has shown remarkable intolerance and fear by instituting this ban because even in spite of the stated purpose, the ban reads as attempt to suppress a culture that France is not comfortable with. Although articles of clothing worn in connection with religious affiliation are certainly not a new concept, ignorant and intolerant people view veils as more frightening than a set of rosary beads or a yarmulke.

What are your thoughts on the ban?

When cops become criminals - prosecuting rogue police officers

This past week, a Chicago police officer was convicted of assault and battery and official misconduct nearly a year after he was videotaped by his own dash camera mercilessly beating an unarmed and defenseless motorist. The victim, 28 year old Ronald Bell, pulled into his own driveway after officer James Mandarino signaled that he should pull over. The video, which appears on the Huffington Post's website, shows Mandarino savagely beating Bell with his baton upwards of 15 times. Bell appears to be unarmed and completely nonthreatening.

As disturbing as this story is, it is far from the only instance of police cruelty. Since cops are given large amounts of both immunity from prosecution and discretion when it comes to dealing with suspects, they are very hard to prosecute - EVEN when they clearly violate established Constitutional principles and legislation regarding unnecessary use of force. More often, police officers are stripped of their street duty and kept at desk jobs instead.

Take, for instance, this videotaped confrontation between a police officer and a biker during NY's Critical Mass bike event in 2008. The cop appears to throw the rider off the bike with absolutely no provocation whatsoever. The police officer received no jail time, no probation, and issued no apology. Check out the cached New York Post report on the sentencing here.

So what are we, as a society, to do? Do we prosecute more police officers who have broken the law, thus discouraging them from their role as crime stoppers? Or do we continue to provide them with discretion in the hope that more often than not, their conduct is both legal and productive? Discuss!

Hello again!

Dear readers -

Hello again, and welcome back! Some of you may remember me as the harbinger of much controversy of a few years ago. I'm now about to finish my third year of law school, but haven't lost my interest in human rights. If anything, my desire to protect society's weaker citizens has increased. For now, the plan is just to get a job, but in the future, I would like to devote myself to capital defense work. After all, everyone is innocent until proven guilty, regardless of the severity of the crime.

Dr. D. has given me the go-ahead to resume blogging, so look for a new post in the next few days. I have a lot of big ideas about posts on Libya, Egypt, and Pakistan, so here's hoping I have time to write them all down.

Hope everyone in blog-land is well. It's great to be back!

-Jen

Gays/Homosexuals: An Acceptable 21st Century Target for Genocide?

Elie Wiesel, winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace (1986) once said:

Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Whenever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must -- at that moment-- become the center of the universe.

I would hope that Elie Wiesel would also include "sexual orientation" in that list of endangered persecuted individuals worthy of intervention.

It never ceases to amaze me how hateful humans can be to one another. I am compelled to write this post on the heels of the slew of suicides by gay teenagers in the last month (September 2010) and the rise in anti-gay sentiment most recently expressed in the Gay Pride March in Serbia last weekend, and the chilling story of torture in the Bronx involving nine attackers (16-23 years old) and 3 gay men (See NYT's article 8 October 2010 "Lured into a Trap, Then Tortured for Being Gay").

How does an individual's sexual orientation justify torture, teasing, taunting, bullying, discrimination or hatred? What is wrong with humanity?! Have we not learned anything from the past or are we simply destined to hate everyone who is different from what the majority considers "normal"?

Some say, as long as they (gays) don't flaunt it -- shove it in our faces -- they can exist -- but if they expect others to accept their behavior -- that's when they cross the line and deserve anything they get. Sound familiar?

The problem, is that people don't want to believe that gay people are gay because of their genetic makeup -- but just ask anyone who is gay -- who would "choose" to undergo societal discrimination or exclusion? Day to day life is hard enough for everyone -- imagine having to hide deep-seated emotions that you feel despite how hard you try to overcome them? Now imagine that you are in Middle School -- the worst time for so many dealing with the growing pains of adolescence -- and you are gay or you think that you may be gay?

This should be a wake-up call for our legislators. Those who are fighting to uphold discriminatory policies against gays are no better than the Hutu extremists that used the radio waves during Rwanda's chilling genocide to call for the massacre of Tutus. They may not have pulled the trigger -- but they convinced others that it was perfectly okay to hate (and kill) the Tutus because of who they were by birth. And for those legislators and others who refuse to address the issue and cower behind the scenes -- afraid perhaps that it will hurt their popularity at the polls -- the lives of those gay school children are also on your conscience. By not doing anything, you are just as culpable -- the message that is being sent to our gay children everywhere is that there is something wrong with them -- that they are less than human. Shame on you and shame on our society for being so intolerant and hateful.

So, instead of just going on and criticizing those in power, I am suggesting that if you are fed up with the intolerance and hatred -- write, call, or email your congressman or congresswoman -- write a letter to the President -- and demand that they start treating all Americans as equal citizens -- it is time that gay Americans stop being treated as second-class citizens -- and that our children can live a normal, fear-free childhood -- whether they are gay, straight or anything else!