Human Rights: March 2005 Archives

PROUTIST UNIVERSAL, 30 March 2005: The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) has published a new report called Planting the Rights Seed: A Human Rights Perspective on Agriculture Trade and the WTO, which states clearly that the World Trade Organization (WTO) is promoting a trade agenda which supports globalization (global capitalism) and in the process will undermine the poor people as well as deny people their fundamental human rights. Seventy percent of the world’s poorest live in rural areas and sustain themselves on agriculture.

Pakistan came in for flak at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights from Kashmiri groups in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), which alleged trampling of fundamental rights of people in Gilgit and Baltistan and PoK.

Pakistan came in for flak at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights from Kashmiri groups in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), which alleged trampling of fundamental rights of people in Gilgit and Baltistan and PoK.

[Proutist Universal Editorial Note: In the following article Garda Ghista makes a comprehensive analysis on the role of journalists in making the members of the human society aware against all sorts of corruption, collusion, nepotisms and exploitations. In many countries the freedom of press is suppressed and also due to the influence of capitalism where profit or money making is the only motivation, the capitalistic owners of the media companies use the talents of the journalists for fulfilling their selfiss purpose of making profit. By the power of money they force the talented journalists to twist many facts by indulging in falsehood. The author here gives a clarion call to all journalists of the world to be ever watchful of every nook and cranny of the society - especially the politicians (leaders). It is only through their writings common people can become aware about the misdeeds of the leaders so that they are mobilized to take immediate action to rectify any wrongdoings of the leaders, the politicians, capitalists and the priests who lead (or mislead) the masses. The author, Garda Ghista is a freelance journalist based in Kentucky, USA. She can be reached at editor@worldproutassembly.org. Please click here to read the complete article in PDF.]

Once again, the ‘human rights’ lobby has launched a virulent and unsubstantiated campaign against the police in the case of the attempt on the life of S.A.R. Geelani, who had been acquitted in the case of the December 13, 2001, attack on India’s Parliament. While there is invariably great concern for the fundamental ‘human rights’ of terrorists and other criminals to be ‘presumed innocent unless proven guilty’, no such concern, obviously, exists even in the case of the wildest allegations against the police or security forces anywhere in the country.

Siddique Islam (National News Service), Dhaka, Friday, March 11: Hartal has cost Bangladesh 3–4 per cent of its GDP on an average every year between 1991 and 2000, said a United Nations Development Programme Report (UNDP), which was released in Dhaka Thursday last.

MY FATHER, Shah A.M.S. Kibria, was assassinated on Jan. 27. He was 73 years old. In his lifetime he had held various senior positions in Bangladesh and abroad, including finance minister of Bangladesh, undersecretary general of the United Nations and executive secretary of Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, and foreign secretary of Bangladesh. At the time of his death my father was a leading member of the opposition in Parliament and a regular newspaper and magazine columnist.

A ceremony during which at least 7000 men, women and children in Niger in West Africa were to be freed from slavery has been cancelled at the last minute by the Government.

The BBC News website quoted a spokesman for the Government's human rights commission as saying Saturday's planned ceremony had been cancelled because slavery did not exist in Niger. The Government had been a co-sponsor of the event.

HUT BAY, India (Reuters) - When the earth shook and the waters began receding from the creek near their settlement, the Onge of India's Little Andaman island knew nature was telling them something.

The primitive hunter-gatherers did not wait to pick up their possessions or their passports but instinctively made for higher ground. All of the 100 or so Onge left in the world seem to have survived the tsunami's deadly power.

Two months on, the tsunami offers the chance for a fresh start for the Onge, a tribe whose roots stretch back to man's earliest ancestors but whose contact with the outside world over the past century-and-a-half has brought them close to extinction.