Cuba USA
While this statement is undoubtedly welcome, it is important to recognize that the murder of Michael Brown as well as the police abuses against peaceful protestors that followed it are more than an instance of the institutional racism specific to American society. Indeed, when I first read Mr. Jagland’s statement, I was struck by how common the concerns he notes are throughout the world today. Violation by the police of citizens’ fundamental rights has become routine, as escalating police repression has been a standard response to political protest in the Middle East, Europe and the U.S. In fact, one could speak about the "banality of capitalism’s violation of human rights" just as I have, in one of my previous blogs, spoken about the "banality of capitalism’s irrationality."
- Cuban Delegation To Human Rights Dialogue With The United States Releases Statement
Cuba’s representatives express their interest in the dialogue contributing to addressing the issue of human rights effectively and without discrimination, with full respect for sovereign equality, independence and non-intervention in the internal affairs...
- The Ghost Of Dred Scott Haunts The Streets Of Ferguson
By Amy GoodmanSource democracynow Thousands have been protesting the police killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed African-American teenager in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson. He was due to start college just days after he was shot dead in broad...
- Cia Presents A New False Video On Cuba, Through The Un Watch Ngo (+videos)
Source: http://cubanos.org.uk/news The video is part of the ongoing campaign of UN Watch, an NGO known as "The Trojan Horse" of the CIA in Geneva, aimed at achieving that countries such as Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia and Russia, stop being members of the...
- Bejing Human Rights Activist Disappears On Eve Of Olympics
From the Status of the Chinese People : Chinese Human Rights Defenders, August 9, 2008) – Zeng Jinyan (曾金燕), a Beijing-based human rights activist, disappeared on August 7. All attempts to contact her have failed. It is feared that Zeng has been...
- Petition For The Release Of Political Prisoners In Cuba
From FREEDOM fighter Ziva: The Cuban Government is currently holding more than 220 political prisoners according to Amnesty International, the Cuban Committee for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, and Reporters Without Borders. These prisoners are illegally...
Cuba USA
Blogs Ferguson, Human Rights & Capitalism’s War on Democracy
By Costas Panayotakis
Source telesur
As international concern over police repression in Ferguson, Missouri, has mounted, the Council of Europe—“the continent’s human rights organization,” (1) as it describes itself in its website—has also weighed in. Through its Secretary-General, Thorbjorn Jagland, it has expressed concern over “the reported use of excessive force by the police against peaceful protesters and their arrest, including journalists covering the events, as this undermines the full exercise of human rights, starting with the rights to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression.” (2)
It is not an accident, of course, that this escalation of police repression, as well as the militarization of policing connected to it, parallels both the rise of neoliberalism since the late 1970s and the brutal austerity policies that have been used to respond to this economic model’s crisis more recently. Although it is often equated to the pursuit of small government, neoliberalism, as many scholars point out, is above all a political project aimed at redistributing wealth from the bottom to the top and at increasing the power of capital over labor. As this ongoing project understandably leads to popular protest, certain branches of the state grow rather than being reduced. To reduce social benefits, labor and democratic rights and to sell valuable public assets for a pittance to private investors, a government needs to beef up its police force, while also building new prisons to manage the "surplus population" that neoliberal policies invariably produce.
In other words, the use of rubber bullets, arbitrary arrests, intimidation of journalists and violation of the right to assemble are integral to the functioning of a capitalist system in crisis. And this, of course, is just one of the ways that capitalism is fundamentally at odds with democracy.
- Cuban Delegation To Human Rights Dialogue With The United States Releases Statement
Cuba’s representatives express their interest in the dialogue contributing to addressing the issue of human rights effectively and without discrimination, with full respect for sovereign equality, independence and non-intervention in the internal affairs...
- The Ghost Of Dred Scott Haunts The Streets Of Ferguson
By Amy GoodmanSource democracynow Thousands have been protesting the police killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed African-American teenager in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson. He was due to start college just days after he was shot dead in broad...
- Cia Presents A New False Video On Cuba, Through The Un Watch Ngo (+videos)
Source: http://cubanos.org.uk/news The video is part of the ongoing campaign of UN Watch, an NGO known as "The Trojan Horse" of the CIA in Geneva, aimed at achieving that countries such as Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia and Russia, stop being members of the...
- Bejing Human Rights Activist Disappears On Eve Of Olympics
From the Status of the Chinese People : Chinese Human Rights Defenders, August 9, 2008) – Zeng Jinyan (曾金燕), a Beijing-based human rights activist, disappeared on August 7. All attempts to contact her have failed. It is feared that Zeng has been...
- Petition For The Release Of Political Prisoners In Cuba
From FREEDOM fighter Ziva: The Cuban Government is currently holding more than 220 political prisoners according to Amnesty International, the Cuban Committee for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, and Reporters Without Borders. These prisoners are illegally...