Congratulate Ex-Bigots Before They Relapse

Jason Cherniak:

If our long-term goal is to improve society, then we cannot exclude all those men and women who used to be homophobic. Instead, we should congratulate them on changing their views. Otherwise, they might start to change their minds again.

The rest.

(On same page: “Tom Lukiwski is a 57-year old man. In 1991, he was an adult.” No shit, Sherlock.)

Hurricanes Are A Drag, But Discrimination Kills

Discrimination can occur on the basis of ethnic or social origin, language, religion, gender, age, physical or mental disability, and sexual orientation. The World Disasters Report points out that, although discrimination exists before disaster, an emergency can exacerbate it. However, that discrimination is often invisible because official data on older people, ethnic minorities or people with disabilities may not exist.

The rest.

Human Rights At Any Price! Uh…How Much Again?

The government of Australia is considering whether or not to bring forward measures in next month’s Budget that will give same-sex couples equality in a range of areas.

Last year the country’s Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) report was presented to the federal parliament listing the 58 laws that need to be changed to grant gay, bisexual and lesbian Australians equal rights.

The Labour party promised reform during last year’s elections, including tackling the unequal treatment of an estimated 20,000 same-sex couples in tax, pensions, old age care, health benefits and insurance.

Now in government, the party has discovered the changes will cost $400m (£190m) over four years and is considering postponing their introduction until next year.

The rest.

“Just Following Orders” Excuse…Inverted

A U.N. appeals panel overturned the murder conviction and reduced the sentence Tuesday of a Bosnian army commander in charge of Muslim fighters who murdered and tortured Bosnian Serbs and Croats in the Balkan wars in 1993.

Enver Hadzihasanovic was originally convicted by the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in March 2006 of one murder count for failing to prevent the “mujahadeen” volunteers from killing two prisoners, and refusing to punish them afterward. One of the prisoners was beheaded, and several other captives were beaten.

But the U.N. court’s appeals chamber ruled that the foreigners, many of them veterans of the war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan that ended in 1989, were beyond the control of Hadzihasanovic’s 3rd Corps of the regular Bosnian Muslim army.

The rest.

Paint Ball: The Human Rights Violation

Surveillance video from an incident last year in El Paso shows a Border Patrol agent retreating after people pelt him with rocks. Some could argue the same about being hit by a paintball without protective gear, where a projectile from a paintball gun leaves a small welt on the flesh.

Small welt or not, human rights activists say it is a bad idea, even for a line of defense.

The rest.

Say Anything’s take:

The US Border Patrol has taken to purchasing paint ball guns for agents to use when fending off attacks from illegal immigrants and drug smugglers crossing the border.  Why they’re not being armed with actual weapons is beyond me, but apparently human rights activists are upset because the paintballs fired by the guns may leave welts on those getting fired upon.

Nevermind Darfur, Let’s Investigate Mysterious Finland

All UN member states are facing a rigorous examination of their human rights records. The inaugural session of the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) working group began on Monday.

…

The UPR Working Group will, until 18 April, examine the human rights records of 16 countries: Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Brazil, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Finland, India, Indonesia, Morocco, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa, Tunisia and the UK.

This first session will be followed by two further sessions in 2008, so that 48 countries, selected by drawing lots, will have been scrutinized during the year.

The rest.

The Long John Silver Loophole

THE Royal Navy, once the scourge of brigands on the high seas, has been told by the Foreign Office not to detain pirates because doing so may breach their human rights.

The rest.

Anarchy In The UK?

UNCONTROLLED immigration has led to a “cold war” between ethnic communities, according to the head of Britain’s race watchdog.

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said policy failures risk engendering racism among millions of educated professionals.

The rest.

Palestine To The Rescue

Suddenly, free speech everyone can agree upon. Amazingly, CHRC ass kissers declare free speech something worth defending when Palestine is in the equation. We never saw that coming.

Typical one:

Dr. Dawg [Go to his blog for the links on these pieces galore]:

[April 25] Could this decision, even though it was ostensibly made by the Clubs Policy Committee of the Students’ Council, be tied to the sympathies of its current president, Dr. Paul Davenport, who recently accepted an award from the Jewish National Fund–an organization that the Israeli Supreme Court itself has found to be racist?

Let’s stand up for free speech on Canadian campuses. Somebody’s got to do it: the speech warriors appear to be too busy at the moment.

vs.

[April 6] So says frequent far-right blog commenter “WL Mackenzie Redux.” Normally the raving of a marginal blogospherian, encamped in an increasingly crowded cyber-bidonville just outside Blog City, wouldn’t be worthy of notice. But in the course of defending Kate “Dirty bums, go infect yourselves with diseases and die” McMillan, he managed to sum up, in an economical four words, what’s been bubbling merrily on the Right’s front burner for some time. You don’t have to be Faith Popcorn to observe that hate is trendy. It’s the ultra-con in-thing. Hate is cool. It’s good to hate.

Hate, it appears, is just busting out all over. There’s Ezra“knock a blind guy” Levant, Marc “Hitler knew what he was talking about” Lemire* (the current rad-right poster child for free speech), Mark “Kids are fair game” Steyn, and of course the fellow who sets the benchmark for all time, Pastor Fred Phelps (although I sometimes find myself wondering if he hasn’t been indulging all these years in a dark satirical send-up). We have this sort of racist drivel–a regular feature at her place these days–from the pint-sized Queen of Hate, Kathy Shaidle.

Come On, Sleepy Heads, Commit To “The Vision”

4. Creating a Culture of Human Rights

Although there were a few consultees who did not value a human rights culture and who felt that human rights institutions are too interventionist, most indicated that a primary focus of any discussion must be the creation of a true culture of human rights in this province. These individuals indicated that such a culture was lacking, that human rights are not considered a priority, and that there exists a lack of a broad understanding of the importance and impact of human rights, and a commitment to the vision of the Code and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (“the Charter”).

The rest.