UNICEF Director Sniffs Glue, Speaks

Ennahar – Arguing for “progress in the defense of children’s rights”, [Anthony Lake] stressed that “peace and security” were essential. “Wars do not kill children, they bring disease and destroy the hopes of a better life,” he said.

As Long As It Hides The Shit In Your Own Backyard, “Human Rights” Is A Gas

Aljazeera – As Latin American governments have condemned a tough new anti-immigration law in the US state of Arizona, a leading human rights group has also launched a scathing attack against it.

“Arizona’s new immigration law violates an international anti-racism treaty that is binding on all government officials in the United States,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Friday.

vs.

AP – Drug traffickers, not soldiers, killed two children during a shootout in northern Mexico earlier this month, Mexican military officials said Friday.

Army investigators reviewed the evidence and found 5-year-old Martin Almanza Salazar and his 8-year-old brother, Bryan, were killed by shrapnel from a grenade that hit the back of their family car April 3, the chief armed forces prosecutor, Jose Luis Chavez, said.

Noted Humanitarian State Elected To UN Commission For Women

Fox – Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged “immodest.”

Yes, That Arizona Thing Sure Is A Big Human Rights Problem For Mexicans

McClatchy – As the death toll has climbed from drug-related violence in Mexico, it’s fallen largely to newspapers to keep the count.

Two weeks ago, a government report that legislators leaked spoke of 22,700 deaths over little more than a three-year period, a far higher body count than the 18,000 or so given by El Universal, a leading newspaper.

Arizona. The Smart Protester’s Choice

Patterico – Yesterday, Amnesty International called the abuse of migrants in Mexico a major human rights crisis. The same day, a “caravan of rights observers and leftist political activists” traveling in southern Mexico were attacked by gunfire. Two people were killed and many more may have been abducted…

Radio Host Getting The Picture On “Human Rights”

Rob Breakenridge, AM 770 - I suppose it’s possible that this is simply a late April Fool’s Day joke that I’ll soon be embarrassed to have fallen for.

Otherwise, I’m not really sure what to make of this. If vacationing is a “human right”, then really, what isn’t a human right?

Julius: The “Human Rights” Religion

Guardian, Anthony Julius – As for the appropriations of, and accommodations with, liberal positions, the general abandonment of Marxist positions in favour of liberal or post-liberal ones is evident wherever one looks, but particularly evident, perhaps, among France’s political theorists. The “class struggle” between 1848 and 1936 encouraged people on the left to regard rights as mere abstractions, aspects of bourgeois ideology that concealed and legitimised the subordination of one class to another. But this supersession of rights by communism did not take place: on the contrary, it was by exposing the absence of “rights” in the Soviet Union and its satellites that communism was discredited.

A human rights discourse now dominates politics; there is a powerful human rights “movement”. It is the new secular religion of our time.

Video: Pitching Try Outs Interrupted By Tear Gas

Don’t Write A Rebuttal, A Book, Film A Documentary, Or Make A Speech. Sue.

AP – A human rights group is suing a Swiss newspaper for denying there was a Serb genocide of Bosnian Muslims in the town of Srebrenica in 1995.

Fadila Memisevic, of the Bosnian branch of the Germany-based Society for Threatened Peoples, said her organization filed suit jointly Monday with the Swiss Association Against Impunity, TRIAL, in Lausanne. Swiss law prohibits genocide denial.

China To USA: Eat Me

Vancouver Sun – China told the United States Thursday to stop acting as a human rights watchdog, as it hit back angrily at U.S. accusations that its human rights record had worsened.

The spat comes just days after a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Beijing appeared to signal a detente between the world powers on the sensitive issue.

“We firmly oppose any countries interfering in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of human rights,” foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu told reporters.

Video: Human Rights For Dummies

Nonsense story. Good graphics, though.

Steyn: Idiotic Bobbies At It Again

The Corner – Not in modern Britain. Her Majesty’s Constabulary are among the laziest, most overpaid, most obnoxious and most useless in the world. It was entirely predictable that, given the choice between taking on violent ne’er-do-wells or harrassing harmless old-timers with pocket knives, they’d choose the latter…

She Obviously Sucks At It If There’s Still Such A Problem

So Feminine – If one person from the EU Commission has made an impact, it’s Viviane Reding… ”This thing with me and gender equality goes way back,” she says. As a student feminist, as one of the youngest members of Parliament, then as rapporteur for women’s rights, and as president of the Christian Social Women’s Group, she was closely involved in the preparations for the World Conference on Women in Beijing. “So I know my stuff,” she says.

Tough Talk’s Easy When You Don’t Name Names

Edmonton Journal – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed Monday to fight for gay rights, calling for all nations to stop violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation…

“The persecution of gays and lesbians is a violation of human rights and an affront to human decency, and it must end,” she said.

vs.

Times-Colonist – “The United States has refrained from commenting on the election in Iran. We obviously hope that the outcome reflects the genuine will and desire of the Iranian people,” said Clinton, on a short visit to Canada.

Sex Criminal Jumps On The Human Rights Bandwagon

Perthshire Advertiser – A SERIAL sex attacker claimed yesterday that his Human Rights were being breached by being banned from watching porn on his computer.

Twenty-six-year-old Martin Jones, of St Catherine’s Road, Perth, was jailed for 18 months at the Sheriff Court in March of last year for stalking a 12-year-old girl in the city centre.

Lawyer: Because You’re Arresting The Unborn Child, You Can’t Arrest Pregnant Terrorists

Jakarta Globe – Lawyers on Wednesday accused the police of serious violations of human rights when they arrested a pregnant woman, Putri Munawaroh, on terrorism charges, and prosecutors of causing further harm by bringing the woman to court…

The defense argued that, according to human rights law, children, including unborn babies, could not be detained under criminal charges.

Rights, Rights, Rights, Rights…

Bold ours.

Guardian – The pundits who predicted that the three main political parties were broadly agreed on reforming the Human Rights Act through a British bill of rights have been confounded. It is not the case that they all propose to amend it. Only the Conservatives pledge to scrap the HRA andreplace it with a UK bill of rights. When the Liberal Democrats publish their manifesto this morning they will line up with Labour in standing by the Human Rights Act. More intriguingly, given their consistent commitment to constitutional reform and individual rights, they will not express support for a UK bill of rights.

Video: Future “Larry King Live” In A Land Of Tolerance?

Q: In general, when am I supposed to beat my wife?

Sting: The Rock ‘N Rolling Hypocrite

Jam – Rocker Sting has been urged to donate concert cash he received after performing for the daughter of Uzbek dictator President Islam Karimov to charity by critics opposed to the private show.

The former The Police star, an avid human rights campaigner and environmental activist, has come under fire for playing the secret gig in Tashkent in November. Protesters claim Sting should have rejected the offer to sing for Gulnara Karimova, whose father rules a country with one of the world’s worst records for human rights abuses.

Huff Post: Caring People Line Up Over Here, Selfish Bastards Over There

Huffington Post – Anyone interested in human rights (that would be the left side of the room) or property rights (that would be the right side) should email Congressman Pascrell’s office and let him know you support his attempts to enforce the law.

The Human Right To Green Cards

NJ Today – Reforming our obsolete immigration system is a human rights issue that can no longer wait. Our nation needs a clear and workable path toward legal residency for the millions of undocumented workers and families living in this country.

Remembering Lech Kaczynski: Bummer Dude Had The Gall To Mention Abortion

CNS News – In 2007 Poland angered its European partners when it stood alone in opposing plans to hold a symbolic “European day against the death penalty,” denying the 27-member union the consensus it needed to go ahead with the event.

Warsaw argued that Europe should instead mark a “right to life” day, with abortion and euthanasia on the agenda along with capital punishment.

Um. Okay.

Of Course

Korea Times – Model-turned-human rights activist…

Paper: There’s Anti-Semites And Then There’s Us

Berekeley Daily Planet – There are certainly anti-Semites who criticize Israel because they are racist, but these marginal people simply do not characterize those organizations mentioned above, the Palestinian people, or those of us in the international movement to boycott Israel for its long-standing human rights abuses.