Tag Archives: Human Rights

News

Should Iran really be on the UN Commission on the Status of Women?

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Here’s a story from MKHammer in the Weekly Standard. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani, a 42-year-old mother of two, confessed to the crime of adultery in 2006 after being subjected to 99 lashes. She later recanted her statement, but was found guilty despite the fact that there were no witnesses to her adultery, as is supposed to be required in the Iranian justice system. Her conviction was upheld through all levels of the courts, which value a woman’s testimony at only a fraction of a man’s. Ashtiani will be put to death by stoning. She will be buried to her chest in the ground, at which point stones “large enough to cause pain but not so large as to kill her immediately” will be hurled at her head. The public will not be allowed to see the execution for fear of a backlash against leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The Islamic Republic of Iran was named to a four-year seat on the UN Commission on the Status of Women in April. In its capacity there, Iran will be part of the “principal global policy-making body” on women’s rights. According to the UN, “the Commission also makes recommendations to the Council on urgent problems requiring immediate attention in the field of women’s rights.”

I’m for capital punishment when it’s warranted, but this is just ridiculous!

Look what the Independent Women’s Forum says:

“Article 74 of the Iranian penal code requires at least four witnesses — four men or three men and two women — for an adulterer to receive a stoning sentence, said Mina Ahadi, coordinator for the International Committee Against Stoning. But there were no witnesses in Ashtiani’s case. Often, said Ahadi, husbands turn wives in to get out of a marriage.”

I don’t know why we as a nation don’t denounce Iran when they treat women like this – and especially protest their appointment to this UN Commission on the Status of Women, even though the UN is an evil organization. The Iranian court gave this woman 99 lashes and forced her to confess to a crime she didn’t even commit! That’s coercion! Iran doesn’t treat women fairly at all – look at those two Iranian Christian women they imprisoned just for being Christians. Imprisoning people just for their religion? That’s not fair!

Check out this Conservative MP from Canada, Pierre Poilievre. He’s talking about Coptic Christians being persecuted.

Here’s another Conservative MP from Canada, Jason Kenney. He’s talking about victims of communist regimes.

Why can’t we do that? We’re the United States of America! Everyone expects us to be the good guys.

News

Obama administration complains about Arizona immigration law to China

3 Comments

From CNS News.

Excerpt:

In a “candid and constructive” human rights dialogue with officials from the People’s Republic of China last week, Obama administration officials brought up Arizona’s new immigration-enforcement law, telling the Chinese Communists it was an example of a “troubling trend” in the United States and an indication of “discrimination or potential discrimination” in American society.

Ironically, the State Department’s most recent report on human rights in China indicates that the government there restricts the internal travel of its own citizens.

[…]On Fox News Tuesday morning, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley–trying to defend Posner’s comments – was asked if he had read the ten-page Arizona law. He said he has not read it, although he did criticize it.

Attorney General Eric Holder, who is weighing a constitutional challenge to the law, admitted last week that he has not read it; and Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano on Monday told a Senate panel that she had not read the law, either.

The People’s Republic of China is “an authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party constitutionally is the paramount source of power,” according to the State Department’s 2009 Human Rights report on China.

The report also states, “Individuals and groups, especially those deemed politically sensitive by the government, continued to face tight restrictions on their freedom to assemble, practice religion, and travel.”

China is one of the biggest violators of basic human rights on the planet. So what do the Democrats do? They go to the major human rights violators and tell them that the United States is just as evil. We’re evil because we protect our borders and enforce our immigration laws. China murders people for their religion and sells their organs, and we’re equal to China – at least according to Democrats.

UPDATE: Republican senators are demanding that the Obama administration publicly retract their outrageous comments.

Commentary

MUST-READ: Mark Steyn discusses how Britons inform on each other

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Mark Steyn writing in MacLean’s magazine. Apparently, the practice of informing the government about speech that is not in conformity with political correctness is widespread in the UK.

Excerpt:

A couple of years back, 14-year-old Codie Stott asked her teacher at Harrop Fold High School if she could sit with another group to do her science project as in hers the other five girls all spoke Urdu and she didn’t understand what they were saying. The teacher called the police, who took her to the station, photographed her, fingerprinted her, took DNA samples, removed her jewellery and shoelaces, put her in a cell for 3½ hours, and questioned her on suspicion of committing a Section Five “racial public order offence.” “An allegation of a serious nature was made concerning a racially motivated remark,” declared the headmaster Antony Edkins. The school would “not stand for racism in any form.” In a statement, Greater Manchester Police said they took “hate crime” very seriously, and their treatment of Miss Stott was in line with “normal procedure.”

And:

Six weeks ago, Roy Amor, a medical technician who made prosthetics for a company called Opcare, glanced out of the window at their offices at Withington Community Hospital, and saw some British immigration officials outside. “You better hide,” he said to his black colleague, a close friend of both Mr. Amor and his wife. Not the greatest joke in the world, but the pal wasn’t offended, laughed it off as a bit of office banter, and they both got on with their work. It was another colleague who overheard the jest and filed a formal complaint reporting Mr. Amor for “racism.” He was suspended from his job. Five days later, he received an email from the company notifying him of the disciplinary investigation and inviting him to expand on the initial statement he had made about the incident. Mr. Amor had worked in the prosthetics unit at Withington for 30 years until he made his career-detonating joke. That afternoon he stepped outside his house and shot himself in the head. The black “victim” of his “racism” attended the funeral, as did other friends.

The part that scares me about this is the confidence that the other side has in pushing their viewpoint using coercion.

Were did this nanny-like opposition to feeling offended, feeling excluded and feeling judged come from? Who puts elevates feelings and compassion over the risky, confrontational exchange of ideas? Who minimizes truth and debate and maximizes self-esteem and happiness? Who emphasizes victimhood?

You know what? Life is tough. Sometimes people say things that make you feel bad. And if you are a grown-up, you let it go. You don’t empower government to coerce people so that you can have happy feelings. Freedom and prosperity are more important than happy feelings. Life isn’t fair.

For the record, I am a very visible minority, and consider the secular left PC thought police to be the worst racists on the planet.