NEWS
November 17, 1994 | By Jennifer Lin, INQUIRER WASHINGTON BUREAU
As he stood on the white porch of Bogor Palace to announce a trade-opening agreement for the Pacific Rim, Indonesian President Suharto was asked by a U.S. reporter about his country's human-rights abuses in East Timor. Suharto ignored the question. Hours later, Chinese President Jiang Zemin was also pressed about human- rights problems in his country. He gave his pat answer: Nations should not meddle in each other's domestic affairs. Try as they might not to mix business with human rights as they discuss regional trade here this week, Asian leaders are having a hard time keeping the two issues separate.
NEWS
October 16, 1986
In the United Nations, and among voluntary organizations worldwide, pressure for governments to respect human rights is growing. But each year hundreds of thousands of people are still being tortured, killed or detained for their political beliefs, according to the human rights group Amnesty International, in its latest annual report. Amnesty said that at least 1,125 individuals in 44 countries were killed by their governments in 1985. Prisoners were tortured in Chile and Cambodia, executed by the hundreds in Iran and Iraq, tortured, abducted or killed in police custody in South Africa and killed under Soviet occupation in Afghanistan and in many other countries.
NEWS
September 1, 2010
By Roger Pilon When we think of human-rights problems, most of us imagine arbitrary arrests, political repression, religious persecution, torture, show trials, censorship, and the like. In America, we don't often have those kinds of problems. Even the current controversy over an Islamic center near ground zero isn't about the right to build there; it's about the wisdom of doing so. All of which made it surprising to learn from the Obama State Department that America does indeed have human-rights problems.
NEWS
September 19, 1989 | By Stephan Salisbury, Inquirer Staff Writer
Springsteen and Sting and Youssou N'Dour have gone their separate ways. Tracy Chapman has moved on to a pile of Grammy Awards and a burgeoning career. John F. Kennedy Stadium has closed and may soon fall. But for six hours a year ago today, those performers and the old grandstand held together on behalf of human rights, and word has it that the aftershocks of that concert are still being felt. "It was an incredible night, incredible night," enthused John Healey, executive director of Amnesty International USA, which organized the 15-nation Human Rights Now!
NEWS
July 31, 2001
Since 1980, U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R., N.J.) has taken dozens of trips abroad to fight for the rights of those suffering under repressive regimes (Inquirer, July 23). His dedication to international human rights is commendable. He is not to be commended, however, on his own contributions to repressive regimes and human rights violations: his forceful opposition to safe and legal abortion in developing countries. If Smith were truly fighting for freedom of speech, he wouldn't ban overseas organizations from telling women information that could save their lives.
NEWS
April 6, 2004 | CHRISTINE M. FLOWERS
CONDOLEEZZA Rice will be on the hot seat this week, fielding questions from the 9/11 commission. Unlike Richard Clarke, former anti-terrorism czar under the Clinton and Bush administrations, she doesn't have a book to peddle, so I don't anticipate any juicy soundbites, maudlin apologies to families who lost loved one on the day of terror or self-serving flip-flops. Say what you will, Condi is genuine, a woman of intelligence whose loyalty and competence are undisputed. Disagree with her positions, perhaps, but mistrust her motives?
ENTERTAINMENT
May 6, 1988 | By Lesley Valdes, Inquirer Music Critic
Local producer Joseph Franklin says he's been waiting all year for this one: a concert titled Voices of Dissent, which his group, Relache, will perform here tomorrow and in Washington on May 27. Essentially a repeat of the group's favorite program of last season, Voices of Dissent is a lineup of scores whose focus is international human rights violations. John King's "(corn)" from the suite Immediate Music, and his Current Music "(constitutionmusic)," will be performed by the composer on steel violin.
NEWS
June 22, 1993 | By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
In Vienna this week, representatives of every country on earth are in conference on human rights. The conference's principal aim - as is to be expected of any conclave of 183 governments, the majority of which are despotic - is to destroy the human-rights idea. Washington sent Secretary of State Warren Christopher to Vienna to hold the fort. The results were mixed. The destroyers, led by China, Iran, Cuba, Vietnam and other paragons of human rights, are not very subtle. Their strategy is to shred the idea of human rights by having the world deny that they are universal and by insisting that they "must be considered in the context of . . . national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds.
NEWS
January 12, 1989 | By STEVEN L. CARTER
Is Moscow a proper site for the highest level review conference on human rights mandated by the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe? It is - if you accept the cemetery at Bitburg as deserving the laurels of a U.S. president. The administration's willingness to let Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev play host to such a conference in 1991 brings to mind Elie Wiesel's brief but eloquent plea on the eve of President Reagan's departure for Germany. Wiesel said: "This is not your place, Mr. President.
NEWS
January 27, 2012 | By Maran Turner
This month, Akzam Turgunov, an Uzbek human rights advocate, spent his 60th birthday in a prison work camp. Just before his birthday, the Obama administration moved to weaken U.S. sanctions against Uzbekistan that have been in place since 2004 due to its abhorrent human rights practices. Turgunov's imprisonment, recently declared a violation of international law by the United Nations, stands as one example of those practices. Turgunov's record as a political and human rights activist is well established.