Derechos: Human Rights Listings

The Cleveland-based InterReligious Task Force on Central America is recruiting election monitors to go to El Salvador for the March elections
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Election observers still desparately needed. Consider joining the IRTF/CIS
Election Observer Mission

Delegation to El Salvador
March 6-14, 2006


} Learn about the political, social and economic reality of El Salvador.
} Help to strengthen the democratic process.
} Contribute to free and fair elections & promote people-to-people solidarity.

The 2006 elections determine El Salvador’s 262 municipal mayors, city council members, and deputies (congresspeople) in the Legislative Assembly for the next 3 years. Fourteen years after the Peace Accords, El Salvador’s democratic process is fragile at best. While elections have been carried out with some reforms, institutions such as the National Civilian Police (PNC) and the Human Rights Procurators Office (PDDH) are in crisis due to lack of funding and political will to ensure their mission. Democracy depends on a transparent election process­which the presence of international observers helps guarantee. Reports from previous observer missions have been adopted for election reforms by the Legislative Assembly and the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

In 2004, a new national identity card/voter registration was used for the first time, cleaning up some past weaknesses, such as dead people voting and identity theft.
Still, problems exist:
— no laws govern political parties or campaign contributions
— no residential voting (i.e., vote closest to where you live)
— no private voting is guaranteed

Grassroots groups in El Salvador ask for international observers to:
— witness potential violations before and during the elections.
— provide a presence in order to diminish political intimidation and violence.
— call for implementation of election reforms, including residential voting, to guarantee a transparent process and participation.

The delegation organizer in El Salvador is CIS (Center for Exchange and Solidarity). Pre- and post- delegation sessions are coordinated in Cleveland by IRTF. In-country participation cost: $625, incl. coordination, translation, observer training, receptions, local transportation, food & housing. Purchase your own flight separately.

$100 deposit and application (see below) due February 25, 2006.
Checks payable to IRTF: 3606 Bridge Ave. Cleveland, OH 44113. (Optional: add $50 for CIS Civic Education Fund).

For more information, contact:
IRTF-InterReligious Task Force on Central America
http://www.irtfcleveland.org/ 216/961-0003 irtf@igc.org

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Derechos Human Rights (us!) are looking for a volunteer to help us update our Human Rights Links Website (http://www.derechos.net/links/). The HR Links site is the largest directory of human rights related websites online, but many of the links are outdated and many new sites need to be added.

The work would consist of adding new links, checking whether old links still work, and if they don't, update them. You need to know basic html and have either a secure FTP or secure shell program.

If you are interesed in helping, please e-mail me at marga@derechos.org

We are looking for a volunteer to translate documents and information vis a vis the current criminal procedures against members of the Argentine Navy for disappearing Italian citizens during the "dirty war". The documents are in Italian and we'd like them translated into Spanish and/or English. You can do this work from home and at your own pace.

If interested, e-mail me at marga@derechos.org

thanks!

Help us keep the Human Rights Listings up to date by adding content. This should take about 15 minutes a day, and you can do it from any computer anywhere. If interested e-mail us at hr@derechos.org

The Human Rights Information and Documentation Center ( HRIDC ) is seeking a native English speaking volunteer for its office in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Duties of the volunteer will be as follows:

--Preparing and editing human rights newsletters and an online magazine www.HumanRights.ge

--Provide inputs during human rights trainings and campaigns

Peace Brigades International (PBI) Indonesia Project

Positions Available:
Participatory Peace Education sub-team Volunteers. Both Indonesian Nationals and International applicants are encouraged to apply.
Protective Services sub-team Volunteers. International applicants are encouraged to apply.

When: Closing date for applications is 1 September 2006. Volunteer Training is expected to be early November 2006 in Europe (Portugal). This twelve-day training will be the final step in the application process. The training will be conducted in English. Having sufficient Indonesian & English language skills volunteers can join teams in November, February, May or August.
Where: Current sub-teams are working in Jakarta, Aceh and Papua.

Proyecto Desaparecidos - Project Disappeared, is an online memorial for victims of forced-disappearances. Since our start a decade ago we have focused on Argentina, where there were an estimated 30,000 disappeared in the 1970s, but we would like to branch out to other countries. Here is where you come in. Help us by:

-Making webpages for individual people who were disappeared (see http://www.desaparecidos.org/arg/victimas/nombres.html for examples)

-Collecting documents from online (and offline) sources about the disappearances in a specific country

-Reaching out to organizations who work with the disappeared worldwide.

-Web design, cgi, perl and all those technical things.

-Do you have ideas?

Explore our website (which is now mostly in Spanish) and let us know.

If you speak another language, great - but you can help us even if you speak just English. E-mail us at nn@desaparecidos.org

Proyecto Desaparecidos - Project Disappeared, is an online memorial for victims of forced-disappearances. Since our start a decade ago we have focused on Argentina, where there were an estimated 30,000 disappeared in the 1970s, but we would like to branch out to other countries. Here is where you come in. Help us by:

-Making webpages for individual people who were disappeared (see http://www.desaparecidos.org/arg/victimas/nombres.html for examples)

-Collecting documents from online (and offline) sources about the disappearances in a specific country

-Reaching out to organizations who work with the disappeared worldwide.

-Web design, cgi, perl and all those technical things.

-Do you have ideas?

Explore our website (which is now mostly in Spanish) and let us know.

If you speak another language, great - but you can help us even if you speak just English. E-mail us at nn@desaparecidos.org

NONVIOLENT PEACEFORCE TRAINING FOR FIELD TEAMS - November 15 to December 9

Nonviolent Peaceforce will be holding a core training for field team members and for reserve members (ie. available for future team work) from November 15th to December 9th, in Nairobi, Kenya. Applicants will be considered for teams in Sri Lanka and the Philippines, and for future teams. If interested, please apply as soon as possible, but no later than October 10th. Criteria for applicants and instructions on how to apply are below.

Derechos is in need of a volunteer letter writer, who can respond to the Urgent Actions we receive in our name. Urgent Actions usually have explicit instructions of what to address in your letter, so all you need to have are good English language writing skills and some free time. If interested, e-mail us at hr@derechos.org .

We are in the process of creating a new blog on human rights in Colombia. We need a volunteer editor who can post daily news and urgent actions on the situation there. The blog will be bilingual so you need to be fluent in both Spanish and English. You don't need much technical expertise, as it's quite easy to learn how to blog.

For more information, e-mail marga@derechos.org

Derechos Human Rights is seeking volunteer lawyers or law students to write briefs of important decisions by International and National courts on issues related to impunity for human rights violations. These briefs or summaries will later be translated into a variety of languages to make this jurisprudence available to lawyers and jurists worldwide.

The decisions in questions are usually very long, so you will need to be able to dedicate a good chunk of time to this assignment. You will need background knowledge on international human rights law, and have the ability to analyze and summarize difficult legal concepts.

If you are interested e-mail Margarita Lacabe at marga@derechos.org

Derechos Human Rights is looking for a person fluent in written Italian to correct a document that has been scanned and OCR'd, but that needs to have scanning errors corrected.

The document is the sentence of an Italian Trial court on disappearances in Argentina.

No Peace Without Justice is seeking human rights and other experts to join a
growing team of Kenyan and foreign professionals who are volunteering their
time to document mass violations of human rights and international criminal
law in Kenya.

As you probably know, following the presidential elections last December,
there has been widespread violence in Kenya, after the announcement that
President Kibaki had won the election, despite numerous reports of election
irregularities, primarily related to the tallying of votes.