Read the full report: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=19388
North Korea, Turkmenistan, Eritrea, the worst violators of press freedom
France and the United States slip further
Aggressive regimes in Africa and slow progress
New countries have moved ahead of some Western democracies in the fifth annual Reporters Without Borders Worldwide Press Freedom Index, issued today, while the most repressive countries are still the same ones.
"Unfortunately nothing has changed in the countries that are the worst predators of press freedom," the organisation said, "and journalists in North Korea, Eritrea, Turkmenistan, Cuba, Burma and China are still risking their life or imprisonment for trying to keep us informed. These situations are extremely serious and it is urgent that leaders of these countries accept criticism and stop routinely cracking down on the media so harshly.
"Each year new countries in less-developed parts of the world move up the Index to positions above some European countries or the United States. This is good news and shows once again that, even though very poor, countries can be very observant of freedom of expression. Meanwhile the steady erosion of press freedom in the United States, France and Japan is extremely alarming," Reporters Without Borders said.
The three worst violators of free expression - North Korea, bottom of the Index at 168th place, Turkmenistan (167th) and Eritrea (166th) - have clamped down further. The torture death of Turkmenistan journalist Ogulsapar Muradova shows that the country's leader, "President-for-Life" Separmurad Nyazov, is willing to use extreme violence against those who dare to criticise him. Reporters Without Borders is also extremely concerned about a number of Eritrean journalists who have been imprisoned in secret for more than five years. The all-powerful North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, also continues to totally control the media.
Press freedom is genuine is Benin (23rd), Namibia (26th), Mauritius (32nd), Ghana (34th), Mali (35th), South Africa (44th) and Cape Verde (45th) and comparable to that in Western democracies. It does not exist or is constantly under attack in Eritrea (166th), Gambia (149th), Somalia (144th), Democratic Republic of Congo (142nd), Zimbabwe (140th) and Equatorial Guinea (137th). The same African countries have featured at the top and bottom of the Index for several years.
Northern European countries once again come at the top of the Index, with no recorded censorship, threats, intimidation or physical reprisals recorded in Finland, Ireland, Iceland and the Netherlands, which all share first place.
Deterioration in the United States and Japan, with France also slipping
The United States (53rd) has fallen nine places since last year, after being in 17th position in the first year of the Index, in 2002. Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of "national security" to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his "war on terrorism." The zeal of federal courts, which, unlike those in 33 states, refuse to recognise the media's right not to reveal its sources, threatens even journalists whose investigations have no connection at all with terrorism.
Freelance journalist and blogger Josh Wolf was imprisoned when he refused to hand over his video archives. Sudanese cameraman Sami al-Haj, who works for the pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera, has been held without trial since June 2002 at the US military base at Guantanamo, and Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein has been held by US authorities in Iraq since April this year.
France (35th) slipped five places during the past year, losing 24 places overall in five years. The increase in searches of media offices and journalists' homes is very worrying for media organisations and trade unions. Autumn 2005 was an especially bad time for French journalists, several of whom were physically attacked or threatened during a trade union dispute involving privatisation of the Corsican firm SNCM and during violent demonstrations in French city suburbs in November.
Rising nationalism and the system of exclusive press clubs (kishas) threatened democratic gains in Japan, which fell 14 places to 51st. The newspaper Nihon Keizai was firebombed and several journalists physically attacked by far-right activists (uyoku).
Fallout from the row over the "Mohammed cartoons"
Denmark (19th) dropped from joint first place because of serious threats against the authors of the Mohammed cartoons published there in autumn 2005. For the first time in recent years in a country that is very observant of civil liberties, journalists had to have police protection due to threats against them because of their work.
Yemen (149th) slipped four places, mainly because of the arrest of several journalists and closure of newspapers that reprinted the cartoons. Journalists were harassed for the same reason in Algeria (126th), Jordan (109th), Indonesia (103rd) and India (105th).
But except for Yemen and Saudi Arabia (161st), all the Arab peninsula countries considerably improved their rank. Kuwait (73rd) kept its place at the top of the group, just ahead of the United Arab Emirates (77th) and Qatar (80th).
Newcomers to the top ranks
Two countries moved into the Index's top 20 for the first time. Bolivia (16th) was best-placed among less-developed countries and during the year its journalists enjoyed the same level of freedom as colleagues in Canada or Austria. But the growing polarisation between state-run and privately-owned media and between supporters and opponents of President Evo Morales could complicate the situation. Bosnia-Herzegovina (19th) continued its gradual rise up the Index since the end of the war in ex-Yugoslavia and is now placed above its European Union member-state neighbours Greece (32nd) and Italy (40th).
Ghana (34th) rose 32 places to become fourth in Africa behind the continent's three traditional leaders - Benin (23rd), Namibia (26th) and Mauritius (32nd). Economic conditions are still difficult for the Ghanaian media but it is no longer threatened by the authorities.
Panama (39th) is enjoying political peace which has helped the growth of a free and vigorous media and the country moved up 27 places over the year
For further information, contact Léonard Vincent at RSF, 5, rue Geoffroy Marie, Paris 75009, France, tel: +33 1 44 83 84 84, fax: +33 1 45 23 11 51, e-mail: africa@rsf.org, Internet: http://www.rsf.org
University of Pittsburgh School of Law Working Paper Series
University of Pittsburgh School of Law Working Paper Series
Vivian Grosswald Curran, University of Pittsburgh
ABSTRACT:
The post-Second World War trial for the crime against humanity from the start assumed pedagogical proportions, with the tribunals involved conscious that their legal verdicts would represent historical pronouncement and national values. The newly defined crime has been asked to institutionalize far more than the traditional task of adjudicating the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The trials themselves are meant to define the past, create and crystallize national memory, and illuminate the foundations of the future. I suggest that, by placing a burden on law that it is not designed to bear, we risk deforming law and legal principle. We risk creating an edifice that will not be equal to the task of memory, that will trivialize the memory it seeks to establish and fortify and, worst of all, that may betray law itself by subverting it from within.
Elena A. Baylis, University of Pittsburgh
Forthcoming in the Winter 2006 issue of the Yale Journal of International Law.
ABSTRACT:
Even as American attention is focused on Iraq’s struggles to rebuild its political and legal systems in the face of violent sectarian divisions, another fractured society – Kosovo – has just begun negotiations to resolve the question of its political independence. The persistent ethnic divisions that have obstructed Kosovo’s efforts to establish multi-ethnic “rule of law” offer lessons in transitional justice for Iraq and other states.
In Kosovo today, two parallel judicial systems each claim absolute and exclusive jurisdiction over the province. One system is sponsored by the United Nations administration in Kosovo and is mostly, although not exclusively, staffed by Kosovar Albanians. The other system, run primarily by Kosovar Serbians, is essentially a set of courts-in-exile, the remnants of the previous judicial system that existed before the Serbian government was forced out of Kosovo by NATO bombing in 1999. The parallel courts present a transitional justice issue that is as crucial to rebuilding Kosovo’s post-conflict society as convening a truth commission or conducting criminal trials. On one level, the existence of the parallel courts is a manifestation of the ongoing political dispute over sovereignty. For the residents of Kosovo, the lack of any recognition of judgments between these systems has also created legal chaos in their everyday lives. Conflicting judgments have been issued in civil cases, and criminal defendants are subject to prosecution and punishment in both systems. The palpable injustices that result from these conflicting judgments and repeated trials are undermining confidence in the ongoing process of legal and political transition.
This article undertakes an assessment of Kosovo’s parallel systems and of the existing legal models for recognition and enforcement of judgments, with the aim of proposing an appropriate framework for Kosovo to recognize the Serbian parallel judgments. In my survey of the relevant national and international models, I find that each strives to strike a balance between two competing values: (1) certainty in the finality and consistency of legal judgments and (2) ensuring those judgments’ essential fairness. Using these two values as a guide, I assess whether and how the existing models might be adapted to Kosovo’s context, concluding that the proper balance between legal certainty and fairness will permit categorical recognition of most parallel civil judgments, but will require case by case, discretionary review of criminal judgments. Finally, from this analysis, I develop a set of factors for other transitioning states to consider when faced with judgments from ethnic and religious legal institutions or other parallel courts.
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El Equipo Nizkor y Derechos Human Rights han publicado en la web la sentencia a los integrantes de la junta(s) militar(es) que rigió a Argentina de 1976 a 1983.
http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/arg/causa13/index.html
The on-line Journal for Social Science Education has just published a special issue on Human Rights Education in (http://www.jsse.org/2006-1/index.html). This issue was co-edited by Dr. Karl-Peter Fritzsche, Unesco Chair for Human Rights Education at the Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg and Felisa Tibbitts, Executive Director of Human Rights Education Associates.
Human rights education is difficult because human rights are critical by nature. Human rights education (HRE) elucidates conditions under which human rights are violated. It enables us to measure policies and actions against human rights standards. HRE is about education for taking action. In spite these difficulties, the authors of this JSSE issue show, that human rights education is becoming a powerful approach and is going to become a success story.
The issue includes ten peer reviewed articles written by colleagues who are engaged in the theory and practice of human rights education.
This issue is available online and free of charge. You are encouraged to review these articles and to pass this information along to your colleagues.
Table of contents:
Felisa Tibbitts and Peter Fritzsche: Editorial
http://www.jsse.org/2006-1/fritzsche_tibbitts_intro.htm
Gloria Ramirez: Human Rights Education before the Challenges of the Emerging Human Rights of the 21st Century
http://www.jsse.org/2006-1/ramirez_hre.htm
Nils Rosemann: The New Debate on Torture - A Challenge for Human Rights Education
http://www.jsse.org/2006-1/rosemann_torture.htm
Anja Mihr: Minority Participation - A Challenge for Human Rights Education?
http://www.jsse.org/2006-1/mihr_minorities.htm
Lothar Krappman: The Rights of the Child as a Challenge to Human Rights Education
http://www.jsse.org/2006-1/krappmann_child-rights.htm
Cristina Sganga: Human Rights Education - As a Tool for the Reform of the Police
http://www.jsse.org/2006-1/sganga_police_reform.htm
Andre Keet and Nazir Carrim: Human Rights Education and Curricular Reform in South Africa
http://www.jsse.org/2006-1/keet_carrim_s-africa.htm
Ulrike Niens, Jackie Reilly and Alan Smith: Human Rights Education as Part of the Peace Process in Northern Ireland
http://www.jsse.org/2006-1/niens_reilly_smith_ireland.htm
Malin Oud: Creative Tensions and the Legitimacy of Human Rights Education - A Dicussion on Moral, Legal and Human Rights Education in China
http://www.jsse.org/2006-1/oud_china.htm
Claudia Lohrenscheit: Dialogue and Dignity - Linking Human Rights Education with Paulo Freire's "Education for Liberation"
http://www.jsse.org/2006-1/lohrenscheit_freire.htm
Bert Verstappen: www.Hurisearch.org - A Search Engine for Human Rights Information
http://www.jsse.org/2006-1/verstappen_hurisearch.htm