Blog of Rights

Nahal
Zamani

20 Years of Neglecting Children's Rights

By Nahal Zamani, Human Rights Program at 5:40pm

This coming Friday marks the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most comprehensive treaty on children’s rights. The convention has been ratified by nearly every country in the world, except for the United States. The convention would fill current gaps in U.S. laws, and provide all children in America with the same robust protections that children in 193 countries are already entitled to.

A Year in Human Rights Achievements

By Nahal Zamani, Human Rights Program at 2:11pm

Since 2004, the ACLU Human Rights Program (along with other ACLU national projects, our legislative office in D.C. and affiliate offices across the country) has worked to ensure that the U.S. government complies with its international human rights obligations and commitments.

The ACLU Human Rights Program turned five earlier in 2009. To mark the occasion, we thought we'd share with you just a few of our accomplishments from this past year.

Just this month, a panel of 11 judges from the 9th Circuit Court of  Appeals heard the government's appeal of an earlier ruling in April that allowed our lawsuit on behalf of rendition victims against Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen DataPlan, Inc. to proceed. We're also part of a class action lawsuit on behalf of workers trafficked to the U.S. from India to work in shipyards after Hurricane Katrina.

Obama Administration Must Abandon Force-Feeding at Gitmo

By Nahal Zamani, Human Rights Program at 1:48pm

The medical professionals worked to strap the detainee "into a chair, Velcro his head to a metal restraint, then tether a tube into the man's stomach through his nose to pump in liquid nourishment twice a day."

After the Miami Herald wrote about the 30 hunger striking detainees in the Guantánamo Bay detention camps in January, we were concerned. We wrote an urgent letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates to bring his attention to the cruel, inhuman, degrading and unlawful treatment of the 30 hunger striking detainees. In that letter, we pointed out that hunger strikes were indications of a larger problem concerning the conditions of confinement at the detention camp. A week later, Amnesty International, Human Rights First and Human Rights Watch joined us in writing to President Obama requesting full access to the detention facility at Guantánamo to independently examine and report on conditions of confinement. We still have not received an answer to our request.

When President Obama issued an executive order calling on the Department of Defense (DOD) to investigate conditions of confinement at Guantánamo and whether they conformed to Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and to "other applicable laws," we hoped that the DOD report would shed some light on the actual conditions at the camp and the role of medical personnel during interrogations and forced feedings.

One month later, the DOD report came out and the DOD – unsurprisingly, since the DOD was policing itself – claimed that conditions at Gitmo were in compliance with the Geneva Conventions. We knew this was a total whitewash, and that a real independent assessment would be necessary to ascertain the actual conditions at Guantánamo.

Human Dignity for People with Disabilities

By Nahal Zamani, Human Rights Program at 5:23pm

(Originally posted on FDL's The Seminal.)

December 3 marked the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, a day where we mobilize support for the dignity, rights and well-being of persons with disabilities. To mark the occasion, we're taking the opportunity to look at the past year and see how we're faring in light of the anniversary.

Profile-Me-Not

By Nahal Zamani, Human Rights Program at 3:53pm

In a letter to the Obama administration made public today, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) expressed concerns over a lack of progress to end racial discrimination in the United States. In particular, the letter urged the Obama administration and Congress to do more to end racial profiling, like passing the End Racial Profiling Act and reconsidering the 287(g) program. Monday's announcement that the federal government will investigate allegations of bias against Latino crime victims by police in Suffolk County, New York is an encouraging step, though there is plenty more to be done.

A Lesson from Bollywood: Time for America to Ban Racial Profiling

By Nahal Zamani, Human Rights Program at 4:55pm

You might have heard about Shahrukh Khan, the Bollywood megastar who was pulled out of a security line and questioned and detained for over 1 1/2 hours by Customs and Border Protection authorities at Newark airport, apparently because of his Muslim name. Khan, who is adored around the world, has an estimated fan base of 3.5 billion people and is a symbol of Indian national pride, was on his way to Indian Independence Day events in Chicago. News of his experience at Newark set off international protests. What made the incident particularly poignant was the fact that Khan had just finished filming My Name is Khan, a movie that deals with post 9/11 discrimination against Muslims in the United States. What a strange coincidence.

On the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Let's Demand Pencils, Not Prison

By Nahal Zamani, Human Rights Program at 11:19am

Consider this set of facts, courtesy of the Pew Center on the States: between 1987 and 2007, state spending on corrections rose by a whopping 127 percent. During that same time period, spending on higher education increased by a mere 21 percent; in some states, higher education spending actually decreased while corrections spending increased.

Where are our country's priorities? Spending such large amounts on incarceration leaves less in the pot for other critical goals, like educating our nation's youth. Far too many young people are trapped in under-resourced public schools, plagued by inadequate resources — a lack of quali­fied teachers, counselors, special edu­cation services, and even textbooks — and the prioritization of discipline over instruction. Overly broad zero tolerance policies and an increased use of police in schools have criminalized a wide variety of behaviors previously dealt with by teachers and principals, and funneled countless youth out of classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems — a phenomenon advocates have termed the "school-to-prison pipeline."

Youth of color are hit particularly hard by this divestment in education and over-reliance on discipline, harsh punishment and incarceration. Indeed, when African-American and white youth misbehave in school, the African-American students are far more likely than their white peers to be suspended, expelled, or arrested for the same kind of conduct. This over-criminalization extends to the justice system, where youth and adults of color are arrested, detained and incarcerated at disproportionate rates.

Now — in the midst of our economic tailspin — is our opportunity to do things differently, to rebuild our communities according to more equitable principles and a respect for human rights.

Expanding Opportunity and Hope for Children in America

By Nahal Zamani, Human Rights Program at 3:17pm

(Originally posted in Daily Kos.)

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most comprehensive treaty on children’s rights. The convention has been ratified by nearly every country in the world, except for the United States. The convention would fill current gaps in U.S. laws, and provide all children in America with the same robust protections that children in 193 countries are already entitled to.

World Day Against the Death Penalty

By Nahal Zamani, Human Rights Program at 2:42pm

Tomorrow marks World Day Against the Death Penalty, and it is only fitting that a global call was issued to abolish the practice. We join the ambassadors of the European Union (EU) who gathered today to call on all nations to abolish the cruel practice.

Ambassador John Bruton, the head of EU delegation to the U.S., stated: "The EU not only considers capital punishment to be cruel and inhumane, but it also fails to deter criminal behavior and represents an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity. Miscarriages of justice are inevitable in any legal system – and any miscarriage of justice that results in the death penalty is irreversible."

Obama Administration to Sign the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

By Nahal Zamani, Human Rights Program at 5:56pm

Great news! Today, on the 19th anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, President Obama announced that his administration will be signing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in a ceremony to be held at the United Nations headquarters in New York next week. The CRPD is the first comprehensive human rights treaty adopted in the 21st century with extraordinary input by people with dis­abilities and progressively promotes their human rights.

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