MEDIA ROOTS- The vast majority of the world is unaware of the existence of a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration was drafted after the atrocities of WWII and was the first global declaration of rights to which all human beings are inherently endowed. Its 30 articles have since served as the basis for numerous human rights treaties and laws. This is a beautiful video rendition of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the Human Rights Action Center. 

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Created by Seth Brau, Produced by Amy Poncher, Music by Rumspringa courtesy Cantora Records

PREAMBLE

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,

Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,

Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,

Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

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Read the articles within the Universal of Human Rights, and learn more about Article 19 in particular, the article that stresses the universal right to communicate without barriers.

MEDIA ROOTS- In 2007, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles stated that Troy Davis, a man charged with killing a police officer in 1991, would never be put to death unless there was “no doubt” of his guilt. Despite a cloud of uncertainty surrounding the case and a lack of hard evidence linking him to the actual killing, Troy Davis was executed last night by lethal injection at 11:08 EST while the world watched in horror. 

No matter what opinion one holds on the death penalty, it is worth noting that over 130 people on death row have been exonerated through DNA evidence that proved their wrongful convictions. Taking that statistic into consideration, it’s likely that people have already been put to death by the state who were not guilty of their crime.

Besides the disturbing fact that innocent people have been placed on death row before, the death penalty judicial process is extremely costly to taxpayers. In CA, taxpayers pay $90,000 more annually per death row prisoner than those regularly incarcerated. Furthermore, the appeals process usually takes decades to complete while death row inmates are held in conditions tantamount to solitary confinement.

Personally, I don’t support the death penalty. There is no ‘humane’ way to kill someone, and I think the process of executing a prisoner by any means is barbaric– especially in front of an audience. More importantly, I would rather have a murderer live out the rest of their life than to risk (literally) sponsoring the murder of one innocent person.

The murder of an alleged killer might be a gratifying moment of closure for the victim’s family members, but it will never fill the void left from losing a loved one. Instead, it will only fuel a vicious cycle of vengeance and hate.

Abby Martin

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For those who think the execution was justified, read the following reasons why the case wasn’t cut and dry via THE GUARDIAN:

1. Of the nine witnesses who appeared at Davis’s 1991 trial who said they had seen Davis beating up a homeless man in a dispute over a bottle of beer and then shooting to death a police officer, Mark MacPhail, who was acting as a good samaritan, seven have since recanted their evidence.

2. One of those who recanted, Antoine Williams, subsequently revealed they had no idea who shot the officer and that they were illiterate – meaning they could not read the police statements that they had signed at the time of the murder in 1989. Others said they had falsely testified that they had overheard Davis confess to the murder.

3. Many of those who retracted their evidence said that they had been cajoled by police into testifying against Davis. Some said they had been threatened with being put on trial themselves if they did not co-operate.

4. Of the two of the nine key witnesses who have not changed their story publicly, one has kept silent for the past 20 years and refuses to talk, and the other is Sylvester Coles. Coles was the man who first came forward to police and implicated Davis as the killer. But over the past 20 years evidence has grown that Coles himself may be the gunman and that he was fingering Davis to save his own skin.

5. In total, nine people have come forward with evidence that implicates Coles. Most recently, on Monday the George Board of Pardons and Paroles heard from Quiana Glover who told the panel that in June 2009 she had heard Coles, who had been drinking heavily, confess to the murder of MacPhail.

6. Apart from the witness evidence, most of which has since been cast into doubt, there was no forensic evidence gathered that links Davis to the killing.

7. In particular, there is no DNA evidence of any sort. The human rights group the Constitution Project points out that three-quarters of those prisoners who have been exonerated and declared innocent in the US were convicted at least in part on the basis of faulty eyewitness testimony.

8. No gun was ever found connected to the murder. Coles later admitted that he owned the same type of .38-calibre gun that had delivered the fatal bullets, but that he had given it away to another man earlier on the night of the shooting.

9. Higher courts in the US have repeatedly refused to grant Davis a retrial on the grounds that he had failed to “prove his innocence”. His supporters counter that where the ultimate penalty is at stake, it should be for the courts to be beyond any reasonable doubt of his guilt.

10. Even if you set aside the issue of Davis’s innocence or guilt, the manner of his execution tonight is cruel and unnatural. If the execution goes ahead as expected, it would be the fourth scheduled execution date for this prisoner. In 2008 he was given a stay just 90 minutes before he was set to die. Experts in death row say such multiple experiences with imminent death is tantamount to torture.

© 2011 Guardian

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DEMOCRACY NOW– Troy Anthony Davis was killed by lethal injection by the state of Georgia at At 11:08 p.m. EDT despite widespread doubts about his guilt. The execution occurred shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to stop the execution. Democracy Now! was the only news outlet to continuously broadcast live from the prison grounds last night where hundreds of supporters Troy Davis held an all-day vigil in Jackson, Ga.

Today we hear the voices of Troy Davis’ sister Martina Correia, hip-hop artist Big Boi, NAACP President Benjamin Jealous, Ed DuBose of the Georgia chapter of the NAACP, two members of the Troy Davis legal team, and more. We also hear from journalist Jon Lewis, a witness to the execution: “[Davis] said to the family [of slain police officer Mark MacPhail] that he was sorry for their loss, but also said that he did not take their son, father, brother. He said to them to dig deeper into this case, to find out the truth. And then he said to the prison staff — the ones he said, ‘who are going to take my life,’ — he said to them, ‘may God have mercy on your souls,’ and his last words were to them, ‘may God bless your souls.'”

Democracy Now Special Report on Troy Davis Execution: Did Georgia Kill an Innocent Man? 1/2

Democracy Now Special Report on Troy Davis Execution: Did Georgia Kill an Innocent Man? 2/2

Russia Today covers the outrage surrounding Troy Davis’s death on the day of his execution.

More information about abolishing the death penalty: http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty

Photo by Flickr user 4WardEverUK 

MEDIA ROOTS- John Dau is one of Sudan’s Lost Boys, a group of more than 20,000 boys who escaped the genocide during the Sudanese Civil War, where 2.5 million Southern Sudanese were killed and millions of others were displaced. John gives Media Roots a moving account of his escape, his life growing up in the refugee camps, his experience coming to America for the first time and his work with the John Dau Foundation, where he established the first comprehensive & sustainable community medical clinic in his home village of Duk Payuel.

 Interview with John Dau conducted, produced and edited by Abby Martin 

Trailer for National Geographic’s award winning documentary called ‘God Grew Tired of Us’, based on John Dau’s story. Check out more about the film at http://www.godgrewtiredofus.com/

Learn more about the John Dau Foundation and how to help at http://johndaufoundation.org/

MEDIA ROOTS- Perhaps one of the most abhorrent aspects of US foreign policy in the 21st century is the privatization of the US military and the government’s outsourcing of military jobs to corrupt war contractors.

Despite Obama’s early campaign rhetoric about scaling down the use of contractors, he has increased their presence– they now make up approximately 50% of the total military force in both Afghanistan and Iraq.  

Military contractors are murderous thugs-for-hire who act above the law and hold zero allegiance to any constitutional body. Blackwater’s sordid slew of contemptuous behavior and criminal actions during the Iraq war might have cast a negative light upon them, but it didn’t stop the Obama administration from awarding their criminality with a quarter billion dollar contract to continue working in US war zones.

This unaccountability for criminal acts is not unique to Blackwater. Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) is a private security company that employs more US private contractors and holds larger contracts with the US government than any other firm in Iraq.

In 2007, a KBR employee named Jamie Leigh Jones claimed that she was gang raped by multiple KBR workers at a camp in Iraq’s Green Zone. After she reported the rape, she was reportedly locked in a shipping container and threatened with her job if she took further action. Appallingly, KBR has turned the case around and is now suing Jones for making “frivolous claims”, demanding $2 million in damages.

“They have beaten us and now they are attempting to crush us,” her lawyer, Todd Kelly, told the Wall Street Journal. “This is an attempt by KBR to chill other people from bringing claims against them.”

It’s shameful that these corporations have essentially no oversight from the US government– the Crime Victims Office at the Department of Justice was unable to investigate the incident because of a lack of jurisdiction over private contractors in Iraq.

Now it’s Jones’s word against KBR, and it doesn’t look like she has much of a chance to win against the monolithic corporation. Let’s just hope she can walk away without having given them a dime.

Written by Abby Martin

Photo by flickr user wenews

AMG– Award winning documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy explores the human and political consequences of one of the most bitter scandals of the war in Iraq in this feature. In the 1960’s, a prison was built in Abu Ghraib, an Iraqi city west of Baghdad, and during the regime of Saddam Hussein it became a center of torture and abuse where political dissidents were subjected to agonizing punishment or death.

Following the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003, the prison was taken over by American military authorities, and was used as a holding facility for prisoners of war and suspected terrorists captured by U.S. forces. The prison’s reputation as a site of widespread abuse rose again when journalists discovered photographs of Iraqi prisoners being tortured and humiliated in an ugly variety of ways by American soldiers, a scandal which had a major impact on international thinking about the war. Ghosts of Abu Ghraib offers an in-depth look at the story behind the abuse of Iraqi prisoners, featuring interviews with observers on both sides of the national divide.

HBO Film, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib

© 2007 HBO