Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

As the Olympic Games started in Beijing, the question of human rights in China has been already well discussed. What was interesting to me was a Guardian op-ed by Brendan O’Neill on the journalistic and activist distortions and myth created regarding the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989.  Read more 

“Many have accused the Chinese of trying to control international perceptions of Tiananmen Square – Beijing’s “blackened heart”, as one reporter describes it – and no doubt that is true. Disgracefully, the Communist party of China’s official position on the 1989 massacre is that it wasn’t a noteworthy event. Officials still refer to it as “the incident”, a shocking label for the Chinese military’s massacre of anywhere between 300 and 1,000 people on the hot, heady nights of June 3 and 4 1989.

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

It is a story that has made headlines in the UK because it involves some high-level British players, via The Guardian:

"The British mercenary Simon Mann was today sentenced to 34 years in prison for plotting to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea.

The Eton-educated former SAS officer was sentenced after a trial last month during which it was claimed that a number of western governments knew about the coup plans. The court heard that Sir Mark Thatcher, the son of the former British prime minister, was a committed member of the group.

Mann was arrested in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 2004 with dozens of mercenaries when their private plane landed. He acknowledged knowingly taking part in the attempt to topple the government, but his lawyer argued Mann was a secondary player.

The sentence is longer than expected."  Read more 

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

This really makes me happy. It’s about time too. After six years as a hostage of the FARC, Ingrid Betancourt is finally free.

 Read more 

Court rejects Exxon appeal in human rights case

Exxon Mobil Corp. has failed to convince the Supreme Court to halt a human rights lawsuit against it.

The justices, without comment, on Monday rejected the energy company’s appeal of a ruling on a 2001 lawsuit filed by International Rights Advocates on behalf of 11 villagers in Indonesia’s Aceh province.  Read more 

Bikini raids Myanmar for democracy

And so the organisers, who launched the Canadian edition of the Panties for Peace! Campaign this week, asked the women to send their undergarments to Myanmar embassy in Ottawa, to shame Myanmar’s ruling junta into giving citizens greater access to humanitarian aid and human rights.

Myanmar’s embassies in Europe, Australia and Brazil, among other places, have been receiving panties in the mail.

The campaign came about because Burmese have a superstition that if a man touches a woman’s underwear he will lose his power and Myanmar’s military junta is reportedly very superstitious

Because we could use some comic relief.

Today is May 15th,

The Universal Declaration on Human Rights

Universal Declaration of Human Rights  Read more 

Samantha Power’s book, Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World, would have received much more, and well-deserved, publicity if she had not made a stupid comment to a journalist regarding Senator Hillary Clinton. As a result, she resigned from Barack Obama’s campaign and this has probably affected her promotion of the book. It is a shame because it is indeed a fascinating book regarding the complex and frustrating internal workings of the United Nations through the prism of another fascinating figure: Sergio Vieira de Mello.  Read more 

Lynndie England, of Abu Ghraib fame, gives a lengthy interview in the German magazine Stern. England was sentenced to three years in prison for her part in the deeds there. She served 521 days and is now out on parole. How’s life for her?

“(She sighs) Oh, it’s just little things going wrong. I’m just trying to get by. Trying to find a job, trying to find a house. It’s been harder than I expected. I went to a couple of interviews, and I thought they went great. I wrote dozens of applications. Nothing came of it. I put in at Wal-Mart, at Staples. I’d do any job. But I never heard from them.”  Read more 

With simple words, a unique voice, passion and humility and good humor he offered a message of hope and honor that transcended politics and race, and more than any one person led a reconciliation between black and white that has brought real promise to end more than a century of institutionalized hate and degradation. Hone Tuwhare was Maori, an extraordinary human being, a heroic figure.  Read more 

SOMETIMES YOU WONDER if blogging is a component of Real Change, done for distraction, provided as a social experience, or is just a game. And of course, it is all these things at different times. In their better moments, blogs can affect people and their views profoundly, just as a Great Book might, when dropped into your hands on a crucial day. In a “blogswarm,” the People are given voice—the computer literate, Internet-connected, and blog-using People, that is—and companies can be informed of how many support or do not support their products and sponsored efforts. Money can be directed to politicians who in turn (at least in theory) are accountable to the views of those who sent them money.

Just recently Michelle Malkin struck a great victory against Verizon, and with her work, musical Artist Akon will no longer be represented by the corporation. She was upset with this partnership, feeling Verizon was letting its customers down by partnering with this man who held a dance contest where apparently a 14 year old girl was the winner, and to win she had to “dance like a whore.” Now, I wasn’t at the Akon concert, I don’t know his music, and I’m not trying to validate his “Freaking” (as Malkin put it), but when I see Malkin getting roused and righteous about this Verizon partnership because Akon held freaking-dance contests in many places, and one time he let an underage girl take part, I have to wonder. I have to wonder why, on her far-reaching blog, I see more venom and calls to action about that, than I did for stories such as this from CNN:  Read more