Human Rights

A Thank You from Movements.org

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The website Movements.org was launched last year as a tool to “crowdsource human rights.” It is a great idea. In the last five years or so, many crowdsourcing sites have been started and most of them are geared toward raising money for specific projects. Movements does not raise funds, but awareness.

If you know about a human rights violation and you think the world needs to know about it, you post a statement about it there in your language. Activists read about it and take it from there. On the other side, if you are an activist looking for a story that has not received much attention yet, several dozen new ones are posted each day. If you are someone who cares about human rights as an issue, as a philosophical idea, but you do not know where to begin, who to contact, or what to say, Movements.org is a fine place to start. In certain ways, it puts the human back into the phrase “human rights,” because the cases featured on the site are stories of individuals, not the usual eye-tiring and heart-saddening litany of overwhelming numbers.

Readers of this website know that I have recently featured the story of a photographer named Shawkan, who has been in prison in Egypt for two and a half years now. Today, Movements.org cited TheGadAboutTown.com in a section of the website called “Success Stories.”
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Shawkan’s Story: An Update

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

UPDATE, December 12, 2015: The court session for the photojournalist Shawkan in Egypt, which was scheduled to take place today, was postponed until February, 2016, it was reported this morning. Because he was arrested in a widespread government crackdown, his case was lumped in together with more than 700 other individuals. The size of the crowd of defendants is cited as the reason for the delay. Shawkan’s Twitter account, maintained by his supporters, reads: “The session has been postponed to 6/2/2016, due to lack of space in the dock for all the defendants to stand in !!!! #FreeShawkan” (The Tweet itself appears below the fold.)
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Raif Badawi: A Cloud of Uncertainty

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

UPDATED at 11:00 p.m. EST, December 11: A second source reports that a confirmation has been received that Raif Badawi has indeed started a hunger strike, which emphasizes the point made in the article that follows: that the Raif Badawi story is a fluid one, changing moment by moment. The article was published at 10:00 p.m. and one hour later, an update was required. Because it describes the many open questions and pressing concerns about Raif Badawi’s situation as it stands right now, I am publishing the article as it was, here:

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The international media on Thursday picked up the story that Raif Badawi started a hunger strike last week while in prison. Every publication that has covered this unfolding case, from The Guardian to The Gad About Town, quoted or paraphrased a statement that Badawi, the young Saudi blogger who was found guilty of “insulting Islam” and sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1000 lashes with a cane, was moved to a different prison with no explanation offered by authorities, and that he has started a hunger strike.

The Guardian reported that Amnesty International has not yet confirmed the hunger strike, and this lack of a confirmation is important to note. Not one publication, not Amnesty International nor the team of activists that has been assembled around this story, has been able to confirm the validity of the purported hunger strike. This is the second time that a hunger strike by Raif Badawi has been rumored. It is quite possible that this particular story, because it often draws sympathy from the public, is being used by someone to manipulate the media and those activists. In which direction and to what end are two of several remaining questions.

Each Friday, those who closely follow the Badawi case wait for a confirmation that Raif Badawi was seen among those being publicly punished—or if he was not seen among those prisoners. Ever since that terrible day, January 9, 2015, in which Badawi was seen and even recorded being flogged, his absence among prisoners being punished has been noted and reported. Each Friday from January 16 on, the report that Raif Badawi was not flogged has been usually published online by an Amnesty International-vetted source. None of these sources, more than 15 as of this writing, reported or could confirm that Raif Badawi has begun a hunger strike.

The story is more complicated than the media is allowing itself to present it. It always has been.
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