Apologies for the lack of updates– the past two weeks have been a whirlwind of activity!

I recently wrote a guest post for the WITNESS blog entitled, “Building a Network for Human Rights Archives and Archivists”:  http://archive.witness.org/2009/10/28/building-a-network-for-human-rights-archives-and-archivists/

“In recent years, archival institutions and organizations have become increasingly concerned with issues regarding human rights records and archival collections. Questions of access, privacy, politics, trust, and ensuring the safety of those documenting abuses and potentially controversial records all impact archivists working with human rights collections. Furthermore, the difficult subject matter contained in records of human rights abuses may require additional support for processing archivists who must confront images and accounts of atrocities daily.”

Read more at  http://archive.witness.org/2009/10/28/building-a-network-for-human-rights-archives-and-archivists/

The WITNESS Hub blog posted an EXCELLENT blog post earlier this week with a spotlight on human rights archives:  http://hub.witness.org/ArchivesHumanRights

From the post:

“October 27th marks World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, started in 2005 by UNESCO in order to help “build global awareness of the various issues at stake in preserving audiovisual heritage.” Not so long ago, this lack of awareness almost resulted in the loss of the last remaining video documentation of Neil Armstrong’s historic moon landing. Deterioration and loss due to time, handling, improper storage, and poor documentation continue to threaten much of the world’s moving image heritage.

Among these irreplaceable materials are collections devoted to human rights. The recently released “Right to Truth” document from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights asserts that “the recognition that archives and archivists play a central role in undergirding human rights has grown over the last decade.” Human rights archives are increasingly playing a pivotal role in advocacy, restorative justice, historical memory, and struggles against impunity. And audiovisual documentation – which must be preserved – has become a key component of human rights campaigns.

Below you will find resources, tools, videos, and information on both human rights on archives and archiving. We hope it will be a resource for archivists, activists, or anyone seeking to learn more about these topics.”

Read more at http://hub.witness.org/ArchivesHumanRights

 

 

World-renowned artist and filmmaker Alfredo Jaar will be giving a presentation about his art and career at the Dodd Research Center in Konover Auditorium at 1:00pm on Wednesday, October 21st.   Jaar, a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award will be creating a new human rights installation in March 2010 at the Contemporary Art Galleries at the University of Connecticut.  

Jaar’s films and art installations explore world events such as genocides, epidemics, and famines. His work bears witness to military conflicts, political corruption, and imbalances of power between industrialized and developing nations. Subjects addressed include the holocaust in Rwanda, gold mining in Brazil, toxic pollution in Nigeria, and issues related to the border between Mexico and the United States.  Jaar’s Many awards, including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award; a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award; and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts ; and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Jaar’s talk is being cosponsored by the University of Connecticut’s Department of Art and Art History and Human Right Institute.  Catalogs of Jaar’s work are available at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center.

Please join the Human Rights Institute and the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center for the October film for the 2009-2010 Human Rights Film Series: Human Rights in the USA.

 Film:  “The Least of These” (2009)
Directed by Clark and Jesse Lyda

Tuesday, October 13, 2009
4:00 pm, Konover Auditorium
Thomas J. Dodd Research Center

The Least of These offers a look at one of the most controversial aspects of American immigration policy:  family detention.  

The detention of immigrant children inside the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, a former medium-security prison in Texas now operated by a private corporation leads to controversy when three activist attorneys discover troubling conditions at the facility, as families await asylum hearings or deportation proceedings.  This compelling documentary film explores the role – and limits – of community activism, and considers how American rights and values apply to the least powerful among us.

The film series is being held in conjunction with the Human Rights in the USA Conference, October 22-24, 2009.  The full film series schedule and downloadable poster is available on the Dodd Research Center’s website.

Newspaper clipping about the death of South African photographer, Abdul Shariff in 1994. (Impact Visuals Photograph Collection, Thomas J. Dodd Research Center)

Abdul Shariff, a South African photojournalist, was shot in the back and killed while photographing an African National Congress delegation visit to Katlehong, South Africa, on January 9, 1994. Shariff was 31.

A member of the Impact Visuals co-operative, Shariff was hit by fire from a hostel occupied by Inkatha supporters and apparently directed at Cyril Ramaphosa and Joe Slovo, according to an obituary from the Southern African Report (SAR). 

Shariff, a free-lance photographer on assignment for the AP, was in a crowd of journalists surrounding the dignitaries on the muddy dirt road when young men carrying AK-47 automatic rifles began shooting from the narrow paths between houses. Shariff attempted to run across a small clearing – maybe for a better view. Witnesses said he was killed by a single shot in the back. The bullet apparently went through his body and dented the Nikon F4 camera hanging around his neck. Shariff was born in Verulam in the South African state of Natal. He became a news photographer after studying at the University of Natal-Pietermaritzburg.

Shariff was known for documenting the violence and oppression of apartheid, often focusing on the perspective of township residents and black workers. He had worked for Impact Visuals for three years, originally as part of the photo collective Afrapix. From his early documentary projects for activist student publications, the Natal Indian Congress and the UDF, Shariff’s photography in the last few years has appeared regularly in South Africa, Europe, Canada and the US, in major news publications that include The Weekly Mail, Der Spiegel, Newsweek and the New York Times, as well as our own. “I see my pictures contributing to the documentation of our history,” he wrote shortly before his death. Shariff had fought against apartheid all his life, starting with the student political movement while in high school, where he was a coordinator of the nationwide school boycotts.

Photographs and correspondence to and from Shariff documenting his work for Afrapix are open to researchers as part of the Impact Visuals Photograph Collection at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center.

Join us on October 5 at 11 AM, as we award the fourth Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Dangerous Assignments, the newsletter for the Committee to Protect Journalists. From the Laurie S. Wiseberg and Harry Scoble Human Rights Internet Collection at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center.

On October 5, 2009, the fourth Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights will be presented to The Committee to Protect Journalists.  The ceremony will take place on the plaza of the Dodd Research Center at 11 AM.   

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) works to promote press freedom worldwide.  CPJ takes action when journalists are censored, jailed, kidnapped, or killed for their efforts to tell the truth.  In their defense of journalists, CPJ protects the right of all people to have access to diverse and independent sources of information. CPJ has been a leading voice in the global press freedom movement since its founding in 1981. 

CPJ’s staff of experienced journalists and human rights researchers investigates press freedom abuses in more than 120 countries, from authoritarian regimes like Cuba and Burma to fragmented states like Iraq and Somalia. They respond to attacks against the press through five regional programs: Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Central Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa.

In 2008, CPJ carried out research and advocacy missions in Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Venezuela, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, Egypt, Iraq, Tunisia, Burma, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Mozambique, and South Africa.  CPJ runs an International Program Network with five consultants based around the world: in Mexico City, São Paolo, Cairo, Johannesburg, and Bangkok.  IPN staffers conduct on-the-spot investigations into serious abuses, organize emergency missions, and provide direct support to journalists who have suffered violence and incarceration.

The fourth biennial Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights will be awarded to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) at a ceremony on UConn’s Storrs campus Monday, October 5.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization founded in 1981 that promotes press freedom worldwide by defending the rights of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal.

The ceremony will take place at 11:00am on the plaza of the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. Joel Simon, the executive director of CPJ, will accept the award on behalf of the organization. Featured speakers will also include Senator Christopher J. Dodd; Mariane Pearl, wife of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl; and UConn President Michael Hogan.

For more information, please see the Dodd Prize website

Please join us for a lecture by Carlos Buitrago Ortiz of the University of Puerto Rico

“Views from the Periphery: Immigrants Experiences from the Perspectives of Indigenous Women in Chiapas”

Thursday, September 24, 2009
4:00 pm
Class of 1947 Room
Homer Babbidge Library
University of Connecticut, Storrs

Using ethnography techniques and interviews, Professor Carlos Buitrago Ortiz of the University of Puerto Rico, will explore the impact of internal migration from the Chiapas Highlands to the urban lowlands of San Cristobal de Las Casas on indigenous women. This is contrasted to previous migratory movements such as the Puerto Rican internal migration of the 1940s.

Refreshments will be served.

Today is the ninth International Day of Peace, as a day of global ceasefire and non-violence, an invitation to all nations and people to honour a cessation of hostilities during the International Day of Peace.

The UN website for the International Day of Peace has information about peacebuilding events and news, and ways you can get involved.

Human Rights Education Associates (HREA) has a resource guide for the International Day of Peace, with links and learning materials for educators and students. 

Peace One Day, created by filmmaker Jeremy Gilley, is also celebrating the day, with ways you can take action, and information about his documentary film, The Day After Peace. 

In the words of Albert Einstein, ”Peace cannot be kept by force.  It can only be acheived by understanding.”

This post is the first of a series  which will be written by interns working with the Human Rights Collections here at the Dodd Research Center.

 

About 40 years ago, a concept meaning ‘change of attitude,’ was first introduced to the body of the University of Connecticut: Metanoia.  Nine years later, in 1979, a day of Metanoia was called by the University students in the name of “Violence in the Community.”  It was a conscientious response of the community to both the brutal sexual assault of a graduate student and incidents of racist violence on campus.

After experiencing multiple sexual assaults in the community last year, students, once again, called for the Metanoia. It is not just another chance to learn more about violence against women, but to critically reflect on; actively engage in dialogue about; and ultimately to prevent it. Since the 1979 Metanoia, many meaningful programs and services have been created in our community to intervene violence against women. As we look back on past thirty years, intervention alone is not enough. The 2009 Metanoia challenges us as a community to delve into and prevent violence against women.

To echo the purpose of the 2009 Metanoia, a subject guide on human rights publications and unpublished manuscript mateirals on violence against women at the Human Rights and Alternative Press Collections at the Dodd Research Center will soon be available for teaching and learning on the UConn Libraries website. I will also create a weekly blog post to update my discoveries on relevant materials.

The 2009 Metanoia will be held on the week of October 4th. It includes keynote speakers, panel discussions, in-class activities, arts, poetry, films, student co-curricular activities, and more, in collaboration with all UConn regional campuses, the Schools of Social Work, Law, and Medicine.

For more information, please visit www.metanoia.uconn.edu.

Hoin
Human Rights Intern

July 5, 2009

In Rwaza, there was a sign on the town hall.  The only words I recognized were “Murakoza Neza a Rwaza” (Welcome to Rwaza) and jenoside, spelled in contrasting red letters.  I took a photo of the sign, as well as  another along side the road.  Shops and houses too along the road we took back to Kigali from Musanze had messages about the genocide stenciled on to them, near the roof, the same message over and over.  The word jenoside was often painted in red, to accentuate the bloody meaning behind it. 

Last night, I showed my host sister my photos from the trip and asked if she would translate the signs for me, which she did:

Welcome to the Rwaza district.  You are welcome here.  The people love you.   May you stop thinking the genocide ideology.   

and

Be at home, be peaceful.  May you stop thinking the genocide ideology.  Let’s have peace and reconciliation.

I haven’t seen signs like this anywhere else in Rwanda so far.

The concept of dignity plays a major role in Rwandan society today.  Dignity is everywhere– in speeches at the Liberation Day celebration, on signs and billboards, and  in every conversation it seems.  Respect for human dignity.  It’s reassuring that the government recognizes that human dignity had been lost, and has been working so hard to restore that.  The main principles of human rights here are dignity, justice, and equality.  It’s an interesting way of framing things.  From my conversations with the Rwandan delegates, when asked which human right most mattered to them, the answer was invariably, the right to life, and the right to education.  Thse seem to be the rights which have most egregiously been ignored here.  It’s interesting though, because the right to life here means something very different than the right to life in US dialog.  Here it means the right to live and not be killed by your neighbor.  In the US, the right to life is more of an abortion/euthanasia concern.  Aside from some of the roughest urban areas, most people in the US don’t have to wonder if they will survive the violence around them to see the next day. 

The other thing that I find really striking here is the emphasis on progress and moving forward.  There is an enormous push to have the latest technology.  Most everyone– aside from the absolute poorest– has a cell phone (many people have more than one) and texting is the main form of communication.  My friend Sarah’s host family didn’t have running water, but they did have an incredible entertainment system– television, stereo, laptop– and her host sister had seen every episode of Lost and 24.  Which is more than I can say, having never watched either of those shows myself.  The technology is here, but the basic infrastructure is not.