No more solidarity?

Remember the Solidarity movement?
It might still apply to labor, but not to immigration, at least here in France. When I first moved here in the late 1980s, I learned about the délit de faciés ("facial crime," refers to being treated as a criminal because of what you look like). Now there's the délit de solidarité (crime of solidarity), which you commit by helping those who might well find themselves targets of police suspicion because of their looks, i.e., foreigners. Immigrants. More specifically, the so-called délit de solidarité is the offense of providing aid to illegal immigrants. While the minister in charge of immigration denies any such délit exists, the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) has just issued a report of the results of an international investigation it organized with the help of the World Organisation Against Torture into the French authorities' treatment of those who help persons whose immigration situation is not "regular." The investigation followed the alarm raised by the French League of Human Rights (LDH) regarding the increasing number of members of associations as well as ordinary citizens taken into police custody because they provided social, legal or humanitarian assistance to foreigners in an "irregular" situation (papers not valid or no papers at all).
A news announcement this week cited the case of a woman who took in a 15-year-old Afghan boy to keep him off the streets. She was arrested under the statute (which dates from 1945) that prohibits providing aid with the aim of helping a clandestine live in France. It applies to people who provide false papers, enter into phony marriages, or otherwise make a conscious, concerted attempt to circumvent the law. Offering food, shelter, or even legal advice to people in need is not quite the same thing. Arresting people for doing so is, however, in keeping with the approach of the administration of President Nicolas Sarkozy (right) to immigration and asylum law. (photo credit)
For example, the French government recently passed a law that, through a simple change in wording, now limits the legal aid given to persons in detention centers to legal "information," rather than "aid" or "counsel." This administration clearly doesn't want even the approved associations dealing with immigrants and asylum seekers to help them establish their right to be here. In addition to further limiting the possibility that those in need of legal advice will get it, the délit de solidarité helps ensure that countless sans papiers (people "without papers"), trafficked individuals, etc., won't receive the humanitarian aid they need either. This is contrary to French law: not helping someone who is in danger is also a délit.

5 Women Buried Alive in Pakistan

The honor killing six weeks ago in Baluchistan province (flag at left) of 3 young women intending to marry men of their choice and 2 older female relatives has sparked widespread protest and a political dispute as to the propriety of the practice. The French human rights group International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) reports that the 5 women were kidnapped by several men who beat and shot the young women, then, though they were still breathing, buried them under earth and stones. Because they tried to intervene, the 2 older women were also buried alive (no one seems to know what's happened to the 3 bridegrooms). The kidnappers reportedly drove a vehicle with a provincial government license plate and included a brother of the Baluchistan housing minister, who is a member of the Pakistan Peoples Party (Benazir Bhutto's party). When Yasmeen Shah, an opposition senator, accused the government of ignoring and perhaps covering up the incident (because Baluchistan's support was important for the party in the recent presidential elections that put Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, in power), a senator from the province interrupted her, defending honor killings as a local norm and claiming they should "not be highlighted negatively." While the public outcry has produced governmental support for a Senate resolution condemning the killings and an inquest, the Interior Ministry doesn't seem convinced of the motive: a senior ministry official was quoted as saying he thinks the killings result from a land dispute and expects the inquest to be finished within a week.
In 2004, Pakistan outlawed honor killings, making them a capital crime. But critics warned then that the law was weak and rights groups say that it is ineffective: hundreds of women are killed every year in Pakistan in the name of honor, though few are the killings that are reported or properly investigated. The problem is not limited to Pakistan, of course. The International Campaign Against Honour Killings reports that, like the woman in the photo destined to be stoned to death (photo credit):

"Over 5000 women and girls are killed every year by family members in so-called "honour killings," according to the UN . These crimes occur where cultures believe that a woman's unsanctioned sexual behaviour brings such shame on the family than any female accused or suspected must be murdered. Reasons for these murders can be as trivial as talking to a man, or as innocent as suffering rape."

The phrase "where cultures believe" is misleading, however. For one thing, when people move, cultures move, and migrants have brought so-called honor killings to the United States and countries in Western Europe, where, as we've posted here and here, some judges are having trouble distinguishing between respecting cultural traditions/religious freedom and condoning violence against women. Moreover, as the Magdalene Sisters and perhaps even the upcoming marriage of VP nominee Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter reveal, none of us can be complacent with respect to our own "cultural practices" that punish women for their sexuality.

U.N. rapporteurs no longer so special?

The Human Rights Council this week stoked the controversy that's surrounded it since its founding in 2006.
The Council supplanted the Human Rights Commission -- a six-decades-old body that critics contended had become too political and, more to the point, too beholden to the politics of countries not themselves known for compliance with international human rights norms. Yet on many fronts human rights reform has not accompanied this re-forming of the U.N.'s human rights apparatus.
Not only has the Council concentrated on Israel to the exclusion of other countries, but it, like its predecessor, has included many human rights transgressors. Indeed, transgressors' sway may have increased, given the decision of the United States not to seek a seat on the Council. (Some surmise the the United States refused to run after counting noses and realizing that, on account of its own post-9/11 behavior, it might not win were it in fact to campaign for a seat.)
Add now yesterday's news of what Le Monde calls "a new breach in the system of 'special rapporteurs' inherited from the former Commission." On Thursday, Le Monde wrote,

under the pressure of the African group, and with the support of the Islamic Conference, China, and Russia, the Council proclaimed -- 'by consensus' -- the nonrenewal of the mandate of the 'special rapporteur' on the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly, Zaïre), a country where human rights violates continue to be massive.

Congo thus joined Cuba and Belarus as countries who've been freed of Special Rapporteur investigations in 2 years, and adds fuel to concerns that most such mandates soon will disappear. Julie Gromellon of the Fédération internationale des droits de l'homme (FIDH) decried the notion that notion that a "thematic rapporteur" would do the job of the country-based expert, while Juliette de Rivero of Human Rights Watch issued this warning:

The Human Rights Council put politics before people by deciding not to renew the expert mandate on the Congo. Downgrading the council's work in Congo despite the recent rapes and killings is inexplicable and could have tragic consequences.