El proyecto educativo como signo de formación.
DEL CONSEJO ACADEMICO
1.0 Introduction 2.0 Objectives 3.0 Main Content
3.1 Human Rights Violations at the International Level 3.2 Human Rights Violations at the State Level
3.3 Conclusion 3.4 Summary
3.5 Tutor-Marked Assignment 4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment 7.0 References/Further Reading
1.0 INTRODUCTION
This unit discusses human rights violations at both international and state levels and presents human rights violations as indeed a very serious problem to human rights operations. This will be clearer as you go through the unit.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
At the end of this unit, you should be able to:
• identify human rights violations as a very serious problem to
• discuss efforts made to create awareness for effective resistance.
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Human Rights Violations at the International Level
Let us briefly look at the violations of human rights at the international level especially how it occurs, and the preventive measures put in place to check further occurrences. Readings into human rights literature reveal that human rights violations occur at the international level when any state or non-state actor breaches any part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) treaty or other international human rights or humanitarian laws.
Given this, you should remember that I have explained the term non- state actors in a previous unit in this course material and again it
represents very powerful countries and multinational companies that can manipulate persons or groups’ rights on the globe.
Beyond this, Christian Davenport at the University of Maryland, United States, gives us some examples of these factors of human rights violations at the international level. And according to him, they include:
a. War of aggression b. War crimes
c. Trade violations, and
d. Crimes against humanity, including genocides.
These he says are breaches of international humanitarian law and he concludes that they represent the most serious of human rights violations.
We should note that such breaches as mentioned by Davenport are monitored by the United Nations Committees, national institutions, and governments and by many independent non-governmental organizations such as:
- World Organization against Torture - Freedom House
- International Freedom of Expression Exchange - Amnesty International
- Human Rights Watch, and
- Anti-Slavery International Wars of Aggression War crimes
Research has shown that these organizations collect evidence of human right violations anywhere in the world and apply pressure to enforce human rights laws. In addition they seek the attention of Article 39 of the United Nations Charter that designates the UN Security Council as the only tribunal that determines UN human rights violations.
International human rights violation could also occur when a government closes a geographical region to journalists. This indeed raises suspicions of human right violations.
Recently Chechnia in Russia, Jaffna in Sri Lanka, Myanmar in Burima, Papua in Indonesia, Peshawar in Pakistan and Tilet in China were known to have closed their borders to foreign journalists.
3.2 Human Right Violations at the State Level
At the state level looking at Nigeria as an indicator in the African context, human rights violations could rightly be described as primitive and worrisome.
Described as primitive because many people in Nigeria ignorantly and primitively too, violate their rights and that of their family members at will. For instance if a father of three kids layout himself into one drinking joint after the other every day as seen in many of our Nigerian villages; If he prefers to send his three kids out on the street hawking pure water and oranges instead of sending them to school such father would have denied himself the right to work for a decent living and also denied his kids their rights to be educated in life.
We have also seen the primitive violations of human rights in Nigeria from our cultural demands. This is true of the girl-child genital mutilation and the "outcast" system practised from cultural or traditional demands. It is the culture of some communities in Nigeria that a girl must go through genital mutilation before marriage. Hence that is culturally believed to limit the girl's sexual interest only to her husband.
It is also in the culture of some communities in Nigeria especially in the eastern part of Nigeria that some of its members are called "outcast" or
"Osu", thereby denying them of their rights to freedom of association, of assembly, of community leadership and of intra marriage-with the other so called son-of-the-soil members of the community.
By genital mutilation, the girl child is subjected to unconsented:
- Crude cutting of the most sensitive part of her genital organ.
- Pains and bleeding - Psychological trauma.
In addition to all these, poverty is one major threat that has become unavoidable factor in human rights violations in our Nigerian society today. Poverty is for now still far from governmental remedy for many people today in Nigeria and some have resorted to:
- Human kidnapping - Human trafficking
- Prostitution in foreign countries - Early girl-child marriages, etc.
These are indeed violations of people's rights as they dehumanize the human person. Away from all these, human rights violations could also be described as worrisome in a country like Nigeria where we have:
- Policemen that forcefully collect bribes (usually N20) from motorists at checkpoints which have often result in shooting to kill if the money is not given.
- Politically motivated killings and setting of people's property on fire are common occurrences.
- Justice that cannot be obtained by the poor.
- The helpless poor are accused and sent to jail for crimes committed by the rich, especially politicians. Elections are rigged and persons that were not voted for by the people emerge as leaders.
To explain more on this, how else will any reasonable being explain human violations in Nigeria where police officers do not only wield their guns at helpless motorists at checkpoints to extort money but also use their deadly weapons to threaten, intimidate, harass and even kill innocent law abiding citizens at the slightest provocation. An instance is the Apo- six killings in Apo village, Abuja.
Where are our voting rights, where elections are rigged and the people we did not vote for are solidly installed as leaders to rule us?
Recently, Amnesty International and effective watchdog over human rights violations went into the Nigerian prisons and found out that:
- Many innocent Nigerians are perishing in the Nigerian prisons for offences they did not commit.
- Many of the ladies have been raped and even impregnated by male inmates.
- The living conditions of our prisons are dehumanizing. To confirm this see The Source magazine of December 1st, 2008.
This is also confirmed in the cover story of TELL Magazine of April, 20, 2009 by the same Amnesty International which says a recent visit to the prisons revealed that disease was pervasive in the cramped, poorly ventilated facilities, and chronic shortages of medical supplies were observed. Amnesty International further revealed that HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis were of particular concern.
It was discovered that in this helpless situation only those with money or whose relatives bought food regularly had sufficient food; prison officials routinely stole the money provided for food for prisoners. It was also observed by the Amnesty International, these prison harsh conditions and denial of proper medical treatment contributes to many prisoners death. For example in September 2007, inadequate medical attention allegedly contributed to the death of Olawale Daniel, and inmate of the Agodi Federal Prison in Ibadan, Oyo State. As stated in the magazine, Olawale's death sparked riot between inmates and guards on September 11 which resulted in the death of yet another 11 prisoners, including four staff members of the prisons.
In addition to what we have now known about Nigeria concerning human rights violations, let us increase the knowledge by also looking at human rights violations in Zimbabwe which we discussed briefly in Unit 8 of this course material.
Human rights violations in Zimbabwe
An article on Human Rights Violations in Africa in the Internet shows that in Zimbabwe under President Mugabe, like Nigeria and any other country in Africa there are widespread report of continuous violation of human rights. According to human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, there have been systematic and escalating violations of the rights to
- shelter, food.
- freedom of movement and residence - freedom of assembly and
- the protection of law, which have all been at the subject of brutal attacks by the police force. For example, there was such as police crackdown on a March 11th, 2008 Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) rally during which the party leader Morgan Tsvangriai and 49 other opposition activists were arrested and severely beaten by the police.
Even when Morgan Tsvangirai went on BBC after his release to convince the world that he suffered head injuries and blows to the arms, knees and back, and that he lost a significant amount of blood and the police action was strongly condemned by the UN secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, the European Union and the United States, the Zimbawean government controlled daily newspaper The Herald ostensibly claimed that the police had intervened after demonstrators
"ran amok" looting shops, destroying property, mugging civilians and assaulting police officers and innocent members of the public". This shows that violations are perpetrated by government supporters as well as law enforcement agencies that induce assaults, torture, death threats, kidnappings and unlawful arrests and detentions.
The write up on human rights abuses in Zimbabwe culled from the internet further reveals that the law enforcement agencies are a major source of human rights violations in Zimbabwe as revealed by the Human Rights Watch which convincingly reported a growing number of cases in which police have assaulted and tortured opposition supporters and civil society activists.
For instance, a notable case was the arrest and subsequent beatings of a group of trade union activists, including the President and Secretary-
General of Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions at Matapi police station, following peaceful protests on September 13, 2006. The unionists the article continued were initially denied medical assistance.
In Zimbabwe, the freedom of assembly is severely restricted by law. The legal framework is further stretched in practice, with law enforcement closely monitoring opposition demonstration and public gatherings.
There are many reports of arrest and subsequent beatings of demonstrators. According to the Human Right Watch report, "You Will Be Thoroughly Beaten". The Brutal Suppression of Dissent Zimbabwean laws such as the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and the miscellaneous offences Act (MOA) are used to violently disrupt peaceful demonstration and justify the arrest of civil society activists. In some cases, the activists are held for more than the legally allowed limit, often without charge. More to this is the arrest of student activist's leader Promise Mkwanazi. On May 29, 2006 Mkwanazi was detained at a police station in Bindura for five days without charge. During the time he was repeatedly stripped, shackled and beaten with batons by police men, who accused him of trying to overthrow the government.
It is very instructive to note that from 1,200 cases of human rights violations by the law enforcement agencies, including 363 cases of torture, 516 cases of assault, 58 cases of death threats, 399 cases of unlawful arrest and 451 cases of unlawful detention. Many of these incidents include multiple victims. Indeed it was discovered that the enforcement agencies are encouraged to perpetuate abuses by statements made by high ranking members of the ruling party ZANU-PF.
4.0 CONCLUSION
At the beginning of this unit we were told that we will be able to identify human rights violations especially at the state level as a serious problem to human rights operations. And this is indisputably true of Nigeria and Zimbabwe discussed in this unit. Indeed to confirm further the Spectator daily national newspaper on December 26, 2008- January 1, 2009 said about Nigeria:
Like the previous years, not much has changed in the Nigerian human rights record as some Nigerians have died defending their rights or shot by trigger-hungry police officer for refusing to part with little as N20 at the ubiquitous illegal tolls mounted by the police across the nation's roads.
When will this primitive and worrisome violations of human rights stop in Nigeria. Let this worry us to a resisting point, as we could also in correcting the Nigerian case also correct that of other countries in Africa.
5.0 SUMMARY
This unit demands that we fully resist human rights violations in Nigeria and beyond.
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
Read this unit carefully and make a result-oriented case for resisting human rights violations in Nigeria and beyond.
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING
The United Nations and Human Rights. Office of Public Information United Nations, New York, 1978.
The Spectator, December 26, 2008 p 3.
The Source magazine, December 1, 2008
“Nigeria: Great Nation Poor Human Rights” in TELL magazine 16, April, 20, 2009.