Catégorie : Civil Society

Welcome to the Middle East! – Welcome to a life experience in the Middle East.

This year, 2006 landmarks the tenth anniversary for the establishment of the International Palestinian Youth League (IPYL). Ten years of giving and dedication towards a better world. With the end of this season, IPYL will be finishing 49 international voluntary workcamps. IPYL did not just make workcamps, but also encouraged other organizations in Palestine and the Middle East to do so, in order to triple the number of the volunteers who want to live this experience, taking into consideration the increasing demands from our partners and some individuals to visit the region.
Similar to last year, IPYL together with its twin and partner organizations; Youth Development Department at the Orient House (occupied East Jerusalem), the Baladna Youth Association in Haifa and Gudran for Art Development (Republic of Egypt) are very happy to introduce to you our joint Workcamps Directory for the year 2006.

We hope that this directory and the timetable will enable your volunteers to attend one or more workcamps in order to have a clearer idea about this region and its concerns. Wishing you and us all the best in this season. Middle East Work Camps Coalition, IPYL, Baladna ,YDD and Gudran.

Continuer la lecture de « MIDDLE EAST REGION WORKCAMPS DIRECTORY 2006 »

A Labour Union-busting happens at the banana plantations of the Costa Rican banana company named Desarrollo Agroindustrial de Frutales S.A. (formerly known as Caribana). This Company owns 21 plantations. Most of its production is sold with the Chiquita label. The plantation workers’ union SITRAP started organising in two of these farms – Cahuita and Tortuguero – in mid-2004. They successfully recruited members and set up local committees inside the plantations. This unleashed an anti-union campaign with several members sacked, permanent harassment from supervisors and a manager driving members to the union office to give up their membership. The company also maintains a security gate at the entrance to the two farms and has imposed restrictive conditions on the union’s access. On 5th October 2005, a SITRAP organiser was attacked and robbed on his motorbike on his way out of the plantations. The union attributes this to the fact that the company would not allow access until after 4pm, therefore meaning that union personnel would be likely not to leave before nightfall and have to drive through an area noted for its assaults. SITRAP’s appeal is to ask the company to cease its anti-union campaign, give free access to union officials and reinstate union members who have been sacked. You can help … by going to this page of LabourStart and sign their initiative.

And here the Sitrap appeal on their website.

Linked with the presentation of Sevim Arbana – Albania.

Linked also to the presentation of NGO’s Protest for Women’s Rights in Albania.

Sevim Arbana is working for the Groups ‘Useful to Albanian Women’ (UAW), and the ‘Woman Bridge for Peace and Understanding’. It seems, they have no websites, but they are mentionned by many other NGOs or working groups by running common projects or meetings.

Hereafter all these projects and groups working for Albania.

Continuer la lecture de « NGOs and Groups working for Albania »

Linked with our presentation of Nina Karpachova – Ukraine.

Do we know how to protect our rights and freedoms?

In March 2002 Institute of Politics held the investigation under the UN research project “Human Rights and Freedoms in Ukraine”. 1200 of Ukrainians were suggested to answer the questions if the rights of Ukrainian citizens were protected. 65.2% were against that statement and only 10% agreed that they lived in the country, where human rights were protected. 60% told about the violation of their rights and freedoms, but only 7.7% appealed to the court or to Ukrainian Parliament Commission for Human Rights, (see this link, and see also this link).

World practice in democratic state-building convincingly shows that the right to freedom of thought and speech, free opinion and convictions is a cornerstone for the establishment of a democratic, law-governed state and civil society. There is no democracy without freedom of speech.

The Ukrainian Constitution (Article 34) guarantees every person the right to freedom of thought and speech and to the free expression of views and beliefs, free collection, storage, use and dissemination of information. This important constitutional provision completely accords with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 10 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

Ukraine holds one of the leading places in the CIS as to the number of laws on the mass media intended to extend transparency and society’s access to information. According to international experts, Ukrainian legislation on information makes it possible to exercise the human rights to freedom of speech and thought, although the laws are in need of certain modifications, amendments and additions.

links:

ArtUkraine.com;

UABA;

Legual Advisers and Attorneys, Ukraine.

UPCHR.

Linked with our presentation of Susan Ahmed-Böhme – Iraq.

Their Homepage in arab, and their Homepage in english

The League was founded by middle-class Iraqi women doctors, teachers and lawyers, and in its most active time represented 42,000 members. It offered self-help programs, elementary education classes, health and social services, and perhaps most importantly, counseling services for women’s rights issues. The League was most active in 1958. That year the Iraqi king was executed and a revolution brought to power a moderately progressive military junta, which included the first female minister in the Middle East.

Iraqi Women’s League issues an Open Letter to women in military families, inviting them put the Government on Trial for Crimes at Home and Abroad, as part of the Global Women’s Strike: 6 March 2004, Trafalgar Square, London. Their Letter – Dear sisters in military families,

Invitation to protest with us as part of the Global Women’s Strike on International Women’s Day to defend our loved ones, Saturday 6 March in Trafalgar Square – We write as the Iraqi Women’s League (IWL) UK which is the oldest women’s organisation in Iraq. Since 1952 when it was founded, the IWL , which is independent of all political parties, has played a significant role in the struggle against tyranny and repression in Iraq. Many of our members were executed or disappeared and thousands of our Iraqi sisters were tortured, raped and imprisoned, just for being members of our women’s movement, while the US and UK governments were the friends of our torturers.

Continuer la lecture de « The Iraqi Women’s League (IWL) »