Oslo Freedom Forum brings together the global human rights movement
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-05/14/30-things-i-learned-at-the-oslo-freedom-forum
I'm fortunate to get to attend a good number of first-rate conferences -- but I've never spent time among such an inspiring community as I did last week for three days in Oslo.The Oslo Freedom Forum, set up three years ago by the Venezuelan-born activist Thor Halvorssen, is a gathering of 250 human-rights campaigners, supporters, commentators and policymakers where speakers include Nobel Peace Prize-winners and former child slaves. Over intensely moving sessions at Oslo's Christiania Theatre and the nearby Grand Hotel, and afterwards over dinner, drinks and late-night conversation, stories are shared, campaigns sharpened and new alliances forged. If the global human-rights movement were to create its own unified representative body, it would look something like this.The power of the event -- whose sponsors include Sergey Brin's and Peter Thiel's charitable foundations -- lies in the seamless mix of grassroots activists, many of whom have risked their lives to speak out, and the top-level policymakers and influencers who can act on what they learn. You might run into Hollywood glamour in Julia Ormond, or world-class philanthropists such asOmidyar Network's Pam Omidyar -- but the real stars were the former political prisoners, child slaves, torture victims and tribal-rights campaigners who had in many cases taken big risks in order to travel to Norway. And each one I spoke to made me understand just how vital the role of the western media can be in articulating their stories and, in an oft-heard phrase, speaking truth to power.The organisers provided a useful list of statistics about the speakers: since 2009 there have been 121 of them from 71 nations, and 36 of these speakers have been imprisoned for political reasons. Some 23 have been tortured; three have been enslaved. Yet they have persisted in highlighting their causes, and taken the ultimate risks in giving their communities a voice: five have won the Nobel Peace Prize, eight have appeared on the cover of TIME magazine, and 12 have been on TIME's 100 Most Influential People list. One particular statistic that conference organisers enjoy sharing: "Number of Oslo Freedom Forum banners that line Oslo's streets during the conference: 24. Number of OFF banners removed due to complaints from the Russian presidency about the word 'freedom' during Medvedev's 2010 state visit to Norway: 24."I filled my notebook during the conference, and Wired will be following up where we can with magazine stories, space on our Wired 2012 conference stage, plus other forms of support to these extraordinary people. But rather than spill those notebooks here, I simply offer you 30 things I learned at the Oslo Freedom Forum -- with congratulations to all involved. You can discover more at youtube.com/oslofreedomforum and on Twitter at @OsloFreedomFrm.1: If you plan to escape a West Papuan prison, as Benny Wenda successfully did, then wait until your jailers are distracted and then squeeze yourself into a narrow ventilation system. You'll be sweating so profusely in fear of your life that the sweat will help you slide through the tubing.2: If you've been abducted, assaulted and then tortured while in jail, as Jestina Mukoko was during her 89 days in her Zimbabwe captivity, then you can't easily stand at cocktail receptions. I met Jestina, director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project (which documents human rights abuses by the Mugabe regime), at a welcome drinks reception at the Oslo Town Hall, where she asked me if she could sit down and talk. It remained difficult for her to stand, she explained with a smile, as her jailors had severely beaten her feet during her detention.3: The going price for a child slave in Nepal is $70 (£44), as Urmila Chaudhary's parents found when they sold her at age six to work 14- to 16-hour days under the Kamalari system. She remained enslaved for 11 years and suffered violence.4: The most expensive op-ed in journalistic history was written by the Ecuadorian journalist Emilio Palacio in the newspaper El Universo, and cost $42 million (£26.1 million) in fines and three-year jail sentences for Palacio and three newspaper directors. That's because the country's president, Rafael Correa, took exception to the 594-word column. That works out at more than $70,000 (£44,000) per word. The accused were later pardoned.
5: If you're a Syrian activist heading to Oslo, as Ausama Monajed did, expect the journey to take 26 hours. Monajed is a leading Syrian dissident and a member of the Syrian National Council.
5: If you're a Syrian activist heading to Oslo, as Ausama Monajed did, expect the journey to take 26 hours. Monajed is a leading Syrian dissident and a member of the Syrian National Council.
6: Although Norway has helped fund the forum, and the city council has offered support, no national politician has so far accepted an invitation to participate.
7: Manal al-Sharif, a Saudi womens'-rights activist, lost her job when she accepted an invitation to speak at the conference. She won a standing ovation with her story of defying the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia. Her role in the Women2Drive campaign led to her being jailed for nine days.
8: The first ever pop song Manal heard, in an act of rebellion against a regime that sees music as "Satan's flute", was Backstreet Boys' 'Show Me The Meaning of Being Lonely'. She was 21.
9: Equatorial Guinea has the third-highest GDP in Africa, at $34,753 (£21,600) per capital, according to Tutu Alicante, executive director of EG Justice, yet 75 percent live in absolute poverty and many lack running water.
10: Equatorial Guinea's President Obiang, unchallenged in power for 33 years,has given $3 million (£1.87 million) to Unesco to create an award named after him for "for life science research". Though postponed three times over corruption allegations, it was accepted by Unesco two months ago in order to promote "African solidarity".
11: Arab Spring bloggers, whether from Algeria, Tunisia or Egypt, tend to hang out in sculpture gardens together and hatch plans.
12: There's a reason for this. The greatest strength the Arab Spring bloggers have, according to Sudanese blogger (and formidable speaker) Amir Ahmad Nasr, is the power of their network. "You meet people who watch your backs," he explained. "It does have a real impact on the ground for people like us."
13: Oslo is home to at least one Muslim Norwegian feminist comedian. "I come off stage and say I killed that audience," Shabana Rehman told the crowd. "But where I come from, the audience says, 'I kill that comedian!'"
14: Private companies are active participants in internet surveillance and repression that is costing lives, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Jillian Yorkexplained. She cited the US company Blue Coat Systems, whose internet-blocking devices were sold to the UAE -- yet found their way to Syria.
15: Reporting on the Balkans in peacetime can be just as challenging as wartime, according to Kosovo journalist Jeta Xharra. "We've got a corrupt representative democracy," she said. "If you challenge corrupt elites, you need financial independence. Our challenge as journalists is a never-ending battle to ensure freedom of speech."
16: Natan Sharansky's famous call for "a global mobilisation of shame against human-rights abuses" remains the activist's most powerful tool, according to Canadian human-rights lawyer Irwin Cotler. The secret is to make it too costly for a state to keep someone in custody. As PW Botha told Cotler recently, "it became in South Africa's self-interest to liberate [Nelson] Mandela".
17: Hollywood actors at human-rights conferences tend to misjudge the mood by performing -- and then overrunning their slots. Julia Ormond ended an otherwise thoughtful talk on supply-chain slavery by singing Amazing Grace. With an echo effect.
18: The feisty Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy -- who last yearreported that she had bones broken and was sexually assaulted by riot police near Cairo's Tahrir Square -- will one day be played by a Hollywood actor.
19: Liberian children's activist Kimmie Weeks made a call to action that pretty well defined the event: "Stop bitching and start a global revolution."
20: When a conference dedicated to free speech runs a breakfast session that some speakers declare is "off the record", and the BBC presenter Philippa Thomas is in the audience, they should count on her to point out the irony.
21: Military expenditure is $235 (£146) for every person on the planet, according to Andrew Feinstein, author of The Shadow World, an exposé of the global arms trade.
22: Of 502 violations of UN arms embargoes, according to Feinstein, only two have resulted in prosecution -- of which just one resulted in a conviction.
23: The trade in weapons is less regulated than the trade in bananas.
24: There are more slaves today than at any point in human history, according to Ben Skinner -- mostly in South Asia. Each year, 600,000 to 800,000 are trafficked into slavery.
25: The lack of self worth that prevents so many slaves from attempting to escape can be overcome by building external support networks that empower them, according to former slave Somaly Mam. "I was broken inside, where would I get the idea to escape from the brothel?" she said. "Who'd be outside, who'd love me, who'd take my hand?"
26: In Haiti, 300,000 children remain in the domestic-slavery system known as restavec, according to Jean-Robert Cadet.
27: Last year, the Singaporean prime minister's salary was six times that of the US President, according to Chee Soon Juan -- despite Singapore having one of the biggest income gaps of the world's richest nations. Dr Chee, leader of the Singapore Democratic Party, who was bankrupted after being sued for defamation by three prime ministers, was prevented from leaving Singapore to visit the forum, so he gave his speech by video. "When you speak truth to power, you must expect autocrats to do everything they can to silence you," he said on the video. "And when they do, you must speak up."
28: The father of one speaker, the Bahraini human-rights activist Maryam Alkhawaja, went missing a few days ago.
29: The writer Rebecca MacKinnon coined a useful phrase to describe politicians' deliberate failure to accept the wider moral consequences of their short-term policies. They are, she said, guilty of the "Wernher von Braun excuse", named for the Nazi rocket scientist who later joined Nasa -- and was immortalised by Tom Lehrer as "a man whose allegiance is ruled by expedience".
30: Tony Blair has happily been advising Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev, widely accused of being among today's most corrupt heads of state. The US State Department has accused Nazarbayev, among other abuses, of "torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment… severe limits on citizens' rights to change their government; unlawful deprivation of life; military hazing that led to deaths; detainee and prisoner abuse; unhealthy prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention, particularly of government opponents; lack of an independent judiciary; increased restrictions on freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and association; pervasive corruption, especially in law enforcement and the judicial system; restrictions on the activities of nongovernmental organisations (NGOs); discrimination and violence against women; trafficking in persons; and societal discrimination".No doubt Mr Blair, if challenged, has a Wernher von Braun excuse.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ED NOTES:LET ME START BY SAYING THAT ,I DO SUPPORT SOME HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES HERE,HOWEVER,ONE HAS TO TAKE ISSUE NOT WITH SOME OF STATED GOALS,BUT THOSE WHO ORGANIZE AND FUND THE EVENTS,TO BEGIN WITH...LETS TAKE ITS FOUNDER THE INFAMOUS '' Thor Halvorssen '' |
| Jared Genser (L) and Thor Halvorssen at the Henry Jackson Society event, House of Commons, London, 7 November 2011 |
...HES A ZIONAZI FROM HENRY JACKSON SOCIETY!!! Thor Halvorssen Mendoza (b. 1976) is president and CEO of the Human Rights Foundation. From the Henry Jackson Society event profile:[2]
- Thor Halvorssen, a human rights advocate and film producer, founded the Human Rights Foundation in the spring of 2005.
| Latin America's fascist rats scurry to Washington, salivating over the new Puke Congress... |
INTERESTING GUEST..WHO IS AUSAMA MONAJED? ... WikiLeaks Reveals US Provided Funds to Anti-Government Syrian Exile Group United States has funneled about $6 million to the London-based Movement for Justice and Development since 2006. http://www.topsecretwriters.com/2011/05/wikileaks-reveals-us-provided-funds-to-anti-government-syrian-exile-group/
[WHO IS AUSAMA MONAJED? Head of public relations at the MJD( Movement for Justice and Development in Syria) [THIS MJD- U.S. has provided at least $6 million to Barada TV to broadcasts anti-government news into Syria,Malik al-Abdeh, is a cofounder of the Syrian exile group Movement for Justice and Development. www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=documents-show-us-funding-syrian-opposition-2011-04-18
-------------------------
Monajed, a professed devotee of non-violent protest guru Gene Sharp [WHO WAS GENE SHARP?] 1974-76, Rockefeller Foundation fellow!!! Gene Sharp and company in “color revolutions''http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/gene-sharps-goal-liberty-in-a-world-of-market-imperatives/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ED NOTES:SERGEI BRIN ONE OF FUNDERS,WHO IS HE/HES ONE OF GOOGLE FOUNDERS,BUT THERES MORE..
 |
This while here likewise Jewish younger sister Anne Wojcicki, a biotechnology specialist, in May 2007 during "a traditional Jewish wedding" ceremony (according to Israeli paper Ha´aretz, May 29, 2008) married the Google President Sergey Brin. Keeping everything neatly within the tribe. The Jewish woman Susan Wojcicki was the one who gave Google office space to start the business. Susan Wojcicki has since become Vice President of Product Management at Google. http://mathaba.net/news/?x=630406
HE HANGS OUT W/ ISRAHELLI WARCRIMINALS LIKE SHIMON PERES(FATHER OF ISRAELS ILLEGAL NUCLEAR PROGRAM) http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3499143,00.html
Foxman says Google and Facebook are on his team to combat ‘internet hate’ http://mondoweiss.net/2012/05/foxman-says-google-and-facebook-are-on-his-team-to-combat-internet-hate.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ED NOTES:WHO IS OTEHR FUNDER? Peter Thiel WHO IS HE?
"Mr. Thiel graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University, where he received an A.B. in philosophy and a J.D. from the Stanford University School of Law. He was also the founding editor of The Stanford Review, and president of the Stanford Federalist Society.
WHAT IS STANFORD FEDERALIST SOCIETY?
In July 2005, shortly after being nominated by President Bush to be an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, John G. Roberts Jr. was noted as being a member of the group. The White House has sought to have the major media organizations run corrections stating that Roberts was not a member of the group, but the Washington Post obtained a copy of the Federalist Society Lawyers' Division Leadership Directory, 1997-1998. It lists Roberts as a member of the steering committee of the organization's Washington chapter and includes his firm's address and telephone number. [3]
The Federalist Society and another right-wing group, the American Enterprise Institute, have launched the websiteNGOWatch.org/NGOwatch.org to expose the funding, operations and agendas of international NGOs, and particularly their alleged efforts to constrain US freedom of action in international affairs and influence the behavior of corporations abroad. [5]
HES ALSO ...
- Director, Pacific Research Institute [2]
The Pacific Research Institute (PRI) or officially the 'Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy', is a think tank founded in 1979 whose stated vision is the promotion of "the principles of individual freedom and personal responsibility. The Institute believes these principles are best encouraged through policies that emphasize a free economy, private initiative, and limited government." The institute is a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation, and had $4.9M in revenue in 2005. [1] The Pacific Research Institute has associated with other think-tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute.
CORPORATE FUNDING?
Corporations
FOUNDATION FUNDING?
THIS IS WHOS ORGANIZING AND FUNDING THE OSLO FREEDOM FORUM...SIGH
No comments:
Post a Comment