POST 5. REPORTS ABOUT FREEDOM OF RELIGION

Every year ACS presents a report which talks about freedom of religion in the world and it underlines the grade of freedom in 196 States.

Although it was edited by a catholic foundation, it is not limited to denounce violations which occurred to Christian community, but it shows the situation in all countries with references to the condition of all different devotees.

It want to denounce the precarious world situation of religions and the small possibility to practice a cult without persecutions from other people or government. It analyses also a political and social situation, in which religious minorities fight.

In the last two years the situation don’t improve, for example in China the level of protection of this right is going down and there is an access from the government to enslave the different religious community to the control of the state.

In the public opinion grow the awareness of this theme, thanks to the medias and accessibility of information. But, how we have seen in the previous posts , this is not always possible in all the countries, because there is a strong censorship and fundamental human rights are violated.

In Middle East the situation is difficult because after the revolutions in 2010, the Arab Springs, there is the danger of a passage from political to religious dictatorship.

Also in Africa the Report underlines an increase of Islamic extremism and religious pressures in some countries as Kenya, Nigeria, Mali and Ciad etc., where some ethnic groups or minorities fight in continuous civil political and religion wars.

To understand this phenomenon it is very important to know that freedom of religion and awareness are not religious principles but laics and they must be respected as fundamental rights.

freedom of religion is a right not only for believers but also for all men who defend the principles of freedom of opinion and expression.

Religions express fundamental claims, hope, love, fear, they give power “Good to fight against Evil” and they have an enormous influence in the souls of men, believers and nonbelievers.

In name of religions men make wars, destruct cities and kill people but it is not the real thought of God, it is used only as vehicle by men to conquer or to enforce his power.

So it is impossible to cut out the religion from mankind: it is the symbol of identity, such as the culture and the traditions.

I put here a video that is not directly applied to religion, but speaks about the extremism and a possible way to resolve this problem. Why do extremist organizations succeed where democratic movements have a harder time taking hold? How can we do to understand better other cultures and other religion?

 

http://www.ted.com/talks/maajid_nawaz_a_global_culture_to_fight_extremism.html

 

 

In these days the situation in Southeastern Asia is not safety. The communist government in Vietnam enacted a law, which puts more controls in the theme of “cult”. The authorities will have more power to bit and imprisoned all who do not respect their rules and decisions.

This “Decree 92” limits and confines the activities of citizens and gives government  power to act when they want.

The aim is to check and overcome religions under political power of this government.

Religious organizations can register their activities, the places where they practice and pray, the members to give an “official acknowledge”, but they are not free: there is always a state monitoring.

Christians and Catholics continue their battle against the arrest and violation of human rights from authorities; and communist leadership with policy do not stop the repressions and violence attacks.

For more information (italian site):
http://www.asianews.it/notizie-it/Continua-la-battaglia-dei-cattolici-vietnamiti-per-la-pace-e-la-libertà-religiosa-26487.html
http://www.asianews.it/notizie-it/Vietnamiti-cattolici-e-non-in-preghiera-per-diritti-civili-e-libertà-religiosa-26286.html
http://www.asianews.it/notizie-it/Movimento-buddista:-Hanoi-impone-una-stretta-sulla-libertà-religiosa-26501.html

How could we do to understand other religions? Is the fight and hegemony the only way or is it possible the dialogue between cultures and religion?


Micol

 

Post 4. HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN CAMBODIA

Human trafficking continues to increase throughout the world, including in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS). In Cambodia, human trafficking emerged as a priority issue in the 1990s and has increased exponentially since then. This country has become both source and destination for human trade. It has been proved that the traffickers are usually organized criminal groups but also parents, relatives and friends.

 Generally man are trafficked for forced labor in agriculture but also they are used as slaves in construction industries and for fisheries too. As it's easy to imagine, women are trafficked for sexual exploitation and also they are forced to work as servants. Furthermore, talking about children, not only they are smuggled for sexual aims but also they are forced to work in organized begging rings. As I said before, Cambodia has also become the destination for this illegal activity. In fact, a 2005 report estimated that about 2000 victims were trafficked in Cambodia and the 80 per cent of them were women and girls from Vietnam and China. 

 The causes of the human traffic in Cambodia are various. According to the UN Inter-Agency Project on Human Traffic (UNIAP) this particular form of exploitation of human beings has increased in Cambodia due to an high number of factors such as poverty, socio-economic imbalance between rural and urban areas, lack of unemployment and education. Moreover, the International Labour Organization argues that the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge regime is still felt both psychologically and economically and that it still plays a role in the sexual exploitation and human trafficking.The upheavals caused by the lack of opportunities in the poorer and rural areas have plumped a strong return to the cities that were almost emptied during Pol Pot dictatorship. During the past years, Cambodia faced big problems in providing decent work for its younger population, perpetuating the cycle of vulnerability to human trafficking.

 To prevent this phenomenon, the Cambodian government has recently raised awareness through posters, television, local theaters and radios. In 2006 these prevention efforts reached an incredible number of people, especially students, when police conducted an awareness raising company among 23,000 students in Seim Reap and Phnom Penh. 

 However, the Royal Government of Cambodia is not left alone in the battle against human trafficking. The United Nations are supporting the development and implementation of national, bilateral and regional policy frameworks, action plans and capacity building. That includes also the training for governments officials. In addition, in 2000 was established the UN Inter-Agency Project on Human Traffic. This agency is so important not only because it promotes the involvement of appropriate NGOs in the fight against the trade of human being, but also because it facilitates the cooperation between NGOs and the local Government. It also offers different services, such as the protection and reintegration of trafficking victims and the prosecution of the traffickers that may be arrested. 

 The problem of human trafficking and how to deal with it is still an open question. The international community and NGOs are, in my opinion, the only ones that can really do something about it and, as I said before, things are starting to move in the proper direction. 

I want to conclude my work by linking an interesting video, taken from the France24 English Youtube channel. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udUhy4BPqAg&feature=related

Nicola Zaninello

Sources: http://www.no-trafficking.org ,
             http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_Cambodia ,
             http://www.voanews.com/content/a-13-2009-03-23-voa20-68797892/411883.html ,
             http://www.humantrafficking.org/countries/cambodia

Post.3 CHINA INTERNET CLOAK

In the previous post we saw how Burma’s authorities tie the Media Information system denying the right to the freedom of speech. I’ve noticed that in the French non-governmental organization “reporters without frontiers” Burma is in the 169^th place of 2012 press freedom index chart . Considering that there are 179 countries in the chart, it’s not exactly a good place, but Burma can “smile” because there are worse countries than it ( a trouble shared is a trouble halved). The yellow Mandarin workgroup has chosen to deal with China's situation. However, this time the focus will be on another aspect of information: the internet empire.

In recent years China has collected many records, both positive and negative. People’s Republic of China efforts to be a world leader are increasingly showing their results. One record is without doubts owned by PRC: the Internet Censorship. Since the indroduction of internet in 1994 has followed a strict policy about internet freedom. 
China government has the peculiarity to justify internet filter system mainly in order to fight against pornography. But the truth is that China holds the biggest apparatus in this sense. Other than a gigantic filter system (that uses several methods to complain its purposes, like blocking IP addresses or filtering URL) PRS holds four bodies that control internet “abuses” in which work more than 30.000 people.

We can try to believe about the filter mechanism purpose of eliminate pornography, but the 30.000 workers are meant to control individuals messages, that they can delete from the web. In Chinese 2010 White Paper, authorities explained clearly that “The Chinese government attaches great importance to protecting the safe flow of Internet information” and “no organization or individual may produce, duplicate, announce or disseminate information having the following contents: being against the cardinal principles set forth in the Constitution; endangering state security, divulging state secrets, subverting state power and jeopardizing national unification; damaging state honor and interests; instigating ethnic hatred or discrimination and jeopardizing ethnic unity; jeopardizing state religious policy, propagating heretical or superstitious ideas; spreading rumors, disrupting social order and stability; disseminating obscenity, pornography, gambling, violence, brutality and terror or abetting crime; humiliating or slandering others, trespassing on the lawful rights and interests of others; and other contents forbidden by laws and administrative regulations. 

In other words to fulfill this goal PRC arrested and jailed lots of Chinese citiziens for exerciting their right to freedom expression.. The danger that the Party sees in the use of internet is primarily the subversive use of it. It could be a tool to criticize the government. This is the basis of this year 99 people,both netizens and journalists, imprisoned in China. In this context one aspect that is really shocking, other that the maniacal control of the political leaders, the manifested violations of the supreme principles of the UN charter, the abuses of the authorities, it is the people self-regulation in the web. Scared (or maybe used) of the repercussion, Chinese policies repressive methods have created a chilling effect: individuals tend to censor their own communications in order to avoid problems. As this interview shows the majority neither acknowledges the problem, only few people claim out the right to the freedom of expression. 

 

Maybe the situation will change, but the more time passes, the worse it is. There is a strong external influence, that counts several accusations, one of these is from Google, that complained PRC internet governance hampers users' access to Google mail services. Covered as usual in Chinese “style“, the controversy seems to have been forgotten.

It’s true that internet can be two-edged, but I think that it has to be on people’s wisdom judging when the use of internet is correct. Luckily the power of internet is so wide that some daredevils use different methods to avoid internet censorship bodies control, and thanks to that they can freely surf on the most ticklish sites, especially the ones (systematically obscured) of Human Rights NGO sites, in which PRC’s citiziens can certify the abuses that every day big China carry on.

So the question crop up instinctive: if you were a Chinese what you would have do? Challenging the law in order to know? Risking to be jailed only for the love of knowledge? Or what do you think about the filter, they are acceptable only because the law says so, or the incompatibility to democratic principles makes them unlawful?

Sources and more informations:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8553131/Google-Gmail-cyber-attack-Chinese-spies-had-months-of-access.html 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/22/china-denies-google-gmail-claims  

white paper 2010 http://english.gov.cn/2010-06/08/content_1622956.htm

 http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/06/03/china-world-leader-internet-censorship
 

Wikipedia.it