6. Human Rights Organizations and Society: Demonstrations and the Media

2007 ◽  
pp. 133-160
Lex Russica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (9) ◽  
pp. 168-182
Author(s):  
V. P. Kirilenko ◽  
G. V. Alekseev

Russia’s integration into the global information space largely depends on how effectively fundamental human rights and freedoms will be protected by the current national legislation and the emerging integration law. Harmonization of Russian law with European standards of freedom of speech and protection of intangible rights of individuals and legal entities in terms of liability for defamation statements is a fundamentally important task to maintain the authority of the Russian Federation in the European political arena. The work of international human rights organizations, such as the International Press Institute, demonstrates the problems with ensuring real freedom of speech in the vast majority of European Union countries. The use of criminal sanctions for defamation offences, as well as the use of extremely large administrative fines and civil compensation, in fact, is a pan-European practice of countering not only defamation, but also any abuse of freedom of speech by the media community. Such practices could hypothetically threaten free speech, and they raise understandable concerns among the democratic public about the prospects of state institutions controlling private media. Calls for social and legal experiments in the form of regular attempts to decriminalize libel do not seem constructive. Based on the analysis of the Russian practice of bringing to responsibility for torts in the information space, it is proposed to understand defamation as any illegal dissemination of information with the aim of harming legally protected interests and to make wider use of civil liability measures in punishing such offenses. The authors propose to harmonize the European and Russian legislation on defamation through the development of uniform rules for the production of the forensic linguistic examination of the defamatory materials to substantiate evidence of the unlawful intent of delinquent.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-62
Author(s):  
Mariya Riekkinen

This article provides an overview of international developments in the area of the sociocultural and economic rights of European minorities, including access to and portrayal in the media, throughout 2017. The year brought several significant advancements in these areas. The adoption of the 2017 UNESCO Declaration of Ethical Principles in Relation to Climate Change acknowledged the role of indigenous knowledge in counteracting the challenge of climate change. Protection and integration of Roma was addressed in the activities of the human rights organizations and bodies at the level of the UN, the Council of Europe, the OSCE and the EU. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered a series of significant judgments specifying the factors that would allow a court to classify an act as a hate crime. The ECtHR also instituted procedural rules protecting people from violence based on ethnic and racial motives.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-102
Author(s):  
Ramasela Semang L. Mathobela ◽  
Shepherd Mpofu ◽  
Samukezi Mrubula-Ngwenya

An emerging global trend of brands advertising their products through LGBTIQ+ individuals and couples indicates growth of gender awareness across the globe. The media, through advertising, deconstructs homophobia and associated cultures through the use of LGBTIQ+s in commercials. This qualitative research paper centres the advancement of debates on human rights and social media as critical in the interaction between corporates and consumers. The Gillette, Chicken Licken‘s Soul Sisters and We the Brave advertisements were used to critically analyse how audiences react to the use of LGBTIQ+ characters and casts through comments posted on the brands‘ social media platforms. Further, the paper explored the role of social media in the mediation of significant gender issues such as homosexuality that are considered taboo to engage in. The paper used a qualitative approach. Using the digital ethnography method to observe comments and interactions from the chosen advertisement‘s online platforms, the paper employed queer and constructionist theories to deconstruct discourses around same-sex relations as used in commercials, especially in quasiconservative. The data used in the paper included thirty comments of the brands customers and audiences obtained from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The paper concludes there are positive development in human rights awareness as seen through advertisements and campaigns that use LGBTIQ+ communities in a positive light across the world.


2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 70-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Gallagher

Public opinion in the United States and elsewhere celebrated the liberation of Afghan women following the defeat of the Taliban government. The United States promised to stay in Afghanistan and foster security, economic development, and human rights for all, especially women. After years of funding various anti- Soviet Mujahidin warlords, the United States had agreed to help reconstruct the country once before in 1992, when the Soviet-backed government fell, but had lost interest when the warlords began to fight among themselves. This time, however, it was going to be different. To date, however, conditions have not improved for most Afghan women and reconstruction has barely begun. How did this happen? This article explores media presentations of Afghan women and then compares them with recent reports from human rights organizations and other eyewitness accounts. It argues that the media depictions were built on earlier conceptions of Muslim societies and allowed us to adopt a romantic view that disguised or covered up the more complex historical context of Afghan history and American involvement in it. We allowed ourselves to believe that Afghans were exotic characters who were modernizing or progressing toward a western way of life, despite the temporary setback imposed by the Taliban government. In Afghanistan, however, there was a new trope: the feminist Afghan woman activist. Images of prominent Afghan women sans burqa were much favored by the mass media and American policymakers. The result, however, was not a new focus on funding feminist political organizations or making women’s rights a foreign policy priority; rather, it was an unwillingness to fulfill obligations incurred during decades of American-funded mujahidin warfare, to face the existence of deteriorating conditions for women, resumed opium cultivation, and a resurgent Taliban, or to commit to a multilateral approach that would bring in the funds and expertise needed to sustain a long-term process of reconstruction.


2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 507-527 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANIEL JOYCE

AbstractThis article considers the relationship of international law and the media through the prism of human rights. In the first section the international regulation of the media is examined and visions of good, bad, and new media emerge. In the second section, the enquiry is reversed and the article explores the ways in which the media is shaping international legal forms and processes in the field of human rights. This is termed the ‘mediatization of international law’. Yet despite hopes for new media and the Internet to transform international law, the theoretical work of Jodi Dean warns of the danger to democracy of commodification through the spread of ‘communicative capitalism’.


2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hou Yuxin

Abstract The Wukan Incident attracted extensive attention both in China and around the world, and has been interpreted from many different perspectives. In both the media and academia, the focus has very much been on the temporal level of the Incident. The political and legal dimensions, as well as the implications of the Incident in terms of human rights have all been pored over. However, what all of these discussions have overlooked is the role played by religious force during the Incident. The village of Wukan has a history of over four hundred years, and is deeply influenced by the religious beliefs of its people. Within both the system of religious beliefs and in everyday life in the village, the divine immortal Zhenxiu Xianweng and the religious rite of casting shengbei have a powerful influence. In times of peace, Xianweng and casting shengbei work to bestow good fortune, wealth and longevity on both the village itself, and the individuals who live there. During the Wukan Incident, they had a harmonizing influence, and helped to unify and protect the people. Looking at the specific roles played by religion throughout the Wukan Incident will not only enable us to develop a more meaningful understanding of the cultural nature and the complexity of the Incident itself, it will also enrich our understanding, on a divine level, of innovations in social management.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 514-543
Author(s):  
HIBA KAREEM ◽  

The issue of empowering women has been and still is the preoccupation of various humanitarian organizations, especially human rights organizations. Regarding the issue of human rights in Iraq, it is extremely difficult, because of the exceptional circumstances ordered by Iraq, which made it an arena for human rights violations. Vulnerable groups, they are more affected by the surrounding circumstances, such as violence, displacement, terrorism, displacement, widowhood, and others ... especially with regard to measures to empower women, because what women suffer in our society is a heap of discriminatory traditional culture against them and their lack of awareness of themselves and Their legitimate rights, in addition to weak government policies, and the lack of resources and opportunities, and herein lies the problem. The importance of the research stems from the importance of the role of women in society and the social, economic, health and political dimensions that this role represents, and the extent of its impact on the development process in Iraq. As for its objectives, it is to stand on the role of human rights organizations in empowering women in all social, economic, political and health fields, from which we have deduced most of them marginalization and discrimination on the basis of gender, and then we proposed some enabling measures, hoping through them to integrate women in all levels of development . Key words : role, organizations, human rights, empowerment, women .


Author(s):  
Terence C. Halliday ◽  
Shira Zilberstein ◽  
Wendy Espeland

With a focus on legal and other organizational actors beyond the state, this article seeks to expand the theory of conditions under which legal occupations will mobilize to fight for basic legal freedoms within states. It elaborates the line of scholarship on legal complexes and political liberalism within states since the 17th century. First, we catalog harms that international organizations (IOs) of many kinds seek to protect in the more than 190 states in the world. Second, we elaborate the concept of an international legal complex (ILC) as a collective actor in the global struggle for basic legal freedoms. We illustrate these two steps with new data on China drawn from a wider project. We show what harms mobilize the ILC, international human rights organizations (IHROs) and an international governmental organization, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). We focus on accountability devices as tools differentially deployed by the ILC, IOs, and UNHRC in their efforts to influence the institutionalization of basic legal freedoms, an open civil society, and a moderate state in China. The illustrative case of China provides a framework for research and theory on all other countries. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Volume 17 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.


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