Human Rights

Internet search and software giant Google Inc. said Wednesday that the company will combat modern-day slavery and human trafficking by offering $11.5 million in grants to 10 organizations.

The grant money is part of $115 million offered to nonprofit and academic organizations in 2011, the company announced.

Google chose to highlight the issue of slavery because its employees felt the topic of freedom and human rights is one of the most important issues of our time, according to the company’s director of charitable giving, Jacquelline Fuller. more >>

The creation of mobile clinics that can euthanize patients at home is now being considered by the Dutch government, but some are calling the program “Death-on-Wheels.”

Euthanasia has already been made legal in the Netherlands, but new plans could expand eligibility criteria and make euthanasia more accessible. Rita Marker, a speaker for Patients Rights Council stated, “Well you know how they say that death comes knocking. Now it really does.”

Edith Schippers, the Dutch health minister, in a written answer to questions from Christian Union MPs, has said that candidates for mobile units could be "patients who meet the criteria for euthanasia but whose doctors are unwilling to carry it out.” more >>

West Africans could face another food crisis in 2012, but Oxfam International is insisting it is avoidable.

Calls to increase aid are underway, as experts warn millions of adults and children risk facing starvation.

"The situation is looking extremely worrying for millions of people in West Africa, but the worst is not yet inevitable," Mamadou Biteye of Oxfam Humanitarian Lead in West Africa said in a press release Monday. more >>

The “flickers of hope” previously lauded by U.S. officials appear to be translating into concrete changes for the once closed-off Burma.

Burmese officials called for an end to military offensives against rebels in Kachin State, the predominantly Christian area in the north of the country.

The move came after months of fighting that resulted in tens of thousands of refugees and countless incidents of religious persecution. more >>

Cynthia Farahat, a Coptic Christian and human rights activist from Egypt, testified before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the House of Representatives, revealing how Christians in Egypt have been suffering violent persecution due in no small part to the billions of dollars in military aid the U.S. has given Egypt since 1979.

“I have an Egyptian passport, but I am not a citizen,” Farahat told the committee. “The concept of citizenship is a western concept that does not apply to us in Egypt. I am a woman and I am a Copt. I am a fourth-class citizen in Egypt. The first class citizen in Egypt is the Sunni male. Second class is the Sunni female. The third class is the Coptic male and the fourth class is the Coptic female.”

Farahat, who is also a co-founder of two liberal, secular parties in the country, said that the discriminatory policies are nothing new: they have been part of the law since 1971, when Egypt became a “constitutional theocracy” when then-President Anwar Sadat made Shariah law the principal source of legislation in the constitution, Farahat said. The influence of Shariah increased under U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak's rule, slowly decreasing the safety and legitimacy of Christian citizens in Egyptian society, she said. more >>

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s announcement in Geneva Tuesday night that the U.S. would be marketing gay rights as an international issue sparked both praise and criticisms from nations around the world, particularly from those in Africa.

According to President Obama, the U.S. plans on using foreign aid to “promote and protect the human rights of lesbian, gay, and transgender persons.” This means that America will ramp up legal, financial, and moral support to gay groups or individuals around the globe who are facing threats. Obama also added that asylum in the U.S. will be offered to people forced to flee homophobic persecutions.

In sub-Saharan Africa, homophobia is widespread and most African countries have come out denouncing Clinton’s initiative. For example, Nigeria reacted so strongly against Clinton’s gay rights speech that it added more anti-gay offenses to the already long list. The current bill states that same-sex kissing in public is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. more >>