Monday, March 08, 2004
"The World Is Listening"
As Tony Kushner, writing in today's WaPo, reminds us with a terrible story of human rights denied in Uzbekistan, like it or not, we are a beacon unto the world, and much as those self-described religious traditionalists would like to tease from the locus of international human rights those that pertain to homosexuals, it just won't wash.
The rest of the story is not a happy one; Mr. Sharipov was silenced through the use of violence, and then jailed, but not on the basis of his journalistic "excesses."
Sound familiar? Especially that too easy linkage between being a male homosexual and being a pedophile?
The great discovery of the international human rights movement, largely grassroots and NGO based, was that to be meaningful, the cause of those most fundamental rights, whose violation anywhere in the world makes all of less free, less human, had to be part of a unitary and comprehensive policy unamenable to the strategic concerns of individual countries. It's that aspect of "human rights" our current President shows no sign of understanding. That's why, though the right to form a union was one of the universal human rights around which so much of the anti-Soviet resistence in Eastern Europe rallied, Saddam's repressive laws against union organizaing are still in force in Iraq. And here's the State Department squirming on Uzabekistan, trying to balance what can't and shouldn't be balanced.
Read the whole op ed here. Time to write some letters, and time to make some calls to our congresspersons; this brave young man must not be left to the terrible mercies of his Uzebek jailers.
Here's an HRW link to all the info you'll need, including the text of Sharipov's smuggled letters, and what looks like a passport picture of him that will break your heart.
And thank-you Mr. Kushner; truly, you are a mensch.
In 1999 Ruslan Sharipov, a student from Uzbekistan, came to the United States, participating in an exchange program. Upon returning home, Sharipov and two colleagues formed the Independent Journalists Association of Uzbekistan. He began reporting, through a Russian news agency and on the Internet. His chief subject was the dismal human rights record of the Uzbek government of Islam Karimov, whose zeal in persecuting Muslims and torturing political prisoners, and on occasion murdering them, is routinely deplored by human rights groups.
Of course Sharipov's remarkable courage and conscience were his long before he visited the United States. But perhaps his understanding of the importance and power of a free press was broadened during his short stay here. Sharipov also decided to live openly in Uzbekistan as a gay man. Perhaps this decision was influenced by his American experience as well.
The rest of the story is not a happy one; Mr. Sharipov was silenced through the use of violence, and then jailed, but not on the basis of his journalistic "excesses."
He was convicted not of writing critically about his repressive government. He was convicted of engaging in homosexual acts, which is a crime in Uzbekistan under Stalin-era law, and of having sex with minors, an unsubstantiated charge Sharipov denies.
Sound familiar? Especially that too easy linkage between being a male homosexual and being a pedophile?
The great discovery of the international human rights movement, largely grassroots and NGO based, was that to be meaningful, the cause of those most fundamental rights, whose violation anywhere in the world makes all of less free, less human, had to be part of a unitary and comprehensive policy unamenable to the strategic concerns of individual countries. It's that aspect of "human rights" our current President shows no sign of understanding. That's why, though the right to form a union was one of the universal human rights around which so much of the anti-Soviet resistence in Eastern Europe rallied, Saddam's repressive laws against union organizaing are still in force in Iraq. And here's the State Department squirming on Uzabekistan, trying to balance what can't and shouldn't be balanced.
This month the U.S. Congress will decide whether to approve the Bush administration's request for more than $50 million in foreign aid to Uzbekistan. Assistant Secretary of State Elizabeth Jones testified before a House subcommittee that Sharipov's case is a clear example of Uzbekistan's dismal human rights record while at the same time making a point: Uzbekistan is an important ally in the Bush administration's Central Asian strategy. Military aid to Uzbekistan since Sept. 11, 2001, has risen 1,800 percent.
Pressure from Washington recently brought about the release of four imprisoned journalists in Uzbekistan. Sharipov was supposed to be among them; he wasn't. Karimov's henchmen decided to silence a dissenter using anti-homosexuality laws (which violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Uzbekistan is a signatory) and a trumped-up pedophilia charge. Did they gamble that such charges would make Sharipov's case untouchable for the vocal homophobes in Congress and on the American right?
When America falters in its commitment to protecting and expanding the rights of all its citizens, when American leaders deplore the overturning of sodomy laws and flirt openly with a constitutional amendment, the first ever, designed to restrict the rights of gay and lesbian citizens, it is not a purely domestic affair. The world is listening. The world is taking note.
Read the whole op ed here. Time to write some letters, and time to make some calls to our congresspersons; this brave young man must not be left to the terrible mercies of his Uzebek jailers.
Here's an HRW link to all the info you'll need, including the text of Sharipov's smuggled letters, and what looks like a passport picture of him that will break your heart.
And thank-you Mr. Kushner; truly, you are a mensch.
