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RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVES ON HUMAN RIGHTS

E-Newsletter
Vol.2 No.14
April 3, 2000


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Religious Perspectives on Human Rights is now available online at: http://www.rghr.net

Religious Perspectives on Human Rights is a weekly e-newsletter issued by Buddhist, Muslim, Catholic and Christian Groups on Human Rights, initiated by the Asian Human Rights Commission.

Dear Friends

With the UN Human Rights Commission currently meeting in Geneva, the spotlight has been placed on many of the violations of human rights occurring around the world. One such issue which is commonly acknowledged but rarely acted on is the issue of the Dalits of India, who are still subjected to discrimination on the scale of apartheid. We include here a submission regarding this issue made by ALRC on the 29th of March at the UNHRC meeting. Also in this issue we include some disturbing information about the extent of infanticide in China. Additionally, we have discovered a valuable resource to use when reporting cases of torture in such a way that proper pressure can be put on those responsible to stop the torture and also so that the perpetrators can be tried successfully. We include some information about this resource, called "The Torture Reporting Handbook", produced by the Essex University with funding from the UK government. The entire handbook can be accessed on the website address provided (if you cannot access it, please let us know and we will email you a copy). Finally we have some News in Brief which may be of interest to you.

Please notify us in case your e-mail address is changed.

1) Submission on discrimination of Dalits in India
2) CHINA: Study Shows Female Infanticide "On A Grand Scale"
3) The Torture Reporting Handbook
4) News in Brief

1) Submission on discrimination of Dalits in India

ALRC MADE FOLLOWING SUBMISSION YESTERDAY TO THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION MEETING IN GENEVA, ON THE FAILTURE OF INDIAN GOVERNMENT AND THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY TO DEAL WITH THE ISSUE OF DALIT DISCRIMINATION IN INDIA.

Those who were once called 'Untouchables' in India now call themselves 'Dalits', meaning 'the oppressed'. Indeed, they are one of most oppressed groups that history has ever known. They comprise 17% of the Indian population. In sheer numbers, the problem affects at least 170 million men and women. However, this figure excludes those Dalits who have become Muslims or Christians. After a thousand years of exclusion from society they continue to be in limbo in Indian society, despite the legal abolition of untouchability. The only employment they can freely enter into is scavenging. No one disputes the fact that the benefits of development have not gone to them but rather to the other castes, which enjoyed the privileges always. The Constitution proposed achievement, equality, fraternity and liberty. The President of India recently raised a frank question on whether the Constitution has failed India or the leaders of the Nation have failed the Constitution. As a Constitutional Review is now taking place, there is an anxiety that aspects of the Constitution that were particularly directed towards negating some of the repression of Dalits and others may be revised to the disadvantage of these groups.

To the Dalits, in order of seriousness, the problem of discrimination is only next to the problem of recovering their manhood/womanhood. The discrimination against the Dalits is practiced on a scale the extent of which is impossible for an outsider to imagine. There is no field of life where the Dalits and upper castes come into competition in which the former is not subjected to discrimination. And this discrimination is of the most virulent type.

In the past in matters of social relationships, discrimination took the form of barriers against dancing, bathing, eating, drinking, wrestling and worshipping, which put a ban on all common cycles of participation. Today, the same barriers still continue due to the failure of the state to take adequately strong measures to transform the social condition of Dalits. Cases of Dalits killed or harassed by their upper caste neighbours for wearing foot-ware, women raped because they dare to make an attempt to get more education, young Dalits punished for daring to be self assertive - these things are still common.

Dalit discrimination is maintained by keeping Dalits landless. Dalit discrimination cannot make a significant breakthrough without a real attempt at land reform that grants land to Dalits.

In fact, no one today disputes the extreme form of discrimination involved in caste discrimination in India. However, the argument is that since the reasons for discrimination are not colour, race, ethnicity, or gender, there should be no recognition of what happens to these millions of people. Thus a form of discrimination that is even worse than slavery and apartheid goes without a response from the international community, simply because of real or alleged limitations of definitions. Can the international community explain its inability to act to eradicate this form of discrimination against these hundreds of millions of people using pure matters of definition? The Asian Legal Resource Centre submits that to take such a position is to abandon the very conceptions of justice and law that form the foundation of international human rights law.

2) CHINA: Study Shows Female Infanticide "On A Grand Scale"

Two researchers say comprehensive new data shows that tough population control policies in China and traditional family patterns have resulted in "female infanticide on a grand scale," with nearly 800,000 baby girls killed or abandoned in one region between 1971 and 1980.

Anthropologist and China specialist G. William Skinner of the University of California-Davis and Yuan Jinhua, a researcher with a semiofficial agency in Beijing, based their conclusions on an analysis of Chinese census data from 1990. They presented their findings at the Association for Asian Studies' annual meeting earlier this month in San Diego.
Their paper is the first to show how location and family composition determine infants' fate, the San Jose Mercury News reports. "The more rural a baby girl's surroundings, and the more sisters she had at birth, the higher her chances of not surviving," the newspaper notes.

Though Chinese officials have long maintained that missing girls are adopted or raised on the sly, Skinner contends the data does not allow for concealment. He and Yuan found that more than 808,000 baby girls were missing between 1971 and 1980 -- about 8% of all girls born in the lower Yangtze region during that decade. Nearly 82,000 boys -- 4.7% of the total -- are also missing, but the researchers believe most were adopted or transferred to other families, while girls were killed shortly after birth.

Of girls who were the sixth child in lower Yangtze families during that decade, nearly 45% are missing. Of girls born into families with four daughters, more than 45% are missing.

"The moral of the story is that the Chinese birth-planning program has caused a major upsurge of infanticide," Skinner said, adding that the traditional method of killing infants is drowning (Sarah Lubman, San Jose Mercury News, 17 Mar).

3) The Torture Reporting Handbook

How to document and respond to allegations of torture within the international system for the protection of human rights

By Camille Giffard

What is the Torture Reporting Handbook?

The Torture Reporting Handbook is a reference guide for anyone who wishes to know how to take action in response to allegations of torture or ill-treatment. It explains simply and clearly how the process of reporting and submitting complaints to international bodies and mechanisms actually works, and how to make the most of it: how you might go about documenting allegations, what you can do with the information once it has been collected, how to choose between the various mechanisms according to your particular objectives, and how to present your information in a way which makes it most likely that you will obtain a response.

Who is the Torture Reporting Handbook for?

The Torture Reporting Handbook is for anyone who comes across information indicating that torture has occurred. It is particularly relevant to human rights field workers and non-governmental organisations, but could be used by doctors, lawyers, or any other professionals or individuals who might receive such information. It is not a technical manual and you do not need any special knowledge in order to use it.

Why should you consider using the Torture Reporting Handbook?

Information is the key to the eradication of torture. International bodies and mechanisms have been created to address the problem of torture, but their effectiveness depends on the information which is sent to them. A lot of the information received is wasted because it is sent to the wrong body, presented in an inappropriate way, or seems unreliable. Careful preparation of your information following the guidelines in the Handbook should make it possible to avoid such mistakes and more likely that you will achieve your objectives in submitting the information.

4) News in Brief

1. MEETING OF RELIGIOUS GROUPS TO STUDY TORTURE DOCUMENT

   A meeting was held in Sri Lanka on 1-2 April to study key UN instruments, including the Convention Against Torture. It was a very successful meeting, held as a follow-up to the recent workshop on ways the religious groups can promote the Convention against Torture. As another follow-up of that workshop, AHRC has produced a poster highlighting the issue of torture combined with the image of the tortured Christ, copies of which can be forwarded to you on request.

2. RECENT PUBLICATION

   AHRC has recently published a book entitled "The Decline of Fair Trial in Asia". It is the outcome of the Asian Seminar on Fair Trial held in Hong Kong in November 1999. An excerpt from the introduction: "This book comes out at a crucial time when threats to fair trial are visible in all Asian countries... if Cesare Beccaria was to be alive, he would have, unhesitatingly, declared that most of the present practices called 'trials' are barbaric."

3. UPDATE ON 'STONING' SENTENCE IN EMIRATES

AHRC put out an Urgent Appeal for President Zayed of the United Arab Emirates to overturn a sentence to 'death by stoning' against an Indonesia domestic worker know as Kartini (full name Karteen Karikander). Kartini's sentence still stands, but she now at least has an interpreter and her own lawyer as the case is appealed at a higher court. It now appears that she had been raped when she fell pregnant, resulting in her being arrested for adultery. Many people around the world have written letters urging President Zayed to overturn the sentence, which he must sanction before it will go ahead. Kartini has found the strength and hope to fight this case because of this tremendous international support. More letters need to be sent to keep up the pressure against this most barbaric of sentences. You can write to:

HH President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan
President, Supreme Council of United Arab Emirates
Presidential Court
280 Abu Dhabi
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Salutation: Your Excellency