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	The struggle for human rights and equality continues in Iran by Shirin Ebadi Iran   June 8, 2010   This weekend one year will have gone by since the Iranian people took to the streets to protest at the fraudulent elections that returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency. These peaceful demonstrations were met with extreme violence carried out by the Iranian regime. Since that day, the people have not backed down and continue to fight peacefully for basic human rights. Meanwhile, the government continues its crackdown on any opposition or dissent with ever increasing brutality.   Just a few weeks ago, on 9 May, the lengths to which the regime will go to crush its opponents came to light. Five political prisoners were executed in secret. Not even their families or their lawyers were notified.   Shirin Alam Holi, a 28-year-old Kurdish woman, was executed along with four men. In letters from Evin prison, Shirin wrote of being tortured to confess to charges of terrorism. She refused to confess, sealing her fate. At least 25 other men and women await the same fate on death row.   However, as we see time and time again, the harsher the repression, the stronger the movement grows. And as the story of Shirin Alam Holi demonstrates, women are at the forefront of the struggle for human rights in Iran.   But it is interesting to observe that this powerful feminist movement was not born out of the elections. It has been gaining strength and momentum since the Islamic revolution of 1979 – when the regime began imposing laws that were discriminatory against women – and even predates the revolution. Women in Iran have enjoyed the right to vote for nearly 50 years, since 1963. Today, under an even more repressive regime, they are flooding the ranks of doctors, professors and chief executives. Women now constitute more than 63% of university students. Is it any wonder that they refuse to stand idly by and accept that their lives are not worth as much as that of a man?   With no leader or central office, for 31 years the women"s movement has resided in every Iranian household that cares about human rights. In the past year, the now famous Green movement has emerged and modelled itself on this seemingly unstoppable force. With women"s rights activists at the helm, the Green network of groups and people is consistent in its demands for democracy and human rights.   Take the Mourning Mothers. Every week since June 2009, mothers whose children are in prison, are missing, or have lost their lives in state-sanctioned violence, gather in Laleh Park in Tehran. Dressed all in black, they carry photos of their loved ones and are surrounded by other women who wish to support and protect them.   Every Saturday they gather peacefully and every Saturday the police attack, beat, and arrest them. This excessive violence and repression by the government has sadly become routine in Iran – but has not deterred the Mourning Mothers. Courageously, they are defending their human rights and, ultimately, those of women everywhere.   In December, a wave of arrests and violence followed peaceful protests taking place on the Shia Muslim holy day of Ashura. Dozens of women journalists and human rights activists were targeted, and I was no exception. In an attempt to stop me from doing my work from abroad, the government arrested my sister, Dr Noushin Ebadi. She has never been politically active or participated in any rallies or demonstrations, but was arrested and detained for three weeks solely because of my work fighting for human rights.   This brave group of women will not stop. They prove that there is no end to the creative ways that Iranian women will fight back. The One Million Signatures campaign has been working since before last year"s election to collect signatures from Iranian men and women who oppose discriminatory laws and practices. On 11 March the Change for Equality website, which promotes the campaign, was awarded the first ever Netizen prize by Reporters Without Borders. The next day – ironically the World Day Against Cyber-Censorship – Iranian authorities shut down the website for the 23rd time since it was launched in 2006. It was up and running again just hours later.   The struggle for human rights and gender equality continues in Iran as we mark the anniversary of the disputed elections. This global day of action has united activists, students, NGOs and concerned citizens worldwide to spotlight the very serious human rights abuses that have become all too common.   (Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer, human rights activist and founder of Centre for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran. In 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work promoting democracy and human rights. She was the first Muslim woman to have received the prize).
	Millennium Development Goals: Time Is Running Out by Navi Pillay United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights   Dayaram expected to hold his baby in his arms. Instead, he was left to mourn his wife and unborn child. They died of complications during labor because Dayaram"s wife, Bushba, had to walk fifty kilometers from her remote village in northern India to the nearest hospital. Bushba"s fate is not exceptional.   Saving the lives of the many women like Bushba is the aim of one of the eight Millennium Development Goals which the world"s leaders endorsed 10 years ago. The leaders will meet again this September to assess progress in reaching these Goals, which were conceived to reduce poverty, hunger and disease and to promote gender equality, health, education, environmental sustainability and global partnerships by 2015. Full implementation of these MDGs is literally vital, as is tackling violations of human rights from which poverty and exclusion almost invariably stem. The lives of the world"s poorest and most vulnerable people are at stake.   According to current World Bank estimates, more than 1.4 billion people live in extreme poverty. The recent food, economic and financial crises will push an additional 64 million people into extreme poverty by the end of this year. Over 1 billion people suffer from malnutrition. In sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia, poverty remains stubbornly high; the number of persons living below US$1 a day went up by 92 million in sub-Saharan Africa and by 8 million in Western Asia between 1990 and 2005.   In many countries, hundreds of pregnant rural women like Bushba die unnecessarily because of a lack of accessible medical care.   Maternal health is a human rights concern. Indeed, implicit in the MDGs is the concern that all people should be able to meet their basic human rights, including the right to food, to shelter, to education, to obtain remedies when their rights are violated, and to fully participate in public life. The interrelation between freedom from want and freedom from fear is made explicit by the UN Charter and by international human rights law. It must also be regarded as a central tenet of the world leaders discussions on the MDGs.   Such discussions are awaited with a mix of great expectations and even greater apprehension. This is because concrete and positive change still eludes millions. Promises have been made and have been broken, condemning multitudes to a life of poverty, neglect and abuse. We cannot afford to keep disappointing the hopes of those who live at the margins of their own societies -- let alone the global community. Their disenfranchisement may carry a higher cost than investing resources and political will in their empowerment.   And empowerment cannot be achieved if development policies are pursued in a human rights vacuum. Yet, for too long, governments have considered human rights and development to be two very separate issues, each to be tackled independently and according to a different order of priority. Economic development has been the overriding concern, exacerbating the gap between the rich and the poor. But in combination with human rights, economic growth strategies can be a powerful tool to help us realize the UN Charter"s vision of a more equal, secure and just world in larger freedom.   Human rights principles such as equality, participation, accountability and the rule of law are instrumental for development to take firm root and be both equitable and sustainable. Freedom and participation, and all other civil and political rights, bolster the common wealth of societies. In turn, social and economic rights are critical to empower an informed polity to count and be counted, as well as to devise effective development policies. And gender equality is the biggest development multiplier, known to work everywhere.   I am convinced that Bushba and many of the estimated 500,000 women who die unnecessarily every year during pregnancy and childbirth would live and even prosper if, in addition to medical care, they were given the chance to educate themselves, to access information and to participate in the decisions about their pregnancies and how to deliver their children.   Development cannot be a project imposed on people but must be a common journey led by the people themselves.   This is why a human rights approach to development is essential: it puts people in control of their own lives, as it puts women in control of their own bodies and fate. When leaders meet in New York this September to decide upon the future of the Bushbas of this world, I will invite them to join me in an effort to make human rights the basis for development. It"s too late for Bushba, but for many people who can still be saved, time is running out.   * Navi Pillay is United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.   Sept 2010   Without Human Rights, Millenuim Goals will fail, say UN Human Rights Experts.   “The Heads of State gathering at the United Nations should bear in mind that, if they really want to eliminate poverty, they must be guided by human rights,” said 24 experts of the United Nations Human Rights Council in anticipation of the UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals.   “The agreed Summit Outcome Document makes several references to human rights. Its implementation must have a stronger focus on human rights not only to ensure the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, but to also make them meaningful for the billions of people who need them most,” the experts argued.   “We have to move from a top-down, statistics-driven, charity-based approach to one that focuses on rights and entitlements.”   Key to achieving the Millennium Goals   Compliance with human rights standards is not only an obligation for States, it is also crucial for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. “Meaningful participation and empowerment, equality and non-discrimination, accountability and transparency are central features of the human rights-based approach to development, which emphasizes sustainable progress,” the experts said.   “Strong national legal frameworks, built through participatory processes, would remove the stigma of charity and empower the poor to be full actors in development, rather than passive recipients of aid. Accountability mechanisms must allow victims of human rights abuses to hold those responsible to account for their actions, or their failure to act.”   “All of the Goals, and especially those on gender equality and maternal mortality, require full realization of women’s human rights, including to justice and protection,” emphasized the experts. “Ensuring the right to social security contributes to progress towards multiple Millennium Development Goals, by enabling people to access food, healthcare, housing, water, sanitation, and education.”   The experts pointed out that several Millennium Development Goals only aim to reduce by half, or by two-thirds, the number of people suffering. “Human rights demand constant efforts to ensure everyone enjoys rights without discrimination, we cannot be satisfied with half measures.”   For instance, halving the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by 2015 is the first goal. “There are more people hungry today than when the Millennium Development Goals were adopted,” the experts warned, “but even if this target were met, over 400 million people would still be undernourished. They cannot be left behind.”   “Focusing on aggregate progress risks masking inequality. Averages and aggregates give States incentives to focus on those easily reached rather than on marginalized people; this could exacerbate exclusion. Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals should aim to correct discrimination, not reinforce it.”   Some groups – children, minorities, indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, internally displaced persons and those who face racial or religious discrimination – too often find themselves forgotten. Poverty gaps will increase unless programmes such as those to achieve the Millennium Development Goals address the unique circumstances of these groups and the causes and effects of the discrimination that limits their access to education or jobs.   “Development efforts must respect cultural rights and diversity,” argued the experts. “Only close monitoring of their situation can reveal the disadvantages faced by such groups so programmes can be shaped in response.”   The Millennium Development Goals also fail to capture improvements urgently needed. The Millennium Development Goals target on water, for example, measures whether people have access to an improved water source, but does not measure water quality. “Nearly a billion people still lack access to an improved water source, but 2 to 3 billion may be drinking unsafe water,” noted the experts. Equally, universalizing primary education would be insufficient if quality remains poor.   The Millennium Development Goals also foresee “improving” the lives of slum dwellers, but this is often translated into slum clearance. “Security of tenure for slum dwellers should be the key approach, not forced evictions,” the experts argued.   “Significant progress has been made on the achievement of a number of Millennium Development Goals, but much more needs to be done. A focus on human rights is needed to tackle the structural problems, at both the national and international levels, that underpin and sustain the poverty and underdevelopment whose effects the Goals try to alleviate,” the experts noted.   “The Millennium Development Goals are laudable political commitments and have been useful in mobilizing money and energy. But States can achieve these goals sustainably only if they are guided by human rights obligations that define which actions should be taken by whom,” the experts emphasized.   “All human rights are relevant,” the experts said. “Good governance and the rule of law at national and international levels are critical. Those living in poverty as well as those working in support of Millennium Development Goals implementation and on development problems must be able to speak freely and participate in decision-making without fear.”   “Addressing the structural causes of poverty and underdevelopment also improves global security” the experts said. “Placing human rights at the centre of strategies to achieve the Millennium Development Goals would tackle the conditions that contribute to social unrest and terrorism.”   “The Millennium Development Goals create clear targets, and this is their appeal. But the challenge is in the details of implementation, and that is where human rights are crucial,” the experts concluded. Visit the related web page
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