Human Rights Film Festival in Geneva

The Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council is holding its seventh session.

The organisers hope to strengthen the festival's role as a standard bearer for the victims of human rights abuses, opening up issues to the general public.

About 16,000 spectators are expected over the nine days, up from the 6,000 who visited the first event in 2003.

Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey came up with the concept of the Human Rights Council in March 2004 to replace the widely discredited and highly politicised UN Human Rights Commission created in 1946. The UN officially accepted the idea in September 2005.

The council is holding its seventh regular session from March 3-28 in Geneva.

posted by: jbasoon at 04:11 | link | comments |
human rights

Human Rights Hinges on Morality - UN Official on Liberia Rights Violations.

A UN official pointed out today that the value system of a country is part and parcel to the state of human rights in any area.

"The Head of the UN Refugee Agency in Liberia, Renata Dubini recently addressed the launch of Liberia's first-ever Peace, Human Rights and Citizenship Education at the Education Ministry in Monrovia, a release said.

"Dubini said the initiative was critical to the consolidation and fostering of peace-building especially in post-conflict Liberia.

"She observed that communities were increasingly becoming vulnerable to rape, child abuse as well as mob and domestic violence as a result of the destruction of the social fabric and value system of the country." More

I'm a Scientologist and this totally makes sense to me.

I really agree with her assessment of this. I was looking at the home page of Google news and Digg today. So many of the top stories are instances of prominent people violating moral codes. And that's just the big guys. This affects all of us.

In June, David Miscavige released a very simple property -- 21 public service announcements on the subject of morals that provide a frame of reference anyone can use to address his or her own value system.

Check them out and let me know what you think about them and if you think it could improve human rights.

posted by: jbasoon at 23:56 | link | comments (1) |
children, human rights, morality, david miscavige, liberia, value systems

United Nations Declaration on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights

It is a comment on the world in which we live that the UN saw the need to pass a declaration on indigenous people's rights.

History is, sadly, filled with so many instances of conquering cultures decimating the indigenous peoples of the lands they occupy.

The provisions in this new declaration simply extend human rights to indigenous peoples.

I find it disturbing that the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand voted against this bill. All four countries have baggage on the subject of their past treatment of indigenous peoples, and issues to deal with today on this subject. more>>

posted by: jbasoon at 06:24 | link | comments (1) |
human rights

Help Ethiopia

Doctor Without Borders is reporting a humanitarian crisis in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia:

Médecins Sans Frontières said 400,000 people, including thousands forcibly displaced when their villages were burned down, had little or no access to medicine due to a government-installed blockade.>>

posted by: jbasoon at 19:57 | link | comments |

The Latest Psychiatric Fraud -- Political Attention Deficit Disorder (PADD)

This just in -- the latest in delusional disorders, invented to get us to pay our tax dollars to cover "health care" for things that don't exist. This one is called Political Attention Deficit Disorder and no, I'm afraid it is not a joke (that is to say the joke is on all of us, but these "authorities" are deadly serious!).

"According to a report not yet released, the Council on Science and Public Health of the American Medical Association has recommended that a chronic and widespread affliction of Americans be officially declared a psychiatric disorder. It has been named the Political Attention Deficit Disorder (PADD). It is recommended that the disorder be included in a widely used mental illness manual created and published by the American Psychiatric Association. The current manual was published in 1994; the next edition is to be completed in 2012. The benefit to people of an official classification is coverage by health insurance."

For shame. We are not paying enough for health insurance that we have to dream up outrageous, fraudulent "disorders" as this?

Ah, but who's really behind this, do you think? You don't suppose that Big Pharma is ready to "reveal" their latest wonder drug to revitalize our patriotic fervor and get us down to the voting booth, the first Tuesday of November, do you?

And if that weren't hard enough to swallow, check this out: "Reached by phone, Dr. Aaron Gestaltstein, a Council member and psychiatrist with the Michigan Institute for the Study of Individual and Societal Health, said the AMA proposal will help raise awareness and called it 'the right thing to do if the United States is ever to regain effective government and equitable public policies.' 'Sick Americans deserve compassionate treatment if our country is to survive. PADD is no joke,' he added.

OMIGOD! And here I was hoping the whole thing was a troll!

Let's just take a step back and look at this. What can we do to prevent drugging 80% of our population who have been driven down into apathy by inept leadership and lousy education that leaves them unable to adequately participate in their civil responsibilities. (and by the way, I don't for a minute believe these figures of 80%, and I can't imagine how they dreamed it up!).

Here are things we can do to remedy this:L. Ron Hubbard described in the book The Problems of Work in the 1950's. Just take a walk and look around at the environment until you feel extroverted. He explains why and how this works in the book, but all you have to do is get out and walk, even if you feel exhausted (and especially if that's how you feel).

2. Improve your ability to understand political issues by boosting your functional literacy. Functional literacy is the ability to apply what you read. The Scientology Handbook has a chapter on the technology of study. Very easy to read and learn, and when you use it, Voila, you can understand what you are reading much better.

3. Get out and do something to help someone. I recommend checking out the Volunteer Ministers web site, as that's my favorite web volunteer group, but there are so many groups working hard and doing good. Dedicate a bit of your time to providing some unconditional help.

4. Ignore those who would like you to believe that living is a disease. It is most definitely not. It is part of LIFE to experience emotions.

If I've learned anything in Scientology it's that you CAN improve your life and it's not hard to do. And it certainly doesn't require the latest Big Pharma invention (which we later find out has a 70% failure rate so they had to invent a new one.)

It is NOT illogical to feel apathetic about an unresponsive government that thinks it's perfectly okay to ignore a record low 26% approval rating and continue to act with a total disregard of what the public actually needs and wants.

Wait a minute. The AMA/APA were wrong. It's not 80% of use who have PADD yet. It's only 74%. 26% still approve of the way the government is being administered!

posted by: jbasoon at 04:53 | link | comments (1) |

Save Darfur

There is a tragedy of enormous proportions happening right now as I write and you read. Not somewhere very far away. In Darfur. Right here on our own planet. Hundreds of thousands have died. Millions suffer. It is a genocide and the world stands by.... It is important to learn what is going on there, if you don't already know. Visit the " -->

posted by: jbasoon at 03:18 | link | comments |

Human Rights Victory for Scientology

Did you see the Scientology decision from the EU Court of Human Rights? What an incredible decision! For years Scientologists have been having to put up with conditions in Russia and Europe that no other religions have to contend with -- the kind of religious descrimination that was carefully banned after World War II and the memories of the holocaust. But by margianalizing a group, denying it the status of a religion, calling it a cult, ridiculing its practices or beliefs, you restrict the rights of the members. So although I'm American and have never had to up with the kind of pressusre European Scientologists have had, I am relieved personally that the European Court has made such logical, cogent findings.

posted by: jbasoon at 01:34 | link | comments |
religion, scientology, european court of human rights, discrimination

Harmony Day in Australia

Last week was Harmony day in Australia.

People living in harmony almost sounds unatainable. But I personally believe that we have more potential to accomplish this dream now than we ever have. In fact, with the Internet and all the other methods of instantaneous communication it has broken down the barriers among people, connecting us up fast than even in the past.

Yet the differences so often seem to outway the points of common reality.

Here's what I believe. There is a thing called the "ARC Triangle" in Scientology standing for "Affinity, Reality and Communication". Even though it's very simple it is still so powerful. In the book Scientology: the Fundamentals of Thought L. Ron Hubbard describes exactly how that triangle works. You can also learn about this in the Scientology Handbook. In fact the chapter where you can learn how these three factors interrelate and how you can use them to improve your rapport with others or another.

If you read these chapters, you'll see that communication is the most important corner of the ARC triangle. And communication is the universal solvent. With more communication was can break through the barriers of differences to understand our common qualities and similarities, and bring about understanding and peace. We've never accomplished peace on this planet in 5,000 years of recorded history. But we've also never had the resources to accomplish it like we have today. On another subject, I want to put in a plug to any Scientologist who might be reading this post to go to your org and see the March 13th event, if you missed it. It was a killer event. David Miscavige was brilliant as usual - what a fantastic MC he is -- but the great news is the expansion of Scientology. And at what a rate you wont' believe till you see it!

posted by: jbasoon at 05:07 | link | comments |

Volunteer Minister Wordpress Blog

Just found a great VM blog at http://scientologyvm.wordpress.com/

I have one friend who swears by his wordpress blog and keeps trying to talk me into moving mine over there from motime.

I can see wordpress is pretty cool, but what I like about Motime is the community.

This blog has a simple interface, very easy for me to use, and you're always finding out more about other motimers and that's half the fun of blogging, I think.

By the way, on another subject, for any Scientologists reading my blog, this weekend was the L. Ron Hubbard Birthday event in LA at the Shrine auditorium (it was actually held live in Clearwater, but there were 5,000 people at the Shrine and it's always so cool to be at an event like that.

And this one left me completely speechless.

My favorite part was the biographical video of LRH.

My other favorite part (can't say it was less favorite) was sthe opening speech by David Miscavige. Awesome as usual.

And my final all-time favorite was seeing the churches that won the yearly competition for the fastest expanding churches in the world.

Killer.

I cried throught the winners' speeches (as usual!).

posted by: jbasoon at 02:30 | link | comments (1) |

Should Bloggers have 1st Amendment Protection?

I have long thought the US grand jury system is a throwback to totalitarianism, à la 13th Century pre-Magna Carta checks and balances, but it's still rare to see it used before to force media to turn over their sources.

Now there's the The story today of Josh Wolf, a 24-year-old blogger, who has spent more than six months behind bars in California for contempt-of-court for refusing to turn over a videotape he shot of a violent San Francisco demonstration against a Group of Eight summit meeting brings up the issue once again of the need of grand jury reform.

"I would define a journalist as someone who brings news to the public," says his attorney Martin Garbus, "It's a definition that might cause journalists some discomfort because it opens up the gates."

The Washington post reports, "But U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan says in a court filing that Wolf's resistance 'is apparently fueled by his anointment as a journalistic martyr' and that he needs 'to come to grips with the fact that he was simply a person with a video camera who happened to record some public events.'"

And with that, Ryan dismisses an entire revolution in online media.

But the question is where do you draw the line?

And underlying it all, how can a system in America jail someone without a trial for 6 months and threaten to keep him there another 5 for refusing to turn over evidence, which is the problem with the grand jury system itself.

posted by: jbasoon at 04:52 | link | comments (1) |
bloggers, grand jury, freedom of speech