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| The Magnus Hirschfeld Centre for Human Rights |
| Crosswicks House, Post Office Box 1974 Bloomfield, New Jersey USA 07003 Tele/Facsimile: (862)823-1767 E-Mail: HumanRights@post.com |
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| ORGANIZATIONAL MEMBER WORLD COMMISSION for PEACE & HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCILS |
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| CALLS TO ACTION |
| UNITED STATES: Congressman Tom Lantos of California has introduced into the House of Representatives a resolution (H.Con.Res 173, dated June 26, 2001) entitled the International Human Rights Equality Resolution, expressing the concern of the United States Congress over human rights violations. Write to your Congressperson to urge they support this important "first step" in making equality for all a reality. |
| UNITED STATES - Marcus Wayman, an 18-year-old from Minersville, Pennsylvania was provoked to suicide because of the homophobic misconduct of the officers of the Minersville Police Department. Now, a state court jury has found the officers involved not liable for his 'wrongful death' a civil action. Urge the United States Attorney to initiate a federal action for "conspiracy to deprive of civil rights" (Title 18, United States Code). |
| TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE MINERSVILLE TRAGEDY AND HOW YOU CAN HELP PREVENT ITS RECURRENCE, CLICK HERE. |
| SOUTH AFRICA / CANADA - Aubrey Levin, a Canadian citizen and South African expatriate, was a colonel in the medical corps of the South African Defense Force during the pre-1991 Apartheid regime. A physician and psychiatrist, Levin - according to credible testimony - applied horrific, non-standard aversion "therapy" techniques to forcibly "convert" unwilling homosexual Defense Force conscripts into heterosexuals. When Levin's "therapy" failed, he recommended his charges undergo surgical gender reassignment. Under the seeming protection of the provinicial government of Alberta, the College of Physicians of Alberta and the University of Calgary, Levin today remains on the latter institution's staff as a clinical professor of forensic psychiatry, having found until now a "safe haven" in Canada far from the reach of South African law. |
| UNITED STATES - Law enforcement officials in Fairview, New Jersey have appeared - on the basis of credible reports - to target gay and lesbian individuals living in that small northern New Jersey town for their 'special attention' in the form of ongoing harassment, with the tacit consent of some members of the town's government who seek to rid their town of homosexuals. Local citizens - both gay and straight - are keeping the matter quiet, pleading that they 'want no trouble from the Police,' making the municipality seem more a part of Guatemala than of New Jersey. |
| UNITED STATES - Fighting terrorism carries with it the risk of becoming terroristic. Irrespective of whether US bombing of targets in Afghanistan is seen as justified or otherwise, the fight got much uglier on November 14th. George Bush has signed an Executive Order setting up the framework for non-judicial Military Commissions to try non-US citizens for crimes alleged to have been committed against US property and persons. These fora fall far short of internationally- and Constitutionally-mandated standards of fairness and impartiality, are creatures of the Executive Branch whose decisions are reviewable only by the Secretary of Defense, and have the power to impose non-appealable sentences of death. White House spokespersons have admitted the Order was promulgated because conventional justice would be "too impractical in the circumstances" to dispense. |
| UNITED STATES - Wayne Township is an affluent municipality in northern New Jersey's Passaic County with a substantial population of residents belonging to other than Christian religious traditions. In spite of their Township's religious and cultural diversity, Wayne's educational authorities plan to allow an aggressively proselytizing, right-wing, fundamentalist Christian group access to their elementary schools. The group has an avowed aim of using young children as an introit to proselytizing families. In spite of this, in spite of the fact that the group's promotional literature was unlawfully distributed by school personnel on school time, in spite of the protests of parents, in spite of the fact that regular procedures for the approval of such on-site activities were circumvented by the group's representative, and in spite of the admission by Wayne authorities that their initial approval of the group was "a mistake", still it appears that Wayne's schoolchildren will soon be divided into "saved" and "unsaved" camps. |
| UNITED KINGDOM - The British Virgin Islands (an overseas dependent territory of the United Kingdom) may be a paradise for vacationing scuba-divers and beach enthusiasts but it is pure hell for those of its citizens afflicted by AIDS/HIV. The BVI government has fired a civil servant - even though he is otherwise healthy and able to work - solely because he is living with the disease. Mr. Purnell Christian needs to work to afford the anti-retroviral therapy that is keeing him alive, but with a livelihood and his dignity denied him by his own government, he has effectively been sentenced to death. Contact the British embassy in your homeland as well as representatives of the BVI tourist industry and let them know that this is no way for a decent country (and one that relies heavily on tourist dollars to finance it local economy) to conduct itself. |
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| POLAND - VERY URGENT Roman Catholic Church authorities throughout Poland - in complicity with Polish law enforcement agencies - have engaged in ongoing and severe harrassment, intimidation and attempts to silence practitioners and teachers of what are perceived as "alien" non-Christian religions, specifically Buddhism, Hinduism and - although it is not a religious form of expression per se - Yoga. Courts and Justice Ministry officials have repeatedly and illegally refused to register such groups as religious institutions and have even charged one Buddhist leader - Ryszard Matuszewski - with serious criminal offenses and attempts at violence. Poland's accession to the European Union may offer some hope that religious intolerance and the violation of the civil rights of religious minorities will end, but action is needed. |
| UNITED STATES - VERY URGENT Zach Stark is a 16-year old high school student in the suburbs of Nashville, Tennessee. When he revealed to his fundamentalist Christian parents that he was homosexual, they forcibly enrolled him in an unlicensed detention facility accused of child abuse in order to force his conversion to heterosexuality. The facility, known as LIAR (Love in Action Refuge) is a part of the notorious "ex-gay" movement that engages in pseudo-scientific, destructive forms of brainwashing to purportedly change homosexuals into heterosexuals. Adults undergoing such a process of their own free will is a tragic enough situation, but a young person without legal recourse being so coerced is a shuddersome violation of legality and decency. |