Tag: human rights

Legal Restrictions Affecting Christians / Report 2012

Legal Restrictions Affecting Christians / Report 2012Report Finds Large Number of Cases of Intolerance and Legal Restrictions Effecting Christians in Europe

Vienna / European Union, May 22, 2013. The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians releases 41 examples of national laws with adverse effects on Christians in more than 15 European Countries. Additionally, 169 cases of intolerance against Christians in the EU – area in 2012 are portrayed. The report was presented on May 21 at an OSCE High Level Conference on Tolerance and Non-discrimination held in

Tirana, Albania, in a keynote speech delivered by the Observatory’s director Dr. Gudrun Kugler. [Full news release and documents]

Discrimination at the doctor’s office

New England Journal of Medicine

Perspective

Holly Fernandez Lynch

Doctors dedicate themselves to helping others. But how selective can they be in deciding whom to help? Recent years have seen some highly publicized examples of doctors who reject patients not because of time constraints or limited expertise but on far more questionable grounds, including the patient’s sexual orientation, parents’ unwillingness to vaccinate (in surveys, as many as 30% of pediatricians say they have asked families to leave their practice for this reason), and most recently, the patient’s weight. [Read more . . .]

Group claims Maltese abortion law violates convention against torture

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) has submitted a report to the UN Human Rights Council that accuses Malta of violating the Convention Against Torture and other alleged obligations because Maltese law prohibits abortion.  The ICJ describes itself as “60 eminent judges and lawyers from all regions of the world” that “promotes and protects human rights through the Rule of Law, by using its unique legal expertise to develop and strengthen national and international justice systems.”  The same general claim was made this month by the UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

 

UN Human Rights Council equates lack of access to abortion with torture

Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment

Juan E. Méndez

The present report focuses on certain forms of abuses in health-care settings that
may cross a threshold of mistreatment that is tantamount to torture or cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment. It identifies the policies that promote these practices  and existing protection gaps.

By illustrating some of these abusive practices in health-care settings, the report sheds light on often undetected forms of abusive practices that occur under the auspices of health-care policies, and emphasizes how certain treatments run afoul of the prohibition on torture and ill-treatment. It identifies the scope of State‟s obligations to regulate, control and supervise health-care practices with a view to preventing mistreatment under any pretext.

The Special Rapporteur examines a number of the abusive practices commonly reported in health-care settings and describes how the torture and ill-treatment framework applies in this context. [Report]

Can Atheists and Muslims Support Freedom of Conscience Together?

 Religion and Politics

Qasim Rashid and Chris Stedman

Thomas Jefferson once wrote: “But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

For many of us, it’s easy to appreciate Jefferson’s eloquently stated advocacy of religious freedom of conscience, as well as the idea that all individuals should be able to express religious or nonreligious positions independent of others’ beliefs. Likewise, at the United Nations, both the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the binding International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantee “freedom of thought, conscience and religion” to all individuals. But, in spite of international agreements and Jefferson’s beautiful words, the reality is that these tenets are often forgotten. . . . Read more