61 posts tagged “human rights”
This article is a refreshing article after the article I posted yesterday about the apparent roll back of Shia women's rights about to occur under Afghan law. Although the situation in Afghanistan is regrettably still the same, what is refreshing is to once again read that the apparent lack of women's rights in Islam is not a universal occurrence and is more related to patriarchal customs rather than the true interpretation of the Qur'an.
Sadly fundamentalist Christian , Jewish
and Hindu
sects/dominations are currently plagued by the rolling back of women right's in
their respective religions, with increasing violence against women being
condoned in the name of religion. I hope this apparent trend will not
continue and I hope that women will not accept these views which are being
forced upon them in the name of religion.
There is no excuse for violence against women, even in the name of religion.
- Chezza
Doha, Qatar - How is it that one religion – Islam – seems capable of undermining women and promoting them at the same time?
Anyone attempting to take stock of the position of women in the Muslim
world cannot help but be confused. One finds stories in the media all
the time about injustices committed against Muslim women, such as
"honour" killings, child marriages and discriminatory legal judgments
in matters of divorce, custody and inheritance.
On the other hand, one also comes across stories about the remarkable
strides made by Muslim women in education, career development and
political activism in countries as diverse as Bangladesh, Morocco and
Turkey.
How can we make sense of such a dichotomous picture?
The answer is simple: by distinguishing the religion of Islam from the Muslims who practice it.
Those who study the Qur'an know that Islam elevated the rights of women
beyond anything known in the pre-Islamic world. In fact, in the seventh
century Muslim women were granted rights not granted to European women
until the 19th century, such as property ownership, inheritance and
divorce.
That said, Muslims who codified the Qur'an and Hadith
(sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) into Islamic law did not succeed in
expunging the patriarchy of the pre-Islamic world from their practices.
This distinction between the faith and the various manifestations of its practice is a subtle but extremely important one.
When a Westerner is trained to pick up on the distinction, he/she comes
to recognise that the Muslim woman who criticises Muslim practices is
not usually rebuking her heritage in favour of Western ideals – the
kind of rebuke that hits best-seller lists in the West and that feeds
Western stereotypes about the religion – but is instead encouraging
other Muslims claiming allegiance to Qur'anic teachings to live up to
its highest principles.
This inward criticism and call to action is often called Islamic
feminism, a promising paradigm which supports change from within, and
not in imported formulas.
While adopting the Qur'an at its core, Islamic feminism challenges two
main norms: the patriarchal cultural customs mistaken for Islamic
teaching and patriarchal interpretations of certain Qur'anic verses.
The project of disentangling what is true Islamic teaching from
cultural traditions historically practiced in a Muslim territory is an
ongoing project for Muslim feminists.
Arifa Mazhar, the manager of gender issues for the Pakistan-based Sungi
Development Foundation, whose goal is to effect policy and
institutional changes relating to development by mobilising
marginalised local communities, declared at the International Congress
on Islamic Feminism in Barcelona in 2008: "Instead of debating Islam,
we should be debating culture and its impact…. There are a lot of
social taboos and tribal traditions that oppress women, and they have
little to do with Islam."
Islamic feminism's second challenge is to attempt to reinterpret verses
in the Qur'an – especially given the present context – that have been
misinterpreted or over-generalised.
One example is the disproportionate weight given to the few Qur'anic
verses giving men authority over women within family structures versus
the many others that emphasise equality between men and women. Islamic
feminism encourages women to study the words of the Qur'an for
themselves, and to judge whether the misogyny and failure to take women
seriously prevalent in some customs is a matter of Islamic doctrine or,
indeed, of cultural impositions on such doctrine. Islamic feminism thus
provides the grounds for changing civil and national law in ways that
prove progressive for women.
Sisters in Islam, a leading Muslim women's rights group in Malaysia,
has been trying to reform the issue of polygamy. Rather than calling
for the abolition of polygamy, for example, it calls only for its
restriction to certain situations – such as obtaining permission from
the first wife and from the court – and is working on public surveys
that would provide empirical evidence of the negative effects of
polygamy on society.
Rooted in Islam and the Qur'anic spirit of equity, Islamic feminism
provides a credible political voice for women. It gives women's
organisations, women's rights advocates, and gender scholars in the
Muslim world legitimate grounds for action – and change – as fulfilment
of society's religious obligations.
###
* Amal Mohammed Al-Malki is an assistant teaching professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar and a member of the Qatar National Competitiveness Council, which promotes reform and transparency in the national economy. This article first appeared in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) as part of a series on Muslim women and their religious rights.
Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 31 March 2009, www.commongroundnews.org
It appears that the Afghan parliament has passed laws which severely impact on the human rights of Shia women in Afghanistan.
At present the final document has not been published, but the law is believed to contain articles that rule women cannot leave the house without their husbands' permission, that they can only seek work, education or visit the doctor with their husbands' permission, and that they cannot refuse their husband sex. There may also be laws which grant custody of children to fathers and grandfathers and not to their mothers or grandmothers.
Some female Afghan MPs are furious that the law was rushed through so quickly and made the following statements about the law.
Shinkai Karokhail, a woman MP who campaigned against the legislation said, "It is one of the worst bills passed by the parliament this century. It is totally against women's rights. This law makes women more vulnerable."
"It's about votes," Ms Karokhail added. "Karzai is in a hurry to appease the Shia because the elections are on the way."
"There are moderate views among the Shia, but unfortunately our MPs, the people who draft the laws, rely on extremists," Ms Karokhail said.
Even the law's sponsors confirmed that the legislation is so that Karzai will win Shia votes. Ustad Mohammad Akbari, a prominent Shia political leader, said: "It's electioneering. Most of the Hazara people are unhappy with Mr Karzai."
Another female MP, Senator Humeira Namati claimed it wasn't even read out in the Upper House, let alone debated, before it was passed to the Supreme Court. "They accused me of being an unbeliever," she said.
As an Australian woman it is difficult to imagine living as a woman under the described conditions. I am afraid I cannot respect a culture and/or a section of a religion that treats their women this way. Surely this cannot be how these women wish to be treated.
I understand that sometimes we do not understand some aspects of a country’s culture or religion and what we see as oppression, is not actually oppression at all. But I am afraid in the examples stated in this apparent legislation, I cannot see anything but the terrible oppression of women who are treated as possessions and slaves to their male masters. It would be fine if the woman was lucky enough to marry a kind and loving husband who fostered a relationship based on mutual respect, but if a woman was not to marry such a loving husband the outcome for the woman would be tragic.
I am afraid I do not want my Australian soldiers fighting and dying in Afghanistan so that the governments we are said to support can pass such archaic laws against the rights of women.
- Chezza
Hamid Karzai has been accused of trying to win votes in Afghanistan's presidential election by backing a law the UN says legalises rape within marriage and bans wives from stepping outside their homes without their husbands' permission.
The Afghan president signed the law earlier this month, despite condemnation by human rights activists and some MPs that it flouts the constitution's equal rights provisions.
Jon Boone reveals Afghanistan's new law denying women's rights Link to this audio
The final document has not been published, but the law is believed to contain articles that rule women cannot leave the house without their husbands' permission, that they can only seek work, education or visit the doctor with their husbands' permission, and that they cannot refuse their husband sex.
A briefing document prepared by the United Nations Development Fund for Women also warns that the law grants custody of children to fathers and grandfathers only.
Senator Humaira Namati, a member of the upper house of the Afghan parliament, said the law was "worse than during the Taliban". "Anyone who spoke out was accused of being against Islam," she said.
The Afghan constitution allows for Shias, who are thought to represent about 10% of the population, to have a separate family law based on traditional Shia jurisprudence. But the constitution and various international treaties signed by Afghanistan guarantee equal rights for women.
Shinkai Zahine Karokhail, like other female parliamentarians, complained that after an initial deal the law was passed with unprecedented speed and limited debate. "They wanted to pass it almost like a secret negotiation," she said. "There were lots of things that we wanted to change, but they didn't want to discuss it because Karzai wants to please the Shia before the election."
Although the ministry of justice confirmed the bill was signed by Karzai at some point this month, there is confusion about the full contents of the final law, which human rights activists have struggled to obtain a copy of. The justice ministry said the law would not be published until various "technical problems" had been ironed out.
After seven years leading Afghanistan, Karzai is increasingly unpopular at home and abroad and the presidential election in August is expected to be extremely closely fought. A western diplomat said the law represented a "big tick in the box" for the powerful council of Shia clerics.
Leaders of the Hazara minority, which is regarded as the most important bloc of swing voters in the election, also demanded the new law.
Ustad Mohammad Akbari, an MP and the leader of a Hazara political party, said the president had supported the law in order to curry favour among the Hazaras. But he said the law actually protected women's rights.
"Men and women have equal rights under Islam but there are differences in the way men and women are created. Men are stronger and women are a little bit weaker; even in the west you do not see women working as firefighters."
Akbari said the law gave a woman the right to refuse sexual intercourse with her husband if she was unwell or had another reasonable "excuse". And he said a woman would not be obliged to remain in her house if an emergency forced her to leave without permission.
The international community has so far shied away from publicly questioning such a politically sensitive issue.
"It is going to be tricky to change because it gets us into territory of being accused of not respecting Afghan culture, which is always difficult," a western diplomat in Kabul admitted.
Soraya Sobhrang, the head of women's affairs at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said western silence had been "disastrous for women's rights in Afghanistan".
"What the international community has done is really shameful. If they had got more involved in the process when it was discussed in parliament we could have stopped it. Because of the election I am not sure we can change it now. It's too late for that."
But another senior western diplomat said foreign embassies would intervene when the law is finally published.
Some female politicians have taken a more pragmatic stance, saying their fight in parliament's lower house succeeded in improving the law, including raising the original proposed marriage age of girls from nine to 16 and removing completely provisions for temporary marriages.
"It's not really 100% perfect, but compared to the earlier drafts it's a huge improvement," said Shukria Barakzai, an MP. "Before this was passed family issues were decided by customary law, so this is a big improvement."
Karzai's spokesman declined to comment on the new law.
The International Gay and
Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) has awarded its 2009 Felipa de Souza
Award to the Lebanese group Helem.
IGLHRC’s Felipa Award recognises the courage and effectiveness of groups or leaders dedicated to improving the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other individuals stigmatised and abused because of their sexuality or HIV status.
Helem is the first organisation in the Arab world to set up a gay and lesbian community centre. Helem’s work has consistently broken new ground in a country that criminalises homosexuality and where violence and abuse are persistent problems.
IGLHRC’s Executive Director Paula Ettelbrick said, “Helem works in very challenging circumstances to make a very real difference to the lives of countless LGBTI people in the Middle East and beyond. We applaud their courage and commitment to human rights for all.”
Helem was founded in 2004 and is based in Beirut, with support chapters in Australia, France, Canada and the United States. The organisation’s work ranges from advocacy to public education. A major focus of its human rights advocacy work revolves around eradicating Article 534 of the Lebanese Penal Code, which is used to criminalise homosexuality.
Congratulations to a most deserving and courageous organisation.
BEIRUT: A Lebanese gay rights organization will on Monday be presented with a prestigious international award in the United States in recognition of its work. Helem, an Arabic acronym of "Lebanese Protection for Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgenders" but also meaning 'dream,' is a Beirut-based non-governmental organization that has worked since 2004 to promote the legal, social and cultural rights of the above individuals. Helem was the first organization of its kind in the Middle East, though it has since been joined by ASWAT (Voices), an organization for Palestinian lesbians, and the Iranian Queer Railroad.
The organization was selected by The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) as the 2009 recipient of the Felipa de Souza Award in recognition of Helem's work to improve the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) and others who face discrimination because of their sexuality or HIV positive status. Announcing the award, IGLHRC said: "The first organization in the Arab world to set up a gay and lesbian community center, Helem's work has consistently broken new ground in a country that criminalizes homosexuality and where violence and abuse are persistent problems. We applaud their courage and commitment to human rights for all."
"We are very proud to accept the Felipa Award from IGLHRC," Helem board member Shadi Ghrawi said in a statement. "It's a great honor to be selected. We hope it will help advance the struggle for human rights for LGBTI people in Lebanon and throughout the Middle East."
The Felipa Award will be presented to Helem's coordinator, George Azzi, on March 30 in New York and on April 2 in San Francisco, California.
Among Helem's primary activities is a campaign to have Article 534, which criminalizes homosexuality under "unnatural sexual intercourse," removed from the Lebanese penal code. Activists claim the article is used to intimidate the LGBTI community, and those convicted under it can spend up to one year in prison. According to Helem, abolishing Article 534 would "help reduce state and societal persecution and pave the way to achieving equality for the LGBT community in Lebanon."
Helem also offers free and anonymous 15-minute HIV tests to the general public while advocating the rights of HIV positive individuals.
News of Helem's award comes two months after the group's vocal criticism against the violent assault of two gay men by members of the Lebanese Armed Forces in Beirut's Sassine Square area. Soldiers found the two men embracing in the lobby of an abandoned building and dragged them into the street and beat them. "One, half naked, was even exhibited to bystanders ... just for fun," said a statement by Helem in late January.
According to the group, the men were detained at a military barracks and were handed over to the civil authorities, who continue to detain them. "It is high time that the country's lawmakers looked at an obsolete, ridiculous law that condemns and punishes homosexuality in Lebanon," Helem said of Article 534. "At a time when gay marriage is permitted in many countries, the [Lebanese] authorities hypocritically deny the simplest expression of reality that they will have to face one day or another."
The use of acid to maim and disfigure both women and men for supposed transgressions, is a problem in South Asia. Although this is in some ways a sad story, it is also inspirational because women like Fozilitun Nessa are not prepared to lose their will to live, despite the horrific damage that has been done to them.
I hope some day these crimes will be a thing of the past and the perpetrators of these crimes are brought to justice and incur a heavy penalty for their disgraceful actions.
By Shakira Hussein
Bangladesh has been in the news recently for violence in the military, but there is another kind of violence, quiet and almost unnoticed, that occurs there every second day, writes Shakira Hussein
Whenever anybody meets Fozilitun Nessa, the first thing they learn about her is the moment that she would most like to wipe from her life: the moment a neighbour, enraged by the rejection of his marriage proposal, flung acid into her face. He could not have her, so he branded her. After eight rounds of surgery, she bears the mark still. Further surgery could help to conceal the damage, but she has had enough. She has nothing to be ashamed of, she says. She did nothing wrong, and her scarred face is not her fault. It is his fault — the one who did it to her. Fozilitun visited Australia from Bangladesh as UNIFEM's guest for International Women's Day. She has come to talk about the work of the Acid Survivor's Foundation, the organisation that arranged for her surgery and for whom she is now a board member. But listening to her address a 900-strong audience in Canberra, it was clear that she had also come because speaking out and making herself visible is the best victory that she can have. Her attacker must have thought that if she survived her injuries, she would hide herself away. She hasn't.
Hundreds of women (and some men) are killed or maimed by acid attack in South Asia each year, across a myriad of ethnic and religious communities. They are punished for a range of supposed transgressions. For refusing a suitor, like Fozilitun. For failing to adhere to ordained dress codes. For transgressing caste boundaries. For failing to bring enough dowry to a marriage, like Noor Bibi's daughter.
I met Noor Bibi some years ago in Pakistan, just a few hours after her daughter had died, her face burned away by the acid flung by her husband and his brothers. Noor Bibi was a widow with no sons, living with her brother's family in a village outside Lahore. She was very poor, but she had married off her daughter with the best dowry she could afford. It was not enough. After the wedding, the groom's family kept demanding more and more money. Noor Bibi's daughter was their hostage — when their demands were not met, they beat her. Noor Bibi gave and gave until she had nothing more to give. After that, they had no more use for her daughter.
Noor Bibi had come to Lahore with her daughter and sat at her bedside as she died. She traced her fingers across her own face as she described the damage the acid had wrought upon her only child. Her eye, her nose, her ear, all burned away. Her young son remained in the custody of the family who had killed her. Noor Bibi hoped to reclaim her grandson. But her daughter was gone.
In strictly relative terms, Fozilitun escaped lightly. She is still alive; she still has her vision, her ability to smile. But her life is split into "before" and "after". Before the attack, she lived with her extended family in the provincial town of Comilla, 100 kilometres south-east of the capital, in a combined household with her four uncles and their families as well as her own parents and siblings. She was a good student and planned to become a school principal one day. She winces when she talks of those plans.
"It's a very painful question, to think about those ambitions. That's totally finished."
After the burning, the weeks when she thought that she might die, the surgery and yet more surgery, she was determined to continue her education and her life. She left her hometown to go to university in the capital, Dhaka. Her older sisters had completed their degrees, but she was the first daughter in the family to move away from home alone — a bold, transgressive step in Bangladeshi society. She was also the first in her family to complete her Masters degree, and she now has a management position in telecommunications, with 20 employees under her supervision. She lists all her accomplishments with quiet pride. She undertook all of them, she says, to prove that she could. And to prove that "he" — the man who burned her, the man she does not name — could not stop her.
But still she carries the stigma wherever she goes. People notice her, in places where it is best not to be noticed. They know what happened to her — the thickened scar tissue across her face tells its own story. Or they think they know - often they need to be told, over and over, that it was not her fault, that none of the acid-scarred women brought this mark upon themselves.
And overlying the story of the acid, of the years since "he" left his mark, are more ordinary stories of day-to-day life as a young woman living alone in Dhaka. She has been boarding with a family, but that is coming to an end. She needs to find somewhere new, and it is not easy. She needs somewhere safe, somewhere secure. "Security is the most important thing for me," she says. It is not easy, as a woman alone.
I think of Noor Bibi as I listen to Fozilitun. In many ways they are very different — Fozilitun is younger, much better educated; an urban professional rather than a village peasant. But both their lives have been marked by acid. And each of them has had to find their way alone, in a society where it is expected that women's lives will be negotiated by others.
Fozilitun is not entirely alone, however. There are her work colleagues, and her fellow activists from the Acid Survivors Foundation. And she talks affectionately about her family - her sisters and their children, her younger brother's academic achievements. But she does not live with them, and that is regarded as very far from ideal. Her mother is anxious about her - she is a source of gossip, living all alone in the big city, travelling around the world, unmarried at the age of 26. Why hasn't she settled down, at her age?
And she would like to settle down, one day. She would like to get married. But she will marry the man of her choice, "a man who loves me — me," she says, stabbing her finger to herself, "who loves me from his heart." She has a good job, a decent salary, but she does not want a man to marry her for that. She does not want to be reduced to her earning capacity any more than she wants to be reduced to her scars.
And so she continues to make plans. She would like to undertake further study in gender and development, and to continue in her career. She is not a burden on anyone, so no one is entitled to tell her that she should not live alone, that she should marry a man who does not love her from his heart. And she refuses to feel ashamed.
Foreign tourists planning to visit Tibet have been told by travel agencies that the region has been closed to outsiders until the end of March.
The month marks the 50th anniversary of the escape into exile of the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
In March last year, Tibet witnessed a wave of violent anti-China protests - the worst unrest there for 20 years.
Tibetan exiles are planning to boycott their own New Year celebrations on Wednesday in protest at Chinese rule.
The Dalai Lama has called for Tibetans not to celebrate New Year, or Losar, partly in memory of those killed or jailed in a crackdown after last year's riots.
China said at least 18 people were killed during the unrest. Rights groups and activists say about 200 people were killed and several hundred more are still missing.
China does not allow foreign journalists unrestricted access to Tibet or restive areas surrounding it, making it extremely difficult to verify reports from the region.
'Civil disobedience'
"This year it's going to be observed as a day of prayer in memory of all the Tibetans who died and all those who are still suffering under Chinese rule," Tenzin Taklha, the Dalai Lama's India-based spokesman, was quoted by AFP as saying.
Groups representing Tibetans-in-exile have described the move as an "act of civil disobedience" against Chinese "repression".
The defiant stance comes amid reports by human rights groups of increased security in Tibet and neighbouring Tibetan-populated regions of western China.
Last year's protests took the Chinese authorities by surprise, and the BBC's James Reynolds in Beijing says the state wants to make sure that there is no repeat.
The BBC has also been told privately by senior Chinese sources that no foreign journalists will be allowed into the region during March.
Opposing views
China has ruled Tibet since 1951 and views it as an integral part of its territory.
It believes that the Chinese Communist Party liberated the Tibetan people from the oppressive feudal rule of the Dalai Lama, following a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule.
On 28 March 1959 the Communist Party announced the dissolution of the existing local government in Tibet - following the Dalai Lama's flight a few days' beforehand.
China says that this move freed about one million Tibetans from serfdom and slavery.
But to Tibetan groups in exile, the events of March 1959 and the exile of the Dalai Lama were a tragedy.
The Dalai Lama has said he does not want independence for Tibet, only meaningful autonomy.
I have been reading some Amnesty International (AI) reports on Gaza during the Lull Agreement (ceasefire) from June 2008 to November 2008.
The lull arrangement called for the cessation of the fighting in the Gaza Strip and a halt to rocket fire from Gaza into Israel. The cessation of the fighting and rocket fire was supposed to lead to the opening of the crossings between the Gaza Strip and Israel. There was supposed to be negotiations conducted for the release of Gilad Shalit, an abducted Israeli soldier. Also discussions were to be held to eventually open the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.
After reading the AI reports I am sickened by the inhumane treatment the Gazan citizens have endured at the hands of their Israeli "prison warden" the Israeli government. If a state run prison in most Western countries did to its prisoners what Israel is doing to the citizens of Gaza, there would be severe criminal charges being laid against the people controlling the prison.
There is no way that Israel kept its end of the bargain as far as the lull agreement was concerned.
Hamas was able to reduce the rocket fire
into Israel from about 380/month down to about 5 to 10/month (decrease of about
98%), which even the security report concedes was significant. The rocket and mortar shell fire
that did occur was carried out by rogue terrorist organisations, in some
instances in defiance of Hamas (especially by Fatah and Al-Qaeda supporters).
Hamas was careful to maintain the ceasefire. (Source: The
Six Months of the Lull Arrangement - Intelligence and Terrorism
Information Center IICC)
When there were rogue attacks they were generally not random attacks, they were quite often in response to Israel's killing of Palestinians (belonging to the particular rogue group) on the West Bank. I am not condoning the actions of the people who launched the rockets; I am just putting some context to the events. Hamas quite often investigated such attacks and arrested the perpetrators as can be seen in this report from Israel’s Haaretz newspaper: Hamas arrests Gaza rocket squad after two Qassams hit Negev.
The IICC had this to say
as far as the actions Hamas took to reduce rocket fire:
Hamas was careful to maintain the ceasefire and
its operatives were not involved in rocket attacks.
At the same time, the
movement tried to enforce the terms of the arrangement on the other terrorist
organizations and to prevent them from violating it. Hamas took a number of
steps against networks which violated the arrangement, but in a limited fashion
and contenting itself with short-term detentions and confiscating weapons. For
example, a number of times Hamas’s security services detained Fatah/Al-Aqsa
Martyrs Brigades operatives, including Abu Qusai, an Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades
spokesman, who claimed responsibility for rocket fire (June 29). Detained operatives
were released after a short interrogation and no real measures were taken
against them.
However, it was clear that throughout the first period Hamas sought to avoid direct confrontations with the rogue organizations (especially the PIJ) insofar as was possible, lest it be accused of collaborating with Israel and harming the “resistance.” Hamas therefore focused on using politics to convince the organizations to maintain the lull arrangement and on seeking support for it within Gazan public opinion (including issuing statements by its activists regarding the lull’s achievements). (Source: IICC Report page 7)
I know the die hard supporters of Israel will say well there were rockets fired from Gaza during the ceasefire, so Israel had every right to tighten the blockade. I strongly disagree and so does any International court of law. One and a half million people suffer because a very small number of rockets were launched and as reported by the IICC, Hamas did do its best to prevent those rockets from being launched.
As for the reasoning often given by Israel to justify
its actions i.e. that Hamas is in control in Gaza so it should have stopped
every single rocket from being launched, well I think that is a bit
harsh. I don’t know of any city/territory with a population of 1.5
million that can stop every act of violence, let alone do so in a hot bed like
the Occupied Territories of Palestine (OTC) and be expected to do so over
night.
If Hamas is expected to completely stop rocket fire in Gaza, then Israel should be expected to stop every act of violence perpetrated by the illegal settlers against the innocent Palestinians in the West Bank. Having said that, Hamas must do its utmost to prevent attacks occurring and it must denounce attacks perpetrated by rogue groups. I think given the circumstances, Israel should have understood that it would take time for Hamas to achieve sufficient control.
Israel on the other hand failed to open the border crossings to a level that would be considered humane, let alone anywhere near fully open.
These poor people of Gaza are locked in a prison with no way out and to the ill informed who believe that Israel stopped occupying Gaza in 2005, well you are wrong. Israel still occupies Gaza, it occupies every exit out of Gaza with the IDF as the prison guards; it occupies watchtowers along the prison walls looking down into Gaza, Israel retains control of Gaza’s airspace and territorial waters. Israel has imposed a travel ban on the entire population, no one enters or leaves Gaza without a permit from the Israeli authorities and generally these permits are denied.
During the lull arrangement when Israel was supposed to be opening the border crossings the following restrictions were still in place which were not targeting militants but were clearly targeting civilians:
University students who had scholarships at foreign universities were prevented from leaving Gaza. This violates their right to education, which is set out in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), to which Israel is a state party. (AI report: 14th August 2008)
Hundreds of severely ill patients were unable to leave Gaza to obtain specialised treatment unavailable in Gaza. Dozens of patients have died due to this restriction.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), since the beginning of 2008, only 58 per cent of the applications for permits to leave Gaza submitted by Palestinian patients have been approved. Patients who are finally given permission to leave Gaza for treatment are often suffering due to the long delays in receiving exit permits, leading to a decline in the patient’s health and emotional state.
In several cases patients have been told by the Israeli General Security Service that they will not be allowed to leave Gaza unless they become informants, in other words they will receive treatment if they become spies for Israel – which puts the civilian at great risk if Hamas discovers they are informants (See Haaretz report - Intel sources: Gazan informants intercepted by Hamas during war). As you will see in the article, Hamas reacted very violently to suspected informants; which isn’t surprising as no country reacts favourably to “traitors”.
The Israeli branch of the international non-governmental organisation, Physicians for Human Rights, has also documented similar cases where Palestinians were expected to become informants.
As Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHR-Israel) describes in a recent report, “patients are detained for interrogation at Erez Crossing, and requested either to provide information or to act as collaborators on a regular basis as a condition for permission to exit Gaza for medical treatment.”
According to PHR-Israel, rejection or approval of a patient’s request to leave Gaza for treatment almost entirely depends on the GSS who are taking advantage of the vulnerability of patients who have no other means of accessing medical care. Even patients who already have an exit permit from the authorities to cross into Israel at Erez are being denied permission to leave Gaza after an “unsatisfactory” interrogation. This policy by the GSS of questioning patients in exchange for entry into Israel appears to have become a formal part of the exit procedure for patients and is reportedly discouraging some patients from attempting to leave Gaza in the first place.
Under international law, Israel, as the occupying power, is prohibited from imposing collective punishment or reprisals on the Palestinian population and must ensure that Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank receive the same extent of medical attention and hospital treatment as their own nationals. (AI report: 22 August 2008 and 29th August 2008)
Severely ill babies and children. Six children aged from 5 months to six years of age suffering from serious heart conditions needed urgent surgery. The children were due to be operated on by a team of British heart specialists at Makassad Hospital in East Jerusalem during the week beginning 4 October 2008. They were not able to leave the Gaza Strip because the Israeli authorities refused permissions to their mothers/grandmothers to leave Gaza to accompany them. One child had already missed six appointments for surgery because his mother and grandmother were repeatedly refused permits to accompany him to the hospital in Jerusalem. (AI Report: 16th October 2008)
Food, livelihoods, economy and general health. The Israelis did not allow Gaza's industry to export produce or import raw materials required for manufacturing goods. Also there wasn’t sufficient fuel to operate machinery and electricity generators, some 90 per cent of industry has shut down. So during the lull Gaza’s economy continued to die.
Quantities of food and goods allowed into Gaza during the lull were still at a level one would describe as just humanitarian aid. The shortages pushed up food prices and most Gazans could barely afford food. The number of Gazans in extreme poverty and suffering from malnutrition continued to increase due to the Israeli blockade.
Some 80 per cent of the population now depends on international aid, compared to 10 per cent a decade ago. The restrictions imposed by Israel have resulted in higher operational costs for UN aid agencies.
Fuel shortages have affected every aspect of life in Gaza. Lack of transport
due to the fuel shortages caused hospital attendances to drop, teachers and
students were unable to travel to universities so they were forced to shut down
before the end of the school year. Fuel-powered pumps for wells and water
distribution networks were often not working.
Hospitals continued to have shortages of equipment, spare parts and other necessary supplies due to the blockade. Doctors were also not able to travel to international conferences to keep up to date with their training. (AI report: 27th August 2008)
All this was happening during the ceasefire from June 2008 to November 2008. This was occurring when the situation should have been improving.
Here are figures comparing number of truckloads of goods Israel allowed into Gaza:
December 2005 (Before Hamas won the election) 13, 430
May 2007 (Before Hamas took power in Gaza) 10, 921
March 2008 3, 399
April 2008 1, 991
May 2008 1, 821
June 2008 2, 103
July 2008 (Lull agreement in place) 5, 028
August 2008 3, 565
September 2008 4, 069
October 2008 2, 823
November 2008 (Hostilities increased) 579
Source: OCHA, "Humanitarian Monitor," no. 24, Apr. 2008 (for March and April); no. 26, June 2008Aug. 2008 (for July and August); no. 30, Oct. 2008 (for September and October); and no. 31, Nov. 2008 (for December 2005, May 2007, and November 2008). (for May and June 2008); no. 28,
Mary Robinson a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and a former president of Ireland, visited Gaza near the end of the cease fire before the 4th November 2008 Israeli incursion into Gaza.
Mrs Robinson said it was "almost unbelievable" that the world did not care about what she called "a shocking violation of so many human rights".
She had been "taken aback with the terrible, trapped situation of the families" in the Gaza. "Their whole civilisation has been destroyed, I'm not exaggerating," said Mrs Robinson.
"It's almost unbelievable that the world doesn't care while this is happening."
She said people in Gaza were the responsibility of Israel and suggested that ordinary Israelis did not understand the situation as they "couldn't possibly support it if they really did".
"When I see 1.4 million trapped in a situation of collective punishment, without rights, I have to raise that, and I will go on raising it," she said. (Source: BBC News - Gaza residents 'terribly trapped')
On the 5th November 2008 the day after the Israeli incursion into Gaza, AI made this statement:
The ceasefire has brought enormous improvements in the quality of life in Sderot and other Israeli villages near Gaza, where before the ceasefire residents lived in fear of the next Palestinian rocket strike. However, nearby in the Gaza Strip the Israeli blockade remains in place and the population has so far seen few dividends from the ceasefire.
If the current ceasefire breaks down and daily attacks resume, the civilian populations in both Israel and Gaza will pay the highest price. Amnesty International calls on both sides to step back from the brink and to avoid at all costs a return to the vicious spiral of violence which has cost so much in human lives.
It is clear that Israel benefited the most from the lull agreement between June and November 2008 and it is clear that Israel did not meet its terms of the ceasefire. We also know that it was Israel who broke the ceasefire. It is a shame that both sides were not able to stop the escalation of violence that the Israeli incursion triggered.
Amnesty
International had this to say during the ceasefire period:
“With the ceasefire holding, the suffering in Gaza has fallen off the international news agenda.”
In other words unless Hamas is firing rockets and behaving violently the world turns a blind eye to the oppression that Israel continues to impose. It does so against International law, against common decency and it is a disgrace to the "free world" and we are a disgrace for allowing it!
Yes I hear you say but what about the dreadful things Hamas has done and you are right they should be condemned and Amnesty International condemns them and they also see the rockets that Hamas and other militants are firing into Southern Israel as a violation of international law and a form of collective punishment. But we rightly or wrongly refer to Hamas as a terrorist group, so should we expect to hold them to such a high standard.
Israel on the other hand promotes itself as follows:
"Israel has become - through hard work, ingenuity, and most of all, dedication to freedom and the rule of law - a flourishing and diverse democracy with a bustling economy, a vibrant and critical media, a creative artistic culture, and a commitment to equality based on gender, sexual orientation, and race. Other countries in the region, which have more natural resources and comparable amounts of foreign aid, have failed to translate these assets into benefits to their people." (Source: Israel - Democracy in the Middle East – Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Also according to Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak, “The IDF is the most moral army in the world."
So if Israel expects the world to view it as it views itself, well I say it needs to lift its game. A country such as this should not be treating fellow human beings the way it is treating the people of Gaza. What an utter disgrace to Western democracy. This country claims to represent the West in the Middle East; well I am sorry I do not wish to be represented in this manner. When my own country behaves badly when it comes to human rights abuses, I expect it to stop them and if it will not listen to us the public, then I expect the world to explain to my country the error of its ways.
I really feel sorry for the people of Gaza/Palestine, they held legitimate democratic elections, they voted Hamas into power and then Israel, the US, the EU and most other Western countries basically told them, sorry you voted for the wrong party, either you take back your vote or we will cripple you until you submit.
Cripple them they did, but submit they did not!
Yet again we showed the Middle East just how corrupt Western democracy really is when it comes to the Middle East.
I have only just touched the surface of human rights abuses carried out by the democracy of Israel; the country which represents the West to the Arab world. If you want a more complete list then take a look at this AI report:
Document - Israel/OPT: Amnesty International Submission to the UN Universal Periodic Review
What security excuse does Israel have for continuing to build illegal settlements on Palestinian land? There isn’t one.
How is this action targeting militants? It isn't, once again it is targeting civilians.
It is increasing Palestinian anger towards Israel. Anger which I might add is totally justified. How would you react if your land was taken from you and your house was bulldozed to make way for more illegal settlements?
Israel repeatedly commits to freezing settlements according to the “Road Map to Peace” which they reaffirmed at Annapolis in 2007. But in the first six months of 2008 Israel expanded settlements in the West Bank/East Jerusalem at a faster rate than in the previous seven years!
Once again Israel has chosen expansion over peace and security. (Source: Amnesty International and In figures: Since Annapolis – BBC News)
It is not only the Palestinians Israel treats poorly. This is really is appalling when you consider the history of the Jewish people. Leading up to and during WWII many Jewish refugees tried to escape to other countries. Some escaped on ships only to have them turned back towards Europe where the refugees faced a certain death at the hand of the Nazis. Israel was said to have been established in part to give Jews a home where they would not be persecuted. Given the experiences of the Jewish people I would have thought that when it comes to persecution, they would show compassion and understanding to people who may be trying to escape the sort of persecution Jews faced in WWII.
Since 23 August, the Israeli army has been sending scores of asylum-seekers and migrants, originating from countries such as Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia, back to Egypt without providing them with an opportunity to challenge the decision to expel them.
The policy of “hot returns” instructs soldiers to record the statements of the asylum-seekers and migrants and then deport them within three to six hours of arrival at the border. In an affidavit an Israeli army commander admitted that 91 people were returned through the application of the “hot returns” policy between 23 and 29 August.
The army states that the returns were carried out in coordination with the Egyptian government. However this ignores the fact that Egypt has consistently violated the human rights of asylum-seekers. Egyptian forces have killed 26 asylum-seekers trying to cross into Israel since mid-2007. Most asylum-seekers who attempt to reach the Egyptian border with Israel are taken into custody and more than 1,300 have been summarily tried since mid-2007 by military courts and have received prison sentences for “attempting to exit unlawfully the Egyptian eastern border”.
The practice of “hot returns” contradicts Israel’s obligations under the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture) not to forcibly return asylum-seekers to countries where they would be at risk of torture. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Israel has ratified, obligates states to ensure that procedural guarantees are respected whenever the legality of a foreigner’s presence in the country is being considered, including the right to an individual decision and to have the decision reviewed by a competent authority. (Source: AI Report: 3rd September 2008)
My own country that being Australia got into some hot water a number of years ago in regards to our treatment of some asylum seekers and there was a national and an international outcry in response to our government’s actions. Our government’s actions were disgraceful and Australia deserved to be criticised, just as Israel deserves to be criticised for its human rights abuses.
Updated 6th Feb 2009
B'Tselem: views to a kill
A teenager videos the shooting of an unarmed demonstrator; a woman records a mob attacking her house... as the world focuses on Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank are filming the reality of occupation – using camcorders provided by sympathetic Israelis.
By Matt Rees
16 Jan 2009
From the first-floor balcony of her brother's house, Salaam Amira points out where the demonstrators stood, facing the Israeli checkpoint at the entrance to her village, Ni'ilin. Mainly young men, they had gathered among the rocks to protest against the route of a new fence Israel is building on Palestinian farmland. Near Ni'ilin the fence cuts through some old olive groves, including those owned by Salaam's father.
The delicate-featured 17-year-old shows me her Sony Handycam and tells me that, on that day last July, she pressed 'record', directing the lens towards the demonstrators. She focused on a youth with longish, curly hair and a lime-green T-shirt. He held a Palestinian flag in one hand and flashed a victory sign with the other. Soon the Israeli soldiers left their jeeps and moved among the rocks, scattering the protesters. They caught the youth, Ashraf Abu Rahman, brought him back to the checkpoint, handcuffed him and tied a blindfold around his head.
For a while, Salaam remembers, she filmed the young man as he sat in the hot sun beside one of the waist-high concrete blocks the army uses to make a little slalom in the road, slowing down cars for security checks.
Then an Israeli officer, a lieutenant-colonel, took Abu Rahman to the back of his jeep. Salaam continued to film. It appeared that the officer ordered a tall soldier to take aim at the youth, unsuspecting behind his blindfold, while he held his elbow. The soldier fired, the officer and another soldier flinched at the gun's report, and Abu Rahman collapsed.
The youth sat up, grimaced, and went back down, wiggling his foot. He had been shot at point-blank range with a rubber-coated bullet, which army guidelines state ought not to be used at a range of less than 80 ft.
Salaam's brother smuggled a copy of her tape to the Israeli human-rights organisation B'Tselem, which sent it to the Israeli media. It caused a scandal in Israel.
Telling the world about Israeli abuses is what B'Tselem does. A Jewish organisation run by Israelis, it is, nevertheless, one of Israel's most strident critics. Its latest project involves handing out camcorders to 150 Palestinians in the West Bank, people like Salaam, and encouraging them to chronicle the abuse they suffer, either at the hands of Israeli soldiers or Jewish settlers living in the occupied territories.
B'Tselem has also investigated cases of 'extra-judicial executions' and 'negligent homicide' by Israeli soldiers, and campaigned against the torture of Palestinians in Israeli jails.
Since Israel began ground operations in Gaza, the organisation has been posting to its website daily reports on Palestinian casualties and testimony from Gazans. It condemned the army's killing of a leading Hamas figure as 'against the laws of war', because the attack also killed members of the man's family. The group has joined with other Israeli human-rights organisations to post a blog (gazaeng.blogspot.com) with information on events in Gaza which are not covered by the media. That's particularly significant given that there are very few reporters inside the Gaza Strip, as the Israeli government refuses to allow foreign correspondents to enter.
B'Tselem is also the leading opponent of the so-called 'separation barrier' that Israel began constructing in 2002 and is still extending through places such as Ni'ilin.
In fact, the Israelis who work for the organisation seem more concerned with Palestinian rights than the Palestinian Authority does. And for that reason, many in Israel detest them.
'These liberals in B'Tselem are perverted Jews, because they only take the side of the Arabs against their brothers,' says Ron Nachman, mayor of Ariel, the biggest settlement in the northern West Bank, which the Israeli Government calls Samaria. 'When the Jewish state disappears, how will they face themselves and their role in destroying the Jewish people?' And it's not just settlers who hate the organisation. In a recent poll, half of the respondents said they opposed B'Tselem. Only one in four Israelis said they supported its work.
That work, as B'Tselem staff put it, is to insist that Israelis face up to the human-rights violations carried out in their name in the West Bank and Gaza.
With 40 staff and a budget of $2 million, including money from Christian Aid and an anonymous Jewish organisation in Britain, B'Tselem was founded in 1989, during the first Palestinian intifada.
The executive director is a 40-year-old Californian with reddish bobbed hair and plain, square glasses who joined the group in 1995. Jessica Montell's story mirrors that of many other idealistic young Jews who migrate to Israel, only to discover that the place is enmeshed in a much more compromising reality than they were led to believe in their Zionist youth movements at home. For many, that realisation brings disillusion and a return to their country of origin. In Montell's case, it encouraged her to lead the fight 'to make Israel the country I thought it would be when I came here'.
In Israel, B'Tselem isn't alone in campaigning on behalf of the country's supposed enemies. In fact, there's quite an impressive list of Israeli organisations dedicated to combating what they see as the moral toll of being an occupying power. Polite ladies from MachsomWatch can be spotted sweltering at major army checkpoints on the lookout for abuses. Gisha is dedicated to combating what the army calls 'closures', keeping checkpoints and roads open so that Palestinians can move about for business or humanitarian reasons. There's Physicians for Human Rights, Planners for Planning Rights, even Rabbis for Human Rights. It's a measure of Israel's democracy that the most potent human-rights opponents of the occupation are Israelis.
B'Tselem is the rights group with the highest profile. It issues reports, but also focuses on translating its research into court judgments and reform of military regulations in the occupied territories.
Its most famous victory came in 1999, when the Israeli High Court barred the Shin Bet security service from torturing Palestinians. Earlier that decade, when B'Tselem first reported on torture in Israeli detention, its use had been widely denied by security officials and politicians.
Now, B'Tselem is making a nuisance of itself
again with its camera project in the West Bank.
And there is a lot of trouble. While many settlers see themselves as suburbanites fleeing expensive Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for affordable family housing, the settlers here are often extremists driven by religious fervour, and many are prone to violent confrontation with local Palestinians.
When the tape arrives back at B'Tselem's Jerusalem office, one of three staff on the video project will have the time-consuming task of logging the events recorded on the tape. Then, it'll be loaded onto a digital archive. The B'Tselem video staff are careful not to edit the footage very much, so as to avoid accusations that they cut out exculpatory elements to make soldiers or settlers look bad. Some of the more important clips are highlighted on www.btselem.org, and those showing the more flagrant wrongdoing are distributed to Israeli media and international television stations with offices in Jerusalem.
Abu al-Rob explains the settlers' tactics. Whenever the Israeli government threatens to remove a remote hilltop outpost, he says, settlers all over the West Bank cause trouble with local Palestinians.
The intention, as stated by settler leaders, is to overwhelm the army and to persuade the politicians that halting settlement expansion is just too much of a headache. (The resolve of even centre-Left Israeli politicians to rein in the settlements has been questioned. The Israeli establishment appears to ply an ambiguous course between its international commitment to prevent the expansion of settlements and a domestic blind eye rooted in sentimental associations between today's settlers and the early Zionist pioneers in Palestine.)
B'Tselem's workers are threatened constantly. Each week the office switchboard receives insulting phone calls (normally accusations of anti-Semitism) and, about once a year, a credible enough threat of violence against the group that a complaint must be filed with the police.
But there are signs that, as the settlers become more violent and scornful of the law, the threats against B'Tselem workers are increasing. In December, after police evicted a group of hardline, mostly youthful settlers from a squat in Hebron, Montell received a series of threatening calls at her home. When the first call came, a young man's voice told her: 'You and your kids will pay for what your organisation is doing.' He continued to call for several days. It was the first time the calls had come to Montell's home and she was shaken.
Even so, Montell will not be cowed. 'Self-righteousness goes a long way,' she says, exhibiting a much better sense of humour than most earnest activist types. 'I know I'm doing the right thing.'
It is this kind of confidence that sustains Montell in the face of frequent bureaucratic obstacles thrown up by the government or setbacks in court. Very few of B'Tselem's cases – even those that accuse soldiers of unlawful killings – ever result in criminal proceedings.
Even when officials do investigate, the case normally fizzles out within six months or a year. 'Just getting a criminal case opened seems like a victory, but it so rarely goes anywhere,' Montell says. 'It can be quite discouraging.'
Even when there is evidence like the video shot by Salaam Amira, Israeli justice is often lenient. The army's judge advocate general charged the officer and the soldier who shot the Palestinian youth at close range with nothing more than 'conduct unbecoming'. B'Tselem has appealed against the charge, urging a punishment it views as more appropriate to the abuse.
Torture sneaked back into use during the
second intifada without any real public protest, as Israelis, under attack from
suicide bombers, swung to the Right. And last March, after a long B'Tselem
campaign against the army's tactic of blowing up the homes of suicide bombers'
parents – army chiefs say it deters others by showing them that their mothers
and fathers would suffer for their actions.
It is frustration with the seemingly inequitable administration of justice in the West Bank that stands behind B'Tselem's camera project. Without Salaam's footage, there wouldn't have been a charge against the soldiers in Ni'ilin. The evidence gathered by the 150 cameras B'Tselem has distributed among Palestinians makes it just a little harder for police and public prosecutors to ignore abuses.
During my visit to the West Bank, just before returning home, I met the Soufan family. As his sisters served tea, Ahmed Soufan sat in his freezing living room with the hood of his sweatshirt over his head for warmth.
When he led me outside to view the patches of grey dust where settlers burnt his olive trees before the October harvest, the sun seared out of a cloudless sky to bake his thick, craggy features.
'We have a conflict with the Israelis,' says the 24-year-old. 'But, of course, B'Tselem is Israeli. That makes me feel that Israelis are just people like us, too.'
Click here for the full article.
Tel Rumeida is a small Palestinian neighbourhood deep in the West Bank city of Hebron. Palestinian families, from whom these Zionist Jewish settlers occupied lands, live directly next to these Jewish settlers and are often virtual prisoners in their homes, subject to the settlers' violent attacks and destruction of property.
The man with the camera is a BBC reporter. The setting is a Christian family's property in occupied Palestine (Israel).
In a year or two
these young, angry, violent and racist “men” will more than likely become members of the Israeli Defence Force under Israel's policy of compulsory service. Think about it .............
**01/05/08 The full video has just been released and I love it - It is extremely inspirational.
Shhhh don't tell anyone, but I tear up when I watch it.
Already The GetUp Mob's "From little
things, big things grow" has featured in over 80 newspaper articles and is
getting airplay on stations nationwide. But
to inspire real change our song needs to reach an audience of millions and
echoes in every corner of the country.
All proceeds go to achieving Indigenous equality:
www.getup.org.au/campaign/MakeThisAHit
Song featuring Paul Kelly, Kev Carmody, Urthboy, Missy Higgins, Mia Dyson, Radical Son, Jane Tyrell, Dan Sultan, Joel Wenitong and Ozi Batla.
Purchasing this track will
cost $1.69 but we encourage you to donate as much as you feel appropriate.
All profits will go to GetUp's Reconciliation Fund and the following charity
organisations:
- Link Up - assisting Indigenous people who have been fostered, adopted or raised in institutions to find their way home.
- Mums and Bubs Program in Townsville.
- Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME)
By buying this song, you'll not only be part
of a movement harnessing the goodwill that came out of the apology, you'll also
be part of the national conversation on reconciliation.
Next Tuesday night we're taking that conversation into pubs, cafes and homes around the nation, Australians are gathering across the country to build a united country from the grassroots up.
We're inviting all Australians: Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous, to have a yarn about reconciliation on the evening of April 29th - click here to join a 'Reconciliation GetTogether' taking place in your postcode, and begin to build a bridge of understanding.
We are all mere humans capable of good deeds, bad deeds and some very ugly deeds.
How many of us have really been tested to see just how ugly we can become.
It seems it is all too easy to judge others from our rather cosy existence.
How easy it seems to impose our moral judgements on people who we have no real understanding of.
We do not know their daily struggles, but we still pass judgements based on our own biased perceptions of the world.
Why is it so difficult to even try to take the time to understand? We are all guilty.
All of us are perpetrators of what is deemed to be bad, but in reality we are all just striving to find love and happiness.
Unfortunately sometimes people get hurt along the way, sometimes intentionally, but quite often unintentionally.
We all make mistakes, we make decisions we regret and sometimes for whatever reasons we strike out in anger.
We are just humans trying to do the best we can with our current circumstances. All too often some of us have horrific circumstances thrust upon us, and the best we can do is to try and survive, in the hope of a better life.
For me personally
it is difficult not to strike out in anger, when I see and hear how other
people are so badly treated throughout the world. Anger does not help the situation, but sometimes through utter frustration anger can be a difficult emotion to control.
No one knows what
its like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes
No one knows what its like
To be hated
To be fated
To telling only lies
But my dreams
They aren't as empty
As my conscience seems to be
I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That's never free
No one knows what its like
To feel these feelings
Like I do
And I blame you
No one bites back as hard
On their anger
None of my pain and woe
Can show through
But my dreams
They aren't as empty
As my conscience seems to be
I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That's never free
When my fist clenches, crack it open
Before I use it and lose my cool
When I smile, tell me some bad news
Before I laugh and act like a fool
If I swallow anything evil
Put your finger down my throat
If I shiver, please give me a blanket
Keep me warm, let me wear your coat
No one knows what its like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes
Behind Blue
Eyes – The Who.
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