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Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.
- Bertrand Russell

Perhaps the single most crucial question facing any group concerned with extending or defending human rights is that of its attitude to the state. While people and organizations concerned with human rights know that it is vital to win support and allies in the wider society, they also know that the most powerful potential sponsor of all may well be the state itself -- the government, the courts, the police. Therein lies a fundamental dilemma. The state is a dominant force in society whose help often seems essential if a particular right or policy is to be achieved effectively. Indeed, we are often told that in order secure our rights, it is necessary to extend the powers of the state. In order to have the right to be safe from crime and terrorism, we are expected to give more power to the police and the state security agencies. So that we may have the right to enjoy essential services, the government has to have the right to ban strikes. To be protected from hate literature, we have to yield to the police and the courts the right to decide what we are allowed to publish or read. In other words, to gain certain rights, we have to give up other rights, especially our civil liberties, our right to be free of state interference. As a result, we have witnessed a steady erosion of our liberties. We are subjected to restrictions and forms of surveillance that would have been unthinkable in the past. If one trend is clearly visible in virtually every society, it is toward greater centralization, bureaucracy, and social control, and a corresponding curtailment of individual freedoms. This is a tremendously dangerous trend, especially for those who are hoping to bring about social change, because those working for change frequently attract the hostility of the powers that be. The more we acknowledge that the state has the right to grant or deny us our liberties, the more it is likely to use it in ways we will regret. For example, the more it is considered permissible to curtail freedom of speech, the more groups working for change become vulnerable to having their freedom of speech curtailed. This has been demonstrated regularly even in Canada, where laws originally targeted at Nazi hate literature have been used against groups protesting American domination of Canada, and where anti-pornography laws have been used against gay liberation publications, feminist videos, and sex education materials. Consequently, a strong case can be made that a serious strategy for promoting right and liberties should challenge the right of the state to grant or withhold our rights and freedoms. Those who seek a freer or more just society are in danger of subverting their own goals if they expect the government or the courts to achieve them on their behalf.
- Connexions Annual

Connexions Resource Centre:
Focus on Civil Liberties and Human Rights

Recent & Selected Articles

This is a small sampling of articles related to civil liberties and human rights in the Connexions Online Library. For more articles, books, films, and other resources, check the Connexions Library Subject Index, especially under topics such as civil liberties, human rights, free speech, freedom of expression, censorship, national security, capital punishment, aboriginal rights, discrimination, and political prisoners.

  1. Reporting Gender Based Violence (December 28, 2009)
    Violence Against Women has presented particular challenges to the media and to society because of the way it has been consigned to the "private" sphere -- dampening public discussion and stifling media debate. Yet, the media has the potential to play a lead role in changing perceptions that, in turn, can help galvanize a movement for change. This toolkit seeks to help reporters and news managers grapple with the challenge of reporting gender based violence is a way that doe snot perpetuate gender stereotypes but informs and encourages public debate.
  2. Tactics of desperation: Using false accusations of 'anti-semitism' as a weapon to silence criticism of Israel's behaviour (December 27, 2009)
    The Israeli state and its defenders are increasingly attempting to silence critics because they are losing the battle for public opinion.
  3. Bloggers Name and Shame Torturers in Egypt (December 21, 2009)
    Egyptian bloggers use the Internet to expose police abuse and torture.
  4. Grassroots activist and human rights defender Jamal Juma' arrested (December 21, 2009)
    Jamal Juma's is the most high profile arrest within an intensifying campaign of repression of grassroots mobilization against the wall and the settlements. Initially only arresting local activists from the villages affected by the wall, the Israeli authorities have recently begun to shift their attention to the detention of internationally-known human rights defenders such as Mohammad Othman and Abdallah Abu Rahmeh.
  5. Too Damn Old! (December 20, 2009)
    Ageism can strike anyone once they reach a certain age -- sometimes as early as 40 -- and it can make the victim feel unwanted, unneeded and oppressed.
  6. Connexions Archive seeks a new home (November 18, 2009)
    The Connexions Archive, a Toronto-based library dedicated to preserving the history of grassroots movements for social change, needs a new home.
  7. The court does not sympathize (October 19, 2009)
    The blood of Palestinians is cheap in this country. No one has ever been punished for killing Palestinians – children, adults, newborns, old people. The murderers are all walking among us, free and happy.
  8. On Palestinian Civil Disobedience (September 28, 2009)
    Human rights organizations have documented the forms of repression Israel deploys against villages that resist the annexation of their land. Once a village decides to struggle against the annexation barrier the entire community is punished. In addition to home demolitions, curfews and other forms of movement restriction, the Israeli occupation forces consistently uses violence against the protestors — and most often targets the youth -- beating, tear-gassing, as well as deploying both lethal and “non-lethal” ammunition against them.
  9. Hypocrisy over Cuba’s ‘political prisoners’ (September 19, 2009)
    Political prisoners and Cuba can be a confusing mix, in our time of mass propaganda. Three groups have attracted international attention over the past decade.
  10. Towards a “Israeli War Criminals Watch” (September 18, 2009)
    It is upon us, every woman and man, in Israel and abroad, who fear for international public hygiene and international law—to unite forces in order to place before those war criminals the dilemma: risk being tried if they are found in countries in which the law permits this or remain locked in Israel.
  11. I Am Barack Obama's Political Prisoner Now (September 11, 2009)
    Given the complexion of the three recent federal parolees, it might seem that my greatest crime was being Indian. But the truth is that my gravest offense is my innocence.
  12. Double Jeopardy: Carbon Offsets and Human Rights Abuses (September 9, 2009)
    Whether you’re a climate change denier or doomsayer, an avid recycler or rabid consumer of plastic bottles, there is one very good but little-known reason to oppose carbon offsets: their immediate and dire human costs.
  13. India's UID And The Fantasy Of Dataveillance (August 24, 2009)
    The perils of establishing nationwide identity systems have always been a hot topic of debate in countries that attach great value to privacy and human rights of its citizens. In India, there is not even a whimper of protest from politicians and civil society groups.
  14. Israel Seeks Ways To Silence Human Rights Groups (August 4, 2009)
    In a bid to staunch the flow of damaging evidence of war crimes committed during Israel’s winter assault on Gaza, the Israeli government has launched a campaign to clamp down on human rights groups, both in Israel and abroad.
  15. The Hate Crimes Bill: How Not to Remember Matthew Shepard (June 26, 2009)
    The problem with the Hate Crimes Prevention Act is that it creates a thought crime and also categories of crime victims for disparate treatment. Goodbye to equality under the law.
  16. The Torture Memos (May 21, 2009)
    Chomsky comments on the revelations of and reactions to the White House report. He examines the proposed justifications and reasserts that despite the idea of "American exceptionalism", allowing instances of torture to be forgotten lays the foundation for future crime.
  17. Unintended Consequences (May 12, 2009)
    It will prove difficult to separate speaking against members of protected classes, or criticizing their practices, from hate. The two things are easily conflated. Once enacted, hate crimes will become independent of specific violent acts. An eventual likely outcome will be that speaking against members of specially protected classes will itself become a violent act of inciting violence.
  18. Criminalizing Criticism of Israel (May 7, 2009)
    A massive push is underway to criminalize criticism of Israel. The Lobby is working to ban as anti-Semitic any truth or disagreeable fact that pertains to Israel. It is permissible to criticize every other country in the world, but it is anti-semitic to criticize Israel, and anti-semitism will soon be a universal hate-crime in the Western world.
  19. 'Free speech' - as long as it doesn't offend anyone (January 1, 2009)
    On the issue of free speech most of the right and much of the left are in agreement, and so too are many liberals, activists, and human rights apparatchiks. They hold essentially the same position on freedom of expression – they are for it ‘in principle’, but only so long as it isn’t used to express views that they find unacceptable or offensive. What they disagree about is merely who gets to decide what ideas are unacceptable, i.e., who gets to censor who.
  20. Journalists Killed since 1992 (2009)
    A database of more than 700 journalists who have been murdered or killed on dangerous assignments since 1992. Interactive maps, timelines, and statistical breakdowns providing analysis by country, year, and type of death with a special emphasis on unsolved murders, a focal point of CPJ's Global Campaign Against Impunity.
  21. Free Speech and Acceptable Truths (April 1, 2008)
    While we support freedom of speech and academic freedom, we believe that university administrations have a duty to provide a safe learning environment in which students and faculty are protected by incorrect or harmful ideas. To achieve this safe learning environment, it will be necessary for the university authorities to cleanse the university's libraries of harmful books, to block inappropriate Internet sites, to ban guest lectures who hold improper views, and to identify and prosecute students and faculty who are guilty of thought crimes.
  22. Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents (March 1, 2008)
    Advice and technical tips for the best way to launch a blog and how to get round online censorship. It includes an explanation of how to blog anonymously and contains articles by bloggers, particularly in Egypt and Burma.
  23. The Professor of Torture (December 13, 2007)
    Whitney exposes the hypocrisy of Alan Dershowitz, who claims to support civil liberties while advocating the use of torture. Dershowitz seems to believe that he should be considered a liberal because he says that prisoners should only be tortured by "nonlethal means, such as sterile needles, being inserted beneath the nails to cause excruciating pain wthout endangering life." Whitney characterizes this as "barbarism".
  24. Don't Incite Censorship (June 1, 2007)
    Free speech for everyone but bigots is no free speech at all.
  25. Why Israeli Anti-Zionists do NOT “recognize the right of the State of Israel to exist as a Jewish state” (2007)
    States that define themselves with reference to the domination of one ethnic group cannot claim legitimacy.
  26. Israel boycott may be the way to peace (December 15, 2006)
    The non-violent international response to apartheid was a campaign of boycott, divestment and UN-imposed sanctions which enabled the regime to change without bloodshed. We should try to follow the same route to a just peace.
  27. Free Speech in a Plural Society (October 27, 2006)
    The argument against free speech is really an argument in defence of particular sectional interests. And that is the best reason for rejecting restraints on speech. We can build a plural society in which free speech provides the means of engagement and dialogue between different parts of society.
  28. Radio Frequency ID Removes Freedom (January 19, 2006)
    Radio Frequency ID violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and is part of the stealthy forging of a police state.
  29. Right to Life - Ghouls and the Schiavo Case (April 1, 2005)
    Exploiting the Terri Schiavo tragedy.
  30. Right-Wing Thought Police Assault Free Speech on Campus (February 1, 2005)
    he Orwellian campaign to portray the expression of views in the university that run contrary to those ruling the country as a lack of "academic freedom."
  31. Sanctions Against the Israeli Occupation: It’s Time (January 29, 2005)
    A call from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) for sanctions as the next logical step in the global campaign to end the Occupation.
  32. Challenged Books List (2004)
    A partial list of books subjected to censorship attempts in Canada from the early 1980s to 2003.
  33. Quest for Justice (November 1, 2002)
    Judith Stone, an American Jew, argues that Jews of conscience must support the right of return of the Palestinian people.
  34. Israeli Violations of Human Rights (June 20, 2002)
    Speech by Professor Jeff Halper, Coordinator Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. Halper focuses on the fact that "virtually all of Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands violates human rights conventions and especially the Fourth Geneva Convention that forbids an occupying power from making its presence a permanent one."
  35. Freedom of Speech Under Siege (1999)
    Censorship is the handmaiden of a police state.
  36. The United States and the "Challenge of Relativity" (1998)
    In light of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, Chomsky examines the relativity with which America uses human rights principles to exercise selectivity in policy-making.
  37. Interview with Ellen Meiksins Wood (1996)
    Postmodernist pluralism, just like the old variety, obscures the realities of power in capitalist societies. It also disarms and disintegrates the opposition to capitalism. Postmodernism brings us back to the old and uncritical forms of capitalist ideology, which leave the system fundamentally unchallenged. Marxism -- historical materialism -- is the best foundation for an understanding of the society in which we live and therefore also the best guide in our search for a better one.
  38. Thinking About Self-Determination (1994)
    Does that familiar canon of the left, 'the right to self-determination', actually mean anything, or is it an empty slogan whose main utility is that it relieves us of the trouble of thinking critically?
  39. Ask Yourself... Do You Really Want More Censorship? (February 1, 1992)
    Censorship is dangerous and feminists who support it are wrong-headed.
  40. Execution Day in Zhengzhou (1991)
    A first-hand account of an execution day in China.
  41. Women and Censorship - Letters to Index on Censorship (1991)
    Reader comments on pornography and censorship.
  42. The Right to Offend (September 21, 1990)
    Humans do have a right to offend other humans, especially in presenting dissent from the views with which many people seem to be very content. This includes those views called religious.
  43. Connexions Annual Overview: Human Rights, Civil Liberties (October 1, 1989)
    If we accept that anyone may be denied their rights, their freedom, then we undermine our own rights and freedoms even as we undermine social solidarity.
  44. The Capital Punishment Debate (November 1, 1984)
    The death penalty make us all complicit in killing, and degrades us as a society.
  45. Rights and Liberties (July 1, 1984)
    Civil liberties and human rights appear as a key dimension in almost every other field of social justice and social change, but those who seek a freer and more just society cannot rely on the state to achieve their goals.
  46. His Right to Say It (1981)
    Chomsky takes the opportunity to clarify the details of the so-called Faurisson Affair in which he played a catalytic role by signing a controversial petition. He defends his involvement by reiterating and exploring the principle of self-expression irrespective of content.
  47. Some Elementary Comments on The Rights of Freedom of Expression (1980)
    It is precisely in the case of horrendous ideas that the right of free expression must be most vigorously defended; it is easy enough to defend free expression for those who require no such defense.

Selected Websites and Organizations

This is a small sampling of organizations and websites concerned with human rights and civil liberties in the Connexions Directory. For more organizations and websites, check the Connexions Directory Subject Index, especially under topics such as civil liberties, human rights, free speech, freedom of expression, censorship, national security, capital punishment, aboriginal rights, discrimination, and political prisoners.

Other Links & Resources

Peace and Freedom.

Books, Films and Periodicals

This is a small sampling of books related to civil liberties and human rights in the Connexions Online Library. For more books and other resources, check the Connexions Library Subject Index, especially under topics such as civil liberties, human rights, free speech, freedom of expression, censorship, national security, capital punishment, aboriginal rights, discrimination, and political prisoners.

  1. Disability in the Majority World I've got a right!
    New Internationalist November 2005
    Discussion of people with dissability and their fight for equal rights.
  2. The End of Privacy
    How Total Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality
    Author: Whitaker, Reg
    Whitaker argues that we live in a surveillance society; in order to get rewards and privileges, we have to give up our personal privacy to the government and corporations.
  3. Free Speech For Me - But Not For Thee
    How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other
    Author: Hentoff, Nat
    Hentoff is a passionate believer in free speech who recognizes that if speech is truly to be free, we must protect the expression even of ideas we abhors. He catalogues with equal disapproval the efforts of both the right and the left to censor speech they don't like. While being sympathetic to those who object to allowing bigots, racists, pornographers, atheists, and others of many stripes the right to lay out ideas that one group or another finds repugnant, he makes both an intellectual and an emotional case for allowing everyone to have their say, no matter how much this may offend some. He points out that suppressing speech doesn't get rid of the underlying thought, but merely drives it underground and gives it the benefit of martyrdom.
  4. Gag Rule
    On the Suppression of Dissent and the Stifling of Democracy
    Author: Lapham, Lewis H.
    Dissent is democracy. Democracy is in trouble. Never before, Lapham argues, have voices of protest been so locked out of the mainstream conversation. A call to action in defense of one of the most important liberties, the right to raise our voices against the powers that be, and to have those voice heard.
  5. Human Rights: in a time of terror
    New Internationalist January/February 2008
    A look at human rights in various countries including women's and sex rights.
  6. The No-Nonsense Guide to Democracy
    Author: Swift, Richard
    Ths book explores how democracy is constricted and deformed by economic power-brokers and a self-serving political class.
  7. The No-Nonsense Guide to Human Rights
    Author: Ball, Olivia; Gready, Paul
  8. The No-Nonsense Guide to Women's Rights
    Author: van der Gaag, Nikki
  9. Restricted Entry
    Censorship on Trial
    Author: Fuller, Janine; Blackley, Stuart
  10. Rights and Freedoms State Fear The Global attack on rights
    New Internationalist March 2005
    A look into rights and freedoms, the connection to occupation, and their state in different parts of the world.
  11. Terror Takeover
    The monstrous march of the security state
    Author: New Internationalist November 2009 - #427
    Has our panic over terrorism given permission for unchecked abuse? The fear of terrorism has been used to curtail our liberties and violate human rights.
  12. When Freedoms Collide
    The Case for Civil Liberties.
    Author: Borovoy, A. Alan
    Civil liberties are proclaimed as important in our society, but in reality they are under constant attack.
  13. Women Against Censorship
    Author: Burstyn, Varda


Learning from our History

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Resources for Activists

The Connexions Calendar - An event calendar for activists.

Media Names & Numbers - A comprehensive directory of Canada's print and broadcast media. (CX5857).

Sources - A directory that enables journalists to find spokespersons of organizations. Organizations that list themselves in Sources signficantly increase their odds of getting called by reporters when they are doing a story of their issues..