Claus Mueller

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As an independent international organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) investigates human rights abuses through rigorous research and publicizes evidence based findings widely through video and print channels. Through newsletters, reports, seminars, films and videos HRW exerts pressure on policy maker and institutions to rectify human rights violations and to develop mechanisms to prevent current and future abuses. As an independent international organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) organizes conferences and film festivals and collaborates with other organizations with similar goals. Combined with effective lobbying HRW has an excellent record of achieving its goal of strategic information distribution and change. Supported by a staff of professionals including lawyers, researchers, area specialists and journalists to name but a few, HRW covers a broad range of new and emerging human rights problems as reflected in reports and dispatches released on a regular basis.

Some of the recent  HRW reports included: Legalization of Same-Sex Marriage (Taiwan), European Parliament Demands Investigation Into Ethiopia Killings, LGBTI Refugees (Canada), Hungary’s Human Rights, Ratification of Mercury Convention (Ghana),  Court Backs  Down on Waste Protesters (Lebanon), Moves to Curb LGBT  Bullying (Japan),Death by Chemicals (Syria), Discrimination against  LGBT students (Philippines),  No Country for Human Rights Activists (Vietnam), Impunity in Domestic Violence Cases in Boraima (Brazil), Red  Card – Exploitation of Construction Workers on World Cup Sites, Russia), Threats to Free Media Expression’s (Kenya), Discrimination Against Women in Job Market (Iran) and Ensuring   Access to Pain Treatment (Guatemala).

The Human Rights Watch Film Festival has been circulating since January in several US and European cities and will be held after New York in Sidney. Some features of the fest can also be accessed through Mubi, an online streaming platform. HRWFF has an excellent professional reputation and audience acclaim due to the cinematic and narrative quality of most films selected and the thematic relevance and factual basis of virtually all films. The selection for the 28^thedition of the Human Rights Watch Film festival (HRWFF) held from June 9-18 at the venues of the co-presenters Film Society of Lincoln Center and the IFC Center reflected the broad thematic international issue orientation of HRW. Current concerns widely emphasized by the press and addressed by the documentaries selected include the international refugee crisis, the need for reforming the US criminal and police system, gender issues, infringement of the freedom of expression by constraining the press and the quest for accountability for past and present human rights violations by political and economic actors. As reflected in the documentaries shown and the activities of HRW there is a constant expansion of the realm of human rights and of the violations we observe as made apparent by global information flow. Equally important is the individual citizen’s growing opportunity to become involved and use social media to express opposition to human rights violations. In this year’s edition of the film festival a special emphasis was placed on activism, the involvement of individuals in human rights issues and the corrective impact their actions can have. A special panel “From Audience to Activist” discussed the power of citizen-produced social media and the challenges for those presenting the frequently repressed causes of human rights abuses.  In a related special event three documentaries were shown by  Pamela Yates unearthing the truth about  the genocide of indigenous people in Guatemala by the army and documenting the prosecution of former general and president  Efrain Rios Mott for this crime.

Home Truth, April Hayes and Katia Maguire, 2017 ,USA    

The film depicts a nine year struggle for justice by Jessica who suffered the loss of her three young girls that were killed by their father. Home Truth provides a revealing account of her seemingly impossible quest for accountability. Jessica had a restraining order against her estranged husband and when he did not drop off the children when he was scheduled to do so the local police department refused act on the numerous calls and visits by Jessica to the police precinct during the ensuing evening and night. The following morning the father is shot and killed in a shoot-out with police unrelated to Jessica’s pleadings for police intervention. After the shoot out the police Jessica’s three girls are found murdered in the van of their father. Following the murder of her girls, Jessica sued the police department for their non-enforcement of a restraining order and continued her demand for justice through several appeals until her case reached the Supreme Court. The court ruled against Jessica, arguing that the police department was not accountable and had acted within its discretion. The film makers documented her years long struggle and the personal consequences for Jessica ranging from post-traumatic stress disorder to isolation, depression and suspension of family life with her son, her only remaining child. The ordeal of losing her children by reliving their fate through testifying in numerous trials was too much to bear for her. Yet she kept on going by filing a lawsuit against the U.S. with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The U.S. Department of Justice testified that though sympathetic to Jessica they are not accountable for the action of local police departments and requested the case to be dismissed. After ruling for Jessica the Commission recommended that the enforcement of a restraining order be made mandatory and that better training for police in protecting victims of domestic violence be instituted. Under the Obama administration the first ever guidance on domestic violence were provided to all police departments and Jessica’s lawyer was appointed to a senior White House position.  As her Human Rights Hero award signifies, Jessica represents individuals who against all odds make an impact on an otherwise unresponsive legal system.

Complicit, Heather White and Lynn Zhangh, 2016   

As in Home Truth the documentary by White and Zhangh portrays the actions of an individual, Yi Yeting, in China fighting for justice and bringing the struggle from the grass roots level to the international stage. But whereas in the USA human rights violations can be discussed and brought to the attention of the media and the legal system, this approach is more difficult to implement in China because nongovernmental organizations and human rights lawyers are under increasing pressure, the legal system is insensitive and the press and social media are restrained.  Activists who report workers’ unrest are imprisoned and the Communist party does not condone advocacy of workers’ rights. Yi Yeting a former self-taught worker who was employed in electronic manufacturing and became an activist after he contracted leukemia faces powerful opponents ranging from Foxconn and its sub-contractors to the company’s international clients like Apple and Samsung. A growing number of mostly young factory workers fall sick from leukemia, cancer and other diseases because they were exposed to Benzene and N-Hexan in the electronics manufacturing process. These inexpensive   chemicals are in the solvents needed to clean electronic products like cell phones. Yi Yeting carried out undercover research to generate data showing the impact of these chemicals causing occupational diseases. It was difficult to access evidence since manufacturers bribed the hospital’s health departments to withhold data. Also there is great resistance by governmental agencies in China, local manufacturers and buyers like Apple and Samsung to act on the revealed health issues. China has not signed the International Benzene Convention of 1972 and depends on the export of products from its rapidly expanding high tech electronics sector that produces 90% of the world’s computers and 70% of all cell phones. Foxconn and its subcontractors are the primary suppliers to Apple of cell phones and other products. According to Complicit Foxconn is only paid $5 for each cell phone. By selling cell phones and other electronic products made in China   Apple generates a large amount of profit through Chinese factory labor and the diseases they contract by exposure to chemicals. Governmental agencies do not act to remedy the health problem and Apple denies that these chemicals have been used by its manufacturer in China. But even if they have been replaced by other chemicals Apple and Foxconn will not reveal which chemicals because the companies consider that a trade secret.

Nobody Speak: Trial of the Free Press, Brian Knappenberger, 2017

This stunning documentary is probably the most timely selection of this year’s program because of the current constant high level presentation of news as being fake and the dissemination of that view in the public and the further decline of the trust in communication at large and the press in particular. We observe a movement towards one dimensional communication and the attempt to systematically repress views which are alternative to what is held by governing policy makers. Freedom to express oneself without constraints on the individual and media level is one of the most important human rights and as shown in Orwell’s 1984 it is fundamental for the open society. Its abridgement is a condition for the movement towards an authoritarian state. Nobody Speaks presents two cases where freedom of the press and the first amendment are challenged by the billionaire Peter Thiel who successfully closed down the online tabloid Gawker. Thiel funded a successful lawsuit by Hulk Hogan against Gawker for publishing part of a sex tape depicting Hogan. Thiel was motivated to terminate Gawker because the tabloid had ousted him in past years as a homosexual. The second billionaire silencing a critical voice was casino mogul Sheldon Adelson who bought Nevada’s biggest independent newspaper the Las Vegas Review in 2015. A former columnist of this paper had been sued by Adelson for revealing that Adelson vending machine investments tied him to organized crime. Thiel and Adelson are strong supporters of the Trump presidency.  As the title of the documentary Nobody Speaks suggests, silencing the media by closing them down or preventing their critical articulation of controversial issues undermines the democratic order.

 Claus Mueller   filmxchange@gmail.com