Pages

Friday, 5 December 2014

[AfricaRealities] Denis Mukwege: Sakharov Prize winner and champion of human rights | euronews, Europe

 


Denis Mukwege, has been awarded the 2014 European Parliament Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

For 15 years, the gynaecologist has treated tens of thousands of victims of rape and genital mutilation in his native Democratic Republic of Congo.

He used his acceptance speech at a plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, to highlight their plight.

"Women's bodies have become a battlefield and rape is being used as a weapon of war. There are multiple consequences as a result, which impact on the whole of society. The family unit is disintegrated, and the social fabric destroyed. In a largely militarised economy, populations are reduced to slavery or simply forced into exile," he said.

Denis Mukwege has fought for their human rights in the mineral-rich east of the DRC; an area largely controlled by armed gangs There, the abuse of women is endemic and people are often forced to flee.

Both Dr Mukwege and European Parliament President Martin Schulz called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.

"The de-facto impunity for rape in armed conflicts must be ended. When military commanders use and impose rape, then it is a war crime. These war crimes must be punished as war crimes!", exclaimed Schulz.

Stating that there are half a million victims of sexual assault in the DRC, Mukwege called for the root cause of the violence to be addressed urgently.

This could be achieved, he said, with the establishment of an International Criminal Tribunal in the east of the country.

Copyright © 2014 euronews

More about:




__._,_.___
Posted by: Nzinink <nzinink@yahoo.com>
Reply via web post • Reply to sender • Reply to group • Start a New Topic • Messages in this topic (1)
----------------------------------------------------------
The Voice of the Poor, the Weak and Powerless.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Post message:  AfricaRealities@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe: AfricaRealities-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe: AfricaRealities-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
List owner: AfricaRealities-owner@yahoogroups.com
__________________________________________________________________

Please consider the environment before printing this email or any attachments.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-http://www.africarealities.com/

-https://www.facebook.com/africarealities

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-New International Scholarships opportunities: http://www.scholarshipsgate.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

.

__,_._,___
at No comments:

New Publication: Statebuilding in the Somali Horn

 

Cover: Participatory budgeting in Cameroon

 

Somaliland's uniqueness lies in its success in building a durable and broadly representative system of government within the borders of a contemporary nation state

 

Statebuilding in the Somali Horn:
Compromise, Competition and Representation

The achievements of successive Somaliland governments in building legitimacy and conducting elections have attracted widespread praise. While the near future will present substantial challenges to the durability of past successes, a close analysis shows that Somaliland offers a great many useful lessons about how to build a Somali nation state. An established, discursive system of consensus-based political participation is as important as democratisation through elections. This system is inevitably imperfect, but it has played a key role in securing broad, though qualified, acceptance of state institutions.

A resurgence of optimism in southern Somalia has diverted attention from more sustained, if less spectacular, political accommodations negotiated in Somaliland and elsewhere in the Somali Horn of Africa. Mundane lessons learned in these territories have once again been relegated to the margins. International participants and elite partners in Mogadishu, Nairobi, Washington and London are absorbed by Somali realpolitik and the apparent progress of a grand technocratic exercise in state-building. It is imperative that those wishing to support continued political development in Somaliland and the region pay greater heed to the historical and cultural context in which it is occurring.

Click here to read Michael Walls's Counterpoint on Somaliland's political transition, which holds lessons for statebuilding across the Somali Horn.

 

Copyright © 2014 Africa Research Institute, All rights reserved.
Our mailing address is:
55 Tufton St, London, SW1P 3QL

 

at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

READ MORE RECENT NEWS AND OPINIONS

Popular Posts

“The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.”

“I have loved justice and hated iniquity: therefore I die in exile.”

“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”

“When the white man came we had the land and they had the bibles; now they have the land and we have the bibles.”