“Reaffirming the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and in peace-building, and stressing the importance of their equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security, and the need to increase their role in decision-making with regard to conflict prevention and resolution”…Continue reading “Grit and Determination”: Women Delivering Peace and Security UNSCR 1325
Author: Mairead Collins
Mightier than the Sword: Journalism, Freedom of Expression and Power
“The Journalist who gives in to intimidation, who becomes obedient, has already lost the fight for that right (to freedom of expression)” Eynulla Fatullayev (2011) It’s a clichéd phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword”, but its message is typified in the work of Amnesty International’s decades-long letter/email-writing campaigns for human rights champions. Friday…Continue reading Mightier than the Sword: Journalism, Freedom of Expression and Power
Still Waiting for a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland
Fourteen years after the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement set in place the groundwork for a future Bill of Rights, the people of Northern Ireland continue to wait. Yesterday, Professor Colin Harvey, as part of a UU Transitional Justice Institute panel discussion on the Bill of Rights debate, likened the situation to Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Certainly…Continue reading Still Waiting for a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland
Trafficking: A High Yield Crime in Pain and Suffering
Trafficking in persons “shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits…Continue reading Trafficking: A High Yield Crime in Pain and Suffering
Bill of Rights gets the Presidential Treatment at ICTU Women’s Conference
In the last year, the experience of women in the workplace has become more precarious as the recession’s chokehold tightens. Female redundancy rates are increasing and female unemployment figures climb higher. According to 2008 According to CSO 2011 figures, the figure for unemployed women in the Republic of Ireland rose sharply from around…Continue reading Bill of Rights gets the Presidential Treatment at ICTU Women’s Conference
“Speak to them, Not about them!” – East Belfast Speaks Out: Offering hope for civic engagement across Northern Ireland.
Last Thursday, Feb 2nd 2012, saw the holding of the third East Belfast Speaks Out event with a panel made up of: Minister for Education John O’Dowd (SF), MLA Chris Lyttle (Alliance), MLA Sammy Douglas (DUP), MLA Michael Copeland (UUP) and Councillor John Kyle (PUP) and chaired by the BBC’s Mark Davenport. Organised…Continue reading “Speak to them, Not about them!” – East Belfast Speaks Out: Offering hope for civic engagement across Northern Ireland.
Learning From the Past, Legislating for the Future: A Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland
Today is Holocaust Memorial day. It marks the liberation of the Auschwitz – Birkenau by the Red Army on the 27th of January 1945. It remembers the the genocide carried out by Nazi regime during World War II, resulting in the deaths of over 11 million people, it decimated the Jewish population of Europeby two-thirds. The Holocaust…Continue reading Learning From the Past, Legislating for the Future: A Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland
Israeli Settlement Goods and the Palestinian Communities they Affect
The Israeli settlement programme in the Jordan Valley has been in place since the very early days of the occupation, with, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW) 2010 figures, between 6000-9400 Jewish settlers now living in the area. Most of these settlements can be considered as economic in terms of the motivation of those…Continue reading Israeli Settlement Goods and the Palestinian Communities they Affect
Fenced Out: Life Cut off from Land in the Palestinian West Bank “Seam Zone”
In 2002, Israel began work on what was ostensibly a barrier to prevent suicide bombers moving from the West Bank into Israel. Its concrete slabs snake through East Jerusalem and Bethlehem, its dull grey covered in parts by graffiti and the art of Banksy. Alas, no matter how clever the slogan or ingenious the drawing the…Continue reading Fenced Out: Life Cut off from Land in the Palestinian West Bank “Seam Zone”
Every old man I see reminds me of my father: Bethlehem checkpoint and the inhumanity of the Wall and movement restriction in the OPt
As part of the EAPPI programme, each EA has the opportunity to spend a night or two in a couple of other placements. I spent my placement visit in Bethlehem in order to witness the morning checkpoint activity at the so-called Checkpoint 300. While restriction of movement has eased in the last couple of years…Continue reading Every old man I see reminds me of my father: Bethlehem checkpoint and the inhumanity of the Wall and movement restriction in the OPt
Fanning the flames: The burning of olive trees in Burin and settler impunity
The phrase ‘it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good’ took a sinister twist for the citizens of Burin, a village in the North West Bank on Friday 15thJuly. That morning had brought a much needed cooling breeze to the hillsides of Yanoun, softening the hard sun that bakes the valley every day. Four…Continue reading Fanning the flames: The burning of olive trees in Burin and settler impunity