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Voices For Freedom invites papers for the Second Annual Conference on Genocide, Torture and Human Rights Abuses. Voices For Freedom, in a global search for methods of limiting if not eliminating Human Rights abuses, is holding a one day conference cum discussion on Genocide, Torture and Human Rights Abuses. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to, the following areas. The details are given below.
For further information please contact us at
info@voicesforfreedom.org
TOPICS
- Genocide its genesis and its consequences
- Torture: A look towards more Humane Systems
- Minority issues and Human Rights
- Truth Commissions
- National Human Rights Commission and the Punjab Mass Cremations case.
Venue and Program
- Location: Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus, Room 816, 113 West 60th Street, New York, NY 10023
- Date and Time: Saturday 28 October 2006 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
Genocide
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1948. The Convention (in article 2) defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:"
- Killing members of the group
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
The Holocaust during the Second World War remains the primary cause for the Nations to call for a Convention against Genocide. On September 2, 1998 when the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found Jean-Paul Akayesu, the former mayor of a small town in Rwanda, guilty of nine counts of genocide, it became the first time that the law was enforced leading to conviction of any person.
With the increasing conflict amongst cultures and civilizations and the global focus on Terrorism it is becoming even more imperative on our part to reflect on what constitutes Genocide and why do people and the Governments commit mass murder. Sadly the modern world has not in any way become safer despite increasing democratic conventions being adopted by nations. People are still getting murdered and slain albeit with far more destructive weapons.
The conference is our effort to locate the possibilities of redemption for the victims of Genocide through our continuing endeavor to bring the people responsible for Genocide to face the law. But before that attempt to succeed we need to analyze the methods that can be adopted to reach out to the victims of the Genocide and the means to provide justice to them.
Torture
Torture is any act by which severe pain, whether physical or psychological, is intentionally inflicted on a person as a means of intimidation, deterrence, revenge, punishment, sadism, or information gathering. It can be used as an interrogation tactic to extract confessions. Torture is also used as a method of coercion or as a tool to control groups seen as a threat by governments. Torture is almost universally considered to be an extreme violation of human rights, as stated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Signatories of the Third Geneva Convention and Fourth Geneva Convention agree not to torture protected persons (enemy civilians and POWs) in armed conflicts, and signatories of the UN Convention Against Torture agree not to intentionally inflict severe pain or suffering on anyone, to obtain information or a confession, to punish them, or to coerce them or a third person. These conventions and agreements notwithstanding, it is estimated by organizations such as Amnesty International that around two out of three countries do not consistently abide by the spirit of such treaties.
With the current debate in the US Congress vis-ŕ-vis Article 3 of Geneva Conventions it is imperative for all of us to have a clear perspective of what the Governments desire can be sanctioned as means to interrogate the alleged terror suspects. What are the means that the under privileged victims of torture have recourse to? How can Non-Governmental Organizations intervene to pressurize the Governments to desist from Torture? What aid can such organizations hope to receive from the United Nations in cases of Torture? What is the role of the United Nations in mitigating, in providing justice and imposing sanctions against erring nations in such cases?
These are just some of the questions we hope to put rather than answer in the Conference.
National Human Rights Commission
National Human Rights Commission in its recently concluded hearing decided that it was going to be the last before the final judgment on the Punjab Mass Cremations case. In a long winded course of this case it has generated more disappointments than the solutions it has or it hopes to offer. The admission of the agencies and the orders of the NHRC have confirmed unlawful disappearances by Punjab Police and other security forces. NHRC’s decision to set the scope of its investigations to “only to those illegal killings / disappearances that culminated in the cremation of 2097 bodies (585 bodies fully identified, 274 bodies partially identified and 1238 bodies unidentified) in the crematoria located at Durgyana Mandir, Patti Municipal Committee Crematorium and Tarn Taran Crematorium located in the Police districts of Amritsar, Majitha and Tarn Taran, which were also the subject matter of inquiry by the CBI in pursuance of the Order of Supreme Court dated 15th November 1995. The contention of the Petitioners to the contrary that the Commission should undertake an investigation of all the alleged Police killings in the State of Punjab, apart from being extremely expansive in nature, does not seem to square or be reconcilable with the express terms of the Court’s remit”. This and the judicial machinery’s reluctance to try and prosecute the erring police officials in the large scale illegal killings has raised vital questions that need to be probed and answered. Normally such a large number of disappeared in Punjab and other states should have serve as a persuasion to the NHRC to make amendments in its terms of reference. But it obviously has not been the condition considering the latest hearing in the case. What holds for the future of the families of the disappeared? Has the NHRC in its final hearing and judgments so far shut out all options of justice for them? What are the options left for the organizations representing the families of the disappeared after this? Can we find anything within the NHRC judgments to offer any scope of reopening and furthering widening the scope? Can there be any possibility of pressurizing the judicial system to reopen the case and also to widening the scope to punishing the guilty police officers including the top officials? All these and others questions need to be answered and probed in the discussion.
Truth Commissions
Complete truth or pure truth is never available in its entirety. Truth is always relative to its contingent circumstances and that is the reason perpetrators of atrocities manage to hide such behind philosophical procrastinations of political leaders. But truth always performs a much deeper healing effect to the victims of disappearances. The truth of knowing what happened to the loved one, how did the person die, who was the killer and where are his/her last remains lying sometimes offers a peace which no amount of apology or political solutions can give. The truth commissions can never be equal to the judicial process of convicting the guilty but the act of bringing the truth out in the public realm itself offers a scope for newer systems to be brought into force and in all likelihood their recommendations can bring institutional reforms necessary for any thriving democracy. It is for these reasons that in the recent past democratic governments and human rights organizations have increasingly demanded or instituted truth and reconciliation commissions in areas of conflict. Many such commissions have in their reports offered ways and means of moving forward from the traumatic past for the victims. It is for this reason that truth commissions are increasingly being preferred over long and tedious judicial processes. Sometimes also because the judiciary has become or is presumed to be a part of the corrupt administration that is party to the oppression.
The question is how can the truth commissions be demanded and who authorizes the validity of these commissions? What is the criterion and who decides it? How can human rights organizations demand an institution of a truth commission? How can victims without access to justice in the existing setup demand setting up of truth commission? These are only some of the questions that need to be probed and looked into especially in the given condition of human rights violations in the state of Punjab in India.
Paper Submission-Guidelines
In order to submit a paper;
Authors are invited to submit complete and original papers. Papers that may be submitted for consideration include those that have not previously been published in another forum, or are not currently being published or reviewed by another journal or conference. All submitted papers will be referred for relevance, originality, correctness and quality. As a guideline, a nominal length for papers is 10 pages (A4) single-spaced. All accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings.
The submitted papers will be the property of Voices For Freedom.
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