Human Rights

WASHINGTON -- Human rights legislation crafted by Sen. Ben Cardin and targeted at abuses in Russia sailed through the U.S. Senate on a bipartisan vote Thursday and will now be signed by President Obama. The provision requires the State Department to maintain a list of human rights abusers in Russia, freeze their assets and deny them U.S. visas. The language was attached to a broader bill that lifts Cold War-era trade restrictions on Russia. The Senate passed the measure 92-4. The bill is a significant legislative victory for Cardin, a Maryland Democrat who has promoted the measure for years and who managed to steer it through an otherwise gridlocked Congress.

Just wanted to say a resounding "thank you" for printing Maria Santo's article on the truth - the simple, basic truth - of what abortion is:  killing a very young baby.   Thank you for not bowing to the insanity of political correctness on this most fundamental issue of human rights.  How can we concern ourselves with child abuse or any other important human rights issue while we are endorsing genocide of babies? Yvette Ridenour Catonsville

Neil Simon's column on the new U.S.-Russia trade law could not be further from the truth when it states that Sen. Benjamin Cardin has "catapulted human rights atop the international agenda ("Cardin stands up for rights," Dec. 12). Senator Cardin talks about freedom and democracy for everyone except the Palestinians, who have been suffering under a brutal Israeli occupation for 45 years. They have been victims of land and water theft, home demolitions, targeted assassinations, mass arrests, torture and a blockade of Gaza that is strangling the civilian population.

Op-ed contributor Mickey Fenzel recently wrote about "the malady of America's soul" and whether we have the will to heal it ("The malady of America's soul," Dec. 18). The tragedy in Newtown should challenge us all to begin a conversation has long been needed. My first thought on reading his commentary was of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel's most famous quote: "Some are guilty, all of us are responsible. " The culture of the United States has changed in the last several decades.

W hile President Barack Obama is in Beijing this week, he has an opportunity to address two key issues, climate change and human rights concerns, simultaneously. Here's the kind of speech the president should give: "President Hu Jintao, ladies & gentlemen, it is a great pleasure to be in Beijing. My administration has put climate change at the top of our diplomatic agenda. This is especially true when it comes to our relationship with China. Our two large nations share the title of top consumers of energy and the biggest polluters on earth.

It had never occurred to Michelle Salomon that when she washed her hands, she used more water than some families have access to in a day. The University of Maryland law student had never imagined a world in which constitutional education amounted to one volunteer lecturing under a shade tree to hundreds of people who had never been to school. Salomon, an Olney resident, had long wanted to advocate for human rights. But until she spent last semester at the law school's new clinic in Namibia, she didn't know how desperate and uplifting that struggle could be. "It transformed my life," she says.

Some of the bravest people in the world can be found at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport. Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic. Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa. The Dalai Lama. These and many other figures are featured in a photo exhibit organized to honor human-rights defenders around the world. Part of the airport's upper concourse, just off the main atrium of the international terminal, has been transformed into a photo gallery to display the traveling exhibit "Speak Truth to Power," which runs through May 31. The exhibit was organized by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, a Washington-based nonprofit organization that was formed in 1968 in memory of the former U.S. senator and attorney general, who was assassinated that year at age 42. It is based on a book written by Kerry Kennedy, a daughter of Robert F. Kennedy and president of the RFK Center.

Neil Simon's commentary, "Cardin stands for rights" (Dec. 13), correctly depicts U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin's steadfast pursuit to hold accountable violators of human rights in Russia with the killing of attorney Sergei Magnitsky. Our concern is that the U.S. Department of State will find excuses to avoid imposing sanctions or simply not acknowledge or respond to violations in Russia or elsewhere. This they have done often. For example, the British have just released a report admitting their security forces murdered attorney Patrick Finucane in Northern Ireland.

The State Department has highlighted a neglected field of human rights deprivation on reporting the status of women in 193 countries. It is idle to talk about human rights violations without noticing rape, slavery, genital mutilation, forced prostitution, lack of marital rights, prohibition against driving, lack of career and education opportunities and other practices that make women less equal than men in many nations.The new emphasis is telling it like it is, a reflection of the Clinton administration's priority for women's issues, and a form of political grandstanding that is not new with this report.

With Marxism dead, the Cold War over and liberal democracy ascendant, the great ideological debates of the century have ended, but disagreement continues about the rights of citizens, the obligations of government and the appropriate role in these matters of what is routinely called the ''international community.''Debates on these subjects are taking place at the U.N. global conferences on human rights now under way in Vienna. Some 2,000 official delegates and several times as many unofficial delegates representing 161 countries and innumerable non-governmental organizations are gathered to review the world's record of achievement since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to assess the obstacles to its full implementation and to consider how the United Nations might help.

Neil Simon's commentary, "Cardin stands for rights" (Dec. 13), correctly depicts U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin's steadfast pursuit to hold accountable violators of human rights in Russia with the killing of attorney Sergei Magnitsky. Our concern is that the U.S. Department of State will find excuses to avoid imposing sanctions or simply not acknowledge or respond to violations in Russia or elsewhere. This they have done often. For example, the British have just released a report admitting their security forces murdered attorney Patrick Finucane in Northern Ireland.

Neil Simon's column on the new U.S.-Russia trade law could not be further from the truth when it states that Sen. Benjamin Cardin has "catapulted human rights atop the international agenda ("Cardin stands up for rights," Dec. 12). Senator Cardin talks about freedom and democracy for everyone except the Palestinians, who have been suffering under a brutal Israeli occupation for 45 years. They have been victims of land and water theft, home demolitions, targeted assassinations, mass arrests, torture and a blockade of Gaza that is strangling the civilian population.

Sen. Ben Cardin is Maryland's joke on the USA. Instead of working for the interests of his state he finds it necessary to meddle into the internal affairs of Russia, which I certain is quaking in its boots over Mr. Cardin's human rights measure ("Senate approves Cardin human rights bill," Dec. 6). Get serious, Mr. Cardin, and put some effort into the huge problems facing the country. F. Cordell, Lutherville Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

Very few things unite Democratic and Republican senators in Washington. But unfortunately, one thing that does is attacking the human rights of Palestinians. And now they're are at it again. This time in the form of an anti-Palestinian amendment sponsored by Sens. Charles Schumer, Robert Menendez, John Barrasso and Lindsey Graham that would punish the government of Palestine for seeking United Nations recognition and heavily sanction it if it petitions the International Criminal Court for Justice.

WASHINGTON -- Human rights legislation crafted by Sen. Ben Cardin and targeted at abuses in Russia sailed through the U.S. Senate on a bipartisan vote Thursday and will now be signed by President Obama. The provision requires the State Department to maintain a list of human rights abusers in Russia, freeze their assets and deny them U.S. visas. The language was attached to a broader bill that lifts Cold War-era trade restrictions on Russia. The Senate passed the measure 92-4. The bill is a significant legislative victory for Cardin, a Maryland Democrat who has promoted the measure for years and who managed to steer it through an otherwise gridlocked Congress.

- Legislation by Sen. Ben Cardin to pressure Russia on human rights abuses is expected to win approval in Congress Thursday despite concerns that it will hurt already tenuous U.S. relations with the Kremlin. The proposal - which requires the State Department to maintain a public list of human rights abusers in Russia and freeze their assets - has received bipartisan support in the House and Senate even though the Obama administration has largely resisted the effort. Because the language is tucked into a trade bill that is a priority for Russia and U.S. businesses, President Obama is expected to sign the measure if sent to his desk.

Much ink has been spilled in recent weeks criticizing the Republican Party and its failed presidential candidate for a lack of compassion and obvious antipathy toward "47 percent" of the electorate (if not a bit more), so it was reassuring to see two of its more prominent leaders offer a message of inclusion and uplift at a Jack Kemp Foundation dinner on Tuesday. Too bad that on the same day, Republicans were reverting to form in the Senate chamber. There, the late Mr. Kemp's 1996 top-of-ticket running-mate, Bob Dole - recently released from hospital care and assisted by wheelchair - was unable to coax sufficient GOP support for what should have been a no-brainer for members of a truly compassionate party: the Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities.

Richard Lewis Hill III, a longtime social and labor activist and volunteer at Baltimore Clayworks, died of pancreatic cancer at his Towson home on Oct. 7. He was 68. Mr. Hill was born in Manhattan, Kan., the son of a lawyer and a homemaker. He studied drama at Kansas State University in Manhattan just as students on college campuses nationwide began protesting over civil rights and the Vietnam War. He became an activist, too, and left school before graduating, settling during the mid-1960s in Chicago, where he worked for the Socialist Workers Party.