Amnesty

[sobrique]

Waterboarding:

A short video, entitled 'the stuff of life'.

Entirely relevant to what's happening today, in a small place that everyone likes to forget, called Guantanamo bay.



I don't believe in Human Rights. I don't believe there's any kind of baseline of 'deserved rights'. I think rights are earned. 'just being alive' isn't enough.

But I think everyone has the ability, and the moral obligation to earn their right - to live in a world where this sort of things doesn't happen. It's not just given. It doesn't just magically 'appear'. It has to be earned. And until it is, there will be people, in the Guantanamo bay detention facility, who are are imprisoned and tortured with no one to speak for them. No trial for those who the world forgets.

Torture will always exist whilst someone finds it an expedient 'tool'. The only way that stops is if the benefit of doing it, is outweighed by the consequences of doing so. Maybe writing to a political representative won't change the world. But maybe it will. Maybe one more voice raised, claiming 'down with this sort of thing' will be enough to tip the scales.

Comments

[elrohana.livejournal.com]

I am a great believer in the idea that a dripping tap can one day wear a hole through the sink. So when something gets me angry, I write to someone - my MP, the Government, whatever. I sign petitions, I send money I can ill afford to various causes. Every single person in this wonderful country of free speech can do this. Sadly, a huge number of them don't even exercise their right to vote, something won by the blood, sweat and tears of the generations of ordinary folk who walked these shores before us.

I am daily ashamed to be human, and doubly so to be English.