Survivors on bicycles

How do you bring new levels of freedom to people who have been locked up in cages for years or tortured?  One Minnesotan woman has found an answer through fixing up bicycles (and won an award for it).

Cynthia McArthur has been fixing up bikes for fourteen years for survivors of torture who've settled around Minnesota, despite having to deal with chronic fatigue syndrome.  Chronic fatigue left her unable to work so she decided to make the most of it and use her time to fix up donated bicycles for clients of the Center for Victims of Torture in St. Paul.

One man who'd been kept jailed for 12 years in his country for political reasons received a bicycle that Cynthia had worked on.  The bike made a world of difference in the amount of freedom he felt living in America and he expressed it this way: "When I ride a bike, I can ride north or south, east or west for as long as I want, and when I get tired I can lay in the grass and look at the sky."

You can read more at MPR News: Repairing bikes for torture survivors wins woman McKnight award

Revolutionizing through Blogging and Tweeting in Egypt

In a country where we can say mostly what we want about what is going on around the world, it's kind of humbling to read about people who say what needs to be said when they could be jailed for it.  Or beaten or worse... but a young generation in Egypt is doing that about the human rights injustices in their country.  A quote from NPR about one of these youth who are transforming society:

Ahmed Nasser, a young lawyer, says it is up to his generation to reform Egypt.

"I don't want for my generation to be like the one before, because they are responsible for what we are in now," he says as he hands out petitions. "I am from this generation, a new one, and I want it to be different."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129425721

Shakespeare on the subject of torture

Torture has been around for centuries and millenia and the great literary artists have had something to say about it, none the least of which has been Shakespeare.  In his blog, Jeff Kaye shares a passage from King Lear in which Shakespeare presents torture and "makes clear at the very beginning, the torture is not in the main about gaining information, but about exerting control, and serves as a release for Cornwall and Regan’s "wrath" and sadism." 

Shakespeare lovers, eat your heart out at http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/35173#

Yemen is letting human rights slide out of fear for national security http://ping.fm/jVNP3

Judge rules that youngest Guantanamo detainee wasn't tortured as "defined under M.C.R.E. 304(b)(3)" http://ping.fm/2nONi

DR Congo rebels continue mass rape of women and babies in Congo http://ping.fm/HfBFk

Been looking for a film screening of "The Glass House on Sunday?  Well you're in luck...
http://www.meetup.com/AmnestyWest/calendar/14404067/

Ebrahim Hamidi is facing execution in Iran for false accusations of homosexual assault brought against him when he was 16 years old.  His accuser has since recanted, but Iranian officials are still planning to execute Ebrahim on the basis of confessions he made after allegedly being tortured.  You can sign this petition on Ebrahim's behalf: 
http://www.gopetition.com/petition/38289.html

A more detailed version of Ebrahim's story...  
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/08/iran-mohammad-mostafaei-rights-lawyer

Cheers to NYU dental students providing free dental services to survivors of torture: http://ping.fm/RSgbZ

As questions about British intelligence's complicity in torture are investigated, here's a time line of alleged torture cases :Torture and the UK: 2002- 10

Seychelles becomes latest country to join International Criminal Court http://shar.es/0038V

Omar Khadr, youngest Guantanamo inmate and first child soldier to be prosecuted since WWII, to face military tribunal; jury selection currently underway...
http://ping.fm/EegFg

Brazil makes formal offer of asylum for Iranian woman sentenced to stoning - http://bit.ly/aLFpCR cnn