Defending human rights

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Peninsula readers' letters: Dec. 13
From Daily News Group readers Posted: 12/12/2011 03:45:02 PM PSTUpdated: 12/12/2011 11:57:47 PM PST

Defending human rights
Dear Editor: As I said, "At Christmas time, let the guns of war fall silent and even enemies share a brief but blessed moment of 'peace on Earth, good will toward men.'" As one reader stated (Letters, Dec. 10), "Ted Rudow III's Dec. 8 letter relies on the unreliable Palestinian Center for Human Rights for statistics on civilian deaths in Gaza and then reminds us that Christmas is near and that good will is needed from all sides."
Raji Sourani, founder of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza City in 1995, began his human rights career challenging Israeli prison conditions and defending Palestinians facing deportation in Israeli military courts. As a human rights defender, he was detained by Israeli authorities on multiple occasions, prompting Amnesty International to name him one of their "prisoners of conscience" in both 1985 and 1988.
Today, Sourani is one of the foremost human rights lawyers and advocates in the Middle East. With the creation of the Palestinian Authority in the 1990s, Sourani's work took on another dimension, exposing and documenting human rights violations on the part of both Israeli and Palestinian officials. While this even-handedness was not always popular, it demonstrates Sourani's commitment to a universal standard.
Ted Rudow III, MA
Palo Alto

Civilian casualties

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Peninsula readers' letters: Nov. 4



From Daily News Group readers
Posted: 11/04/2010 12:45:19 AM PDT
Updated: 11/04/2010 12:45:20 AM PDT






Civilian casualties

Dear Editor: Civilians have borne the brunt of modern warfare, with 10 civilians dying for every soldier in wars fought since the mid-20th century, compared with nine soldiers killed for every civilian in World War I, according to a 2001 study by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

But it does seem to suggest numbers that are roughly in line with those compiled by several sources, including Iraq Body Count, an organization that tracked civilian deaths using press reports -- a method the Bush administration repeatedly derided as unreliable and producing inflated numbers. In all, the five-year archive lists more than 100,000 dead from 2004 to 2009, though some deaths are reported more than once, and some reports have inconsistent casualty figures.

Iraq Body Count, which did a preliminary analysis of the archive, estimated that it listed 15,000 deaths that had not been previously disclosed anywhere.

You just can't imagine people in this supposedly civilized age actually going to war. Their whole culture is to blame. A culture that says war is all right, that it's legitimate to tear bodies apart and destroy the lives of men, women and children. You just can't imagine civilized people talking calmly about it. War is insanity. They're declaring war in the name of peace.

Ted Rudow III,MA

Palo Alto