Explaining the 1994 genocide in Rwanda

Any adequate account of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda must acknowledge manipulation by external forces, domestic pressures and psychological factors. Even so, the nature of the Rwandan state must be seen as absolutely central. The genocide took place under the aegis of the state, and Rwandans were the main actors involved. Both precolonial legacies and colonial policies contributed to the formation of this state, whose increasingly autocratic and unpopular government was, by the early 1990s, facing serious threats to its hold on state power, for which genocide represented a last-ditch attempt at survival. Many of the mechanisms through which genocide was prepared, implemented and justi®ed in Rwanda bore striking resemblances to those used during the twentieth century's other major genocide, the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews

Urunana Audiences at Home and Away: Together 'Hand in Hand'?

Urunana (‘Hand in Hand’) is Rwanda’s first radio soap opera. The production emerged during the late 1990s from a three-way transnational production partnership between: The Great Lakes section of the BBC World Service; the Well Woman Media Project of the London-based NGO, Health Unlimited; and a group of dramatists and broadcasters working in Rwanda. Broadcast by the BBC World Service, the production was initially produced and edited by Health Unlimite. It is now produced by the Urunana Development Communication (see www.urunanadc.org/), which estimated that the program is regularly listened to by almost 70 per cent of Rwandans.2 Urunana is explicitly adapted for the Rwandan context from the format of a long-running BBC Radio 4 soap opera, The Archers, which dramatises the ups and downs of rural characters in England (see Bielby and Harrington, 2002; Jordan, 2007: 7; Soares, 2008). Since 2008, when Urunana won a prestigious media development award for encouraging audiences to discuss safe sex, family planning, and other issues that are generally considered taboo in Rwanda, the program has started to be of interest to researchers in gender, health and media outside the field of ‘edutainment’.3 Our interest in this article is in exploring how the soap opera is produced, but first of all how it has helped to promote women’s sexual health and mend relationships in post-genocide Rwanda

The 2007 "NO CAFTA" movement in Costa Rica

This study addresses political participation rights from the perspective of a social movement. We focus on the case of the NO movement which emerged in Costa Rica in 2007 in the run-up to the Referendum on ratification of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). The study explores some ways the NO movement sought to make political participation rights real for voters during the Referendum campaign. The central focus is on how political participation rights were claimed and exercised by members of the movement. We consider how more democratic understandings of political participation emerged, during the campaign process itself from the NO movement's practices. The main findings are that the NO movement's understanding of political participation rights was intimately connected to how the movement framed its own collective actions, which were understood as a defence of a historically and socially-embedded Costa Rican model of development. This in turn arose from a certain, shared nationalist vision that combined liberal democracy, economic nationalism and welfarist redistribution. During the CAFTA Referendum process, the NO movement's members sought to realize participation rights through both formal and informal claims and practices. On the one hand, NO movement participants demanded -- and claimed -- formal institutional accountability for the protection of these rights. At the same time, they relied heavily on their own efforts to open up and protect new spaces for collective action. The NO movement thus defended its own members' and supporters' rights to political participation in several ways. In our view, this process helped promote wider critical awareness of the prospects for active citizen involvement in public decision making processes in Costa Rica generally. The study suggests that even in the absence of effective legal regulations that can be used to protect people's political rights to participate, a movement can sometimes build effective rights realization "from below", through creating spaces for democratic participation of citizens. It is argued that this is often a crucial dimension of rights realization and that rights to political participation can be exercised by citizens as well as claimed from the state. One of the main democratic contributions of the NO movement was to help open up new debates what kind of state, what kind of society, and what kind of economic development Costa Ricans wanted. Contestations of existing power relations were central to the pre-Referendum debates around CAFTA. And this study suggests that the NO movement thus challenged neoliberal notions of development and democracy both through its messages and through its organizational practices during the Referendum campaign. Authoritarian exclusionary and vertical logics, as well as the principles of competence and commercialization, came into question in the process

Réunion

The year 2002 reminded the people of Réunion of the power of nature. Cyclone Dina caused destruction and the Piton de la Fournaise volcano erupted twice, causing lava to spill over on to the coastal road and pour into the sea. The main political events were the French presidential elections, local general elections for the French Parliament and local district elections for the Department Council. In Reunion,the results represented a victory for what can be termed a "blue wave", blue being the colour associated with the right-wing parties in France. These parties not only won the municipal elections in 18 out of 24 councils, but also took control of the General Council, which was previously a left-wing stronghold. Réunion’s voters followed metropolitan trends in this swing towards right-wing parties. They did not, however, follow national trends in voting for the French National Front during the second round of the presidential elections

Thematic review on the coverage of women in Country of Origin Information (COI) reports

Background and context. Production of Country of Origin Information (COI). Country of Origin Information (COI) is an integral part of asylum decision-making in the UK and is used at all stages of the Refugee Status Determination (RSD) process to assess applications for refugee status or other forms of international protection (Morgan et al. 2003; IAS 2009; IAS 2010; Tsangarides 2010). It informs decision makers and legal advisers about the political, social, cultural, economic, and human rights situation of a particular country as well as humanitarian situations (Chief Inspector UKBA 2011). COI can enable decision makers to assess if an individual‘s subjective fear is based on objectively adverse circumstances, and therefore whether an asylum claim is well founded. It can also be used to assess the risk for individuals on return to their country of origin.1 The Country of Origin Service (COIS) produces a range of products that focus on human rights issues and matters frequently raised in asylum and human rights claims. They are compiled from material produced by a wide range of external information sources such as the United Nations agencies, human rights organisations, governmental and non-governmental organisations, and news media. Sources of information can include both published and unclassified material

Pro-asylum Advocacy in the EU: Challenging the State of Exception

Introduction. This chapter explores examples of how pro-asylum advocates challenge the harsh measures used to punish those who try to enter or reside in the EU illegally, taking examples from The Netherlands and the UK. We explore organized resistance to the ‘3-Ds’, which are so typical of EU-wide migration policies: destitution, detention and deportation. Together these are the backbone of policies of deterrence. Sections 2 and 3 explore how ‘global apartheid’ and the ‘state of exception’ within the EU connect. Giorgio Agamben (2005) first theorized the “state of exception” and Kohler, “global apartheid” (1978). The state of exception is the regional context for pro-asylum advocacy work, and global apartheid is the global context within which the EU-wide state of exception can be understood (Webber 2000; Migreurop 2009). In section 4, the ‘shared injustice frames’, or common worldviews, of pro-asylum advocacy networks in the EU, are briefly explored. Section 5 presents examples of pro-asylum advocacy work from the UK and the Netherlands. These examples draw on our own background experience and research. We explore how two pro-asylum advocacy organizations, one a loose network, the other a small NGO, have tried to organize to protect those seeking sanctuary against the 3-Ds. The right not to be deliberately made homeless, not to be imprisoned at will, and not to be forcibly expelled to dangerous countries, are thus the main focus of these organizations, and of section 5. In section 6, we briefly explore some positive recent developments, such as the ‘sanctuary campaign’ in the UK, but also how resistance to deterrence policies has had to go ‘underground’ in the face of criminalization in both the EU and elsewhere, such as Canada (Fekete 2009; Nyers 2003)

Policy Brief: Towards Realising Health Rights among Undocumented People in Dutch Cities

The Netherlands have ratified a number of international treaties guaranteeing the basic right of all persons to health. Despite this relatively favourable legal situation, undocumented migrant women and men in Dutch cities have been shown to suffer ill-health disproportionately. On the basis of a participatory study conducted with undocumented people themselves, in this policy brief, we highlight steps towards realising health rights of undocumented migrants that can feasibly be implemented in Dutch large cities

Seeking Health below the Radar: Undocumented People’s access to healthcare in Two Dutch Cities

This study sought answers to a puzzling paradox. Generally, formal legal health care rights for undocumented people in The Netherlands are relatively good, with some exceptions (like dentistry and mental health). Despite this, many undocumented people were found only to access health care services in the case of an emergency, and sometimes not even then. Why were undocumented people not fully making use of their legal rights to access health care? Was it due to discrimination? A lack of information? Or some other deterrents? This article presents findings from a project entitled: “Count Us In”: Towards Realising Health Rights among Undocumented People in Two Dutch Global Cities”, funded by the Rotterdam Global Health Initiative (RGHI). Using the Participatory Ethnographic Evaluation and Research (PEER) methodology, research was conducted in The Hague and Rotterdam between 2012 and 2015. The study found that those in work or socially embedded in support net