SUMMARY:Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban was once thought to be the best person to lead a sphere of former Soviet states toward western-style democracy, but he has instead taken the country on a more populist course, one that's alarmed other European leaders who criticize his treatment of migrants, the media, NGOs, and academia.NewsHour Weekend Special Correspondent Christopher Livesay reports.
SUMMARY: For aid organizations, especially those in conflict zones, remaining politically neutral is crucial for trust. A New York Times investigation found that the conduct of a logistics company could drive suspicion that aid groups in Yemen were somehow acting as agents of the U.S. government. William Brangham speaks with The New York Times' Eric Schmitt and Daryl Grisgraber of Refugees International.
RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): The death toll of polio vaccine workers killed in a string of attacks in Pakistan climbed again today. One victim died from wounds sustained in a shooting on Wednesday.
Tom Clarke of Independent Television News narrates this report on the difficult decisions the World Health Organization faces between protecting workers and eradicating a disease.
TOM CLARKE: Hundreds turned out to bury Mohammad Hilal, to mourn the loss of a 22-year-old student who gave out polio vaccine in his spare time. But they also came to express public outrage at this week's murders.
Nine young people, six of them women, one just 17, have been gunned down since Monday, and not at random, a series of coordinated assassinations targeting an annual three-day polio vaccination campaign.
BUSHRA ARAIN, All Pakistan Lady Health Workers Association (through translator): We go out door to door and risk our lives to save innocent children from being permanently handicapped.
For what? So that our coming generations turn out to be healthy. We work for our country, and we are being rewarded in the form of death. What kind of justice is this? Why are we targeted and killed?
TOM CLARKE: Until someone claims responsibility, we won't know why. The Taliban haven't come forward, but extreme Islamist groups have long opposed Western health interventions and the role for women in campaigns.
Frustration is compounded by the fact they were making such good progress. There were just 56 cases of polio in Pakistan this year, the lowest ever.
Up until the 1950s, polio, which can paralyze 10 percent of the children it infects, was one of the world's most feared diseases. Vaccination programs have steadily eradicated it in rich countries, and in recent decades, it's been all but wiped out in the developing world, too.
When the World Health Organization launched its campaign 24 years ago, polio was found in more than 125 countries, with around 350,000 cases every year. But now it's endemic in just parts of three countries, Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. And the cases have dwindled, 650 last year, and just 213 in 2012 so far.
The eradication program has had setbacks before, like a ban linked to extreme Islamists in Nigeria that led to outbreaks in 20 other countries. But observers say this week's violence is something new and requires the WHO to rethink the battle with polio it has so nearly won.
DR. HEIDI LARSON, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine: I think it needs to think about how to do it differently, maybe not as polio for polio's sake, but in the context of health.
And I know that that's been thought about. I know that the idea of integrating and mixing with other interventions has been thought through, but maybe it needs another look.
TOM CLARKE: The WHO warned failure to eliminate polio from its last few strongholds could mean as many as 200,000 new cases every year within a decade. That would be cruel memorial to the young volunteers who were so close to wiping it out for good.
SUMMARY: While aid groups operate with apolitical, humanitarian intentions, workers trying to bring relief in the middle of conflicts often find themselves in danger. Ray Suarez talks to Joel Charny of InterAction about the recent deaths of health workers trying to eradicate polio in Pakistan and the "erosion of safety" for aid groups.
MARGARET WARNER (Newshour): It's been a year since the U.S. raid on this compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, killed Osama bin Laden and roiled relations between the two countries.
Yesterday, there was fresh fallout, when a Pakistani court sentenced this man, Dr. Shakil Afridi, to 33 years in prison. Afridi, seen here highlighted in red, was convicted of treason for trying to help the CIA track down bin Laden. He was arrested after word leaked that he set up a vaccination program in Abbottabad to try to collect DNA samples from bin Laden's compound.
In Washington today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said there was no basis for Afridi's conviction or sentence.
SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: His help, after all, was instrumental in taking down one of the world's most notorious murderers. That was clearly in Pakistan's interests, as well as ours and the rest of world. This action by Dr. Afridi to help bring about the end of the reign of terror designed and executed by bin Laden wasn't in any way a betrayal of Pakistan.
MARGARET WARNER: The trial took place in Pakistan's Khyber tribal region, a semiautonomous zone where Afridi was raised.
There, courts are governed by a separate set of laws, which human rights groups have criticized for failing to observe basic rights. The case also prompted the Pakistanis to impose new curbs on humanitarian organizations. Afridi had told investigators that one such group, Save the Children, introduced him to the CIA.
News of the doctor's sentence came just days after disappointment at the NATO summit added to tensions between the U.S. and Pakistan. The two sides failed to reach agreement on reopening NATO supply routes into Afghanistan. They have been closed since a U.S. airstrike killed two dozen Pakistani troops last fall.
Meanwhile, back in Washington today, a U.S. Senate committee voted to cut aid to Pakistan by $33 million, $1 million for every year of Dr. Afridi's sentence.
Seeming to borrow a page from the Hosni Mubarak playbook, Egyptian security forces yesterday raided the offices of two Egyptian, two American and one German non-governmental organization and held their staffs inside these offices while police and prosecutors search their papers and computers.
The reason for the raids is still unclear, but it is known that these are among the not-for-profit groups who have registered strong objections to the so-called NGO law drafted by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) IN November 2011.
According to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), officers – in uniform and civilian clothes – raided the Arab Center for Independence of Justice and Legal Professions (ACIJP) and The Budgetary and Human Rights Observatory, both Egyptian NGOs; The National Democratic Institute (NDI), an American NGO with offices in Cairo and Assuit); the International Republican Institute (IRI), an American organization with an office in Cairo; Freedom House, an American organization with an office in Egypt, and Konrad Adenauer, a German NGO.
The staff members of these organizations were reportedly held in their offices while. Police searched their papers, laptops and computers.
Staff members of the six organizations were warned from using their cell phones, laptops and computers; and were isolated from contact with the outside world. Additionally, with regards to the ACIJP office at least, authorities restricted access to the entire building, preventing people from entering or exiting the building.
ANHRI said that “storming these offices is related to the campaign led by the Supreme Council for Armed Forces (SCAF) and the Egyptian government starting from June 2011 against civil society organizations and more specifically human rights groups in Egypt.”
The NDI, IRI, and Freedom House have been previously investigated by the ministry of justice on charges of receiving foreign funding, while the Arab Center for the Independence of Justice and Legal Professions has not been yet investigated. An Investigation of the Budgetary and Human Rights Observatory was due to start next Sunday, January 1, 2012.
ANHRI said the storming of NGO offices is “an unprecedented move in the recent history of Egyptian NGOs,” adding that in February 2011, during the 18 days Egyptian revolution, “Military Police stormed the office of Hisham Mubarak Law Center, an Egyptian NGO based in Cairo, and arrested several of its members as well as staff members of other international organizations who were present at the scene.”
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
* Any attempt to suppress human or Constitutional rights.
* Any law or policy that supports discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, race/color, gender, sexual orientation, or any law that does NOT support Equal Treatment under the law.
*Any law or policy that attempts to suppress Freedom of the Press or Free Speech.
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