Human Rights Watch - the week in rights - The Power of Sign Language

Having trouble viewing this email? Click here THE WEEK IN RIGHTS October 17, 2013 Follow us on: The Power of Sign Language  © 2013 Joan Manuel Poggio for Human Rights Watch  Sign language is critical for deaf people to be able to communicate, express themselves, and learn. Deaf children who can communicate can get jobs, and participate in their communities and in their family life. But there is a lack of teachers well-trained in sign language, and in many cases parents do not know that their children have a right to attend school – or even that they can learn if only given the opportunity.  Read more >> share on:   Dispatches: Failure of Leadership at AU Summit by Daniel Bekele  When African Union heads of state gathered in Addis Ababa last weekend for an extraordinary summit, Africans might have expected that their leaders would have extraordinary issues to discuss. They might have asked: would the poverty that maintains a stranglehold on millions of people across the continent be on the agenda? Or maybe the conflicts in Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somalia? Read more >> share on:   Listening to Pope Francis by Graeme Reid Il Huffington Post I am not Catholic. I am not a believer. And yet, as a South African, I am aware of the positive and negative roles the Catholic Church can play. It was outspoken against apartheid, and its liberation theology (controversial within the church) inspired a generation. In my personal experience, it was a Catholic school in Johannesburg that both defied apartheid’s race quotas and welcomed gay families, including my own.  Read more >> share on:   The Limits of Reform in Saudi Arabia by Adam Coogle  The Cairo Review of Global Affairs  The man who heads Saudi Arabia’s infamous religious police made headlines recently when he publicly acknowledged that “Islamic sharia does not have a text forbidding women driving.” For many Saudis, this statement signaled a possible sea change in attitudes among the country’s hard-line religious establishment, at least on that issue.  Read more >> share on:   VIDEO Arresting victims in Russia, explained by Russian activist Svetlana Gannushkina. Watch Now >> FELLOWSHIPS Apply to Fellowships in international human rights. Click here >> TWEET of the WEEK 1000s of students forced to leave school to pick cotton. Report on first month of the cotton harvest in Uzbekistan: http://bit.ly/15LLoYL  Follow Jo Becker >>