The Human Rights Blog

Paul Scrom, J.D. Candidate 2012, Hofstra University School of Law

Recently, several pieces of legislation were introduced in the United States Congress aimed at preventing internet piracy and protecting intellectual property (“IP”).  Specifically, the Protect IP Act (“PIPA”) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (“SOPA”) were the two leading attempts at limiting the Internet.  The bills seemed almost guaranteed to pass until a tremendous amount of protest by internet users and internet companies greatly influenced Congress to delay voting on the bills and convinced lawmaking proponents of the bill to cease their support.  During the arguments over the bill, opponents quickly drew comparisons to the Internet censoring structures of Iran and China, two countries infamous for their internet regulation surmounting to human rights violations.  The same could be said for PIPA & SOPA, but one main difference is that the American bills at least mask censorship of speech by claiming their only goal is to stop piracy and protect IP rights.  But, there is a conundrum:  there are both human rights in IP protection, and in freedom of speech and expression.

Human Rights Issues Concerning Internet Regulation

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides for rights to freedom of speech and expression, along with intellectual property rights.  In Article 19 the rights to speech and expression are materialized:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression: this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Although the Internet did not exist in 1948, when the Declaration was created, the Internet is still a form of media and a frontier in the context of this article.  The laws of any country which limit the freedom to receive and impart information on ideas through the Internet are surely in violation of this fundamental human right.  Article 27 of the Declaration seems to deal directly with intellectual property.  There are two sections to Article 27:

1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
2.  Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Laws such as SOPA & PIPA have a curious task in balancing these two provisions.  How do you balance the individual’s right to protection of moral and material interests stemming from authoring scientific or artistic creations, if everyone has the right to freely participate in the cultural community and to enjoy and share in the arts and benefits of scientific advancement?  The Internet is a medium in which millions of people are creating art and advancing science every single second, participating in a cultural community (Art. 27-1).   Ironically, it may be necessary to limit the medium in order to protect such creation of the individual (Art. 27-2).  Further, the Internet is a river in which the water of ideas constantly flows, and setting up a dam to protect individual creators (Art. 27-2) will consequently impinge upon the right of others to express and hold opinions and receive information (Art. 19).  Countries like China and Iran are highly criticized because the regulatory infrastructures are far from sympathetic toward the rights found in Art. 19 and Art. 27-1.

China and Iran: Arbitrary and Disproportionate Internet Censorship

Photo credit: slashgear.com

China’s “Great Firewall” is the strongest and largest censorship structure of the Internet currently, with Iran’s filtering software right behind it.  The two countries use firewalls and other software to block online speech which it finds immoral or threatening to their system of fear they worked so hard to use to control their citizens.  China not only stymies unapproved content, but the country targets individuals and restricts them from using the Internet altogether.  In fact, a Chinese citizen can easily be arrested for writing a single email complaining about the government.  Both countries participate in this imprisonment of cyber dissidents, clearly violating the human rights embedded in the sections of the Declaration discussed above.  The governments use internet censorship to stop the infiltration of outside, specifically western, media and politics, and to monitor speech internally.  The two governments use a filtration system which requires all websites to register through the government and gain permission on its content.  Although it is well known that the two countries perpetuate abuse through their regulation of speech, the level of the abuse is hard to discern because of the censorship itself.

China’s and Iran’s main goal in internet censorship is to regulate speech in order to suppress dissidence and ensure control through fear.  The United States Congress’ attempt at censorship is aimed at protecting IP, but the fear is that the bills are too broad and even any amount of censorship would inevitably lead to a system like China’s and Iran’s where the government can pick and choose which speech is made available.

SOPA & PIPA: A Road to Another “Great Firewall?”

The human right to protection in one’s IP is uncontroverted; everyone deserves protection for their individual innovations and contributions to entertainment, the sciences, and more.  SOPA & PIPA have the right intentions, but will likely have the wrong effects.  Such effects will inevitably lead to the squelching of speech not subject to IP protection, but subject to protection as a human right.  Thus, the bills need to balance such squelching with IP protection, the two human rights at issue.  When the bills are analyzed, it is clear that they fail in sufficient IP protection, and go too far in squelching the freedoms of speech and expression.

One main illustration of this imbalance is that although SOPA & PIPA claim to only target foreign sites which infringe on IP, the bills require compliance and liability on third party U.S. sites as well.  Not only will this result in suppressing foreign sites from entering U.S. internet domains out of fear of being subjected to lawsuits for what users or subsidiaries post on their sites, but U.S. sites have a positive duty to monitor content and would be subject to liability (under SOPA at least) if they do not act on infringing content.  This will inevitably lead to startup companies, whether foreign or domestic, and individual users, deciding to not enter the market or post on sites out of fear of violating the act, squelching potential speech.  This is particularly problematic for sites such as Youtube and Facebook, which are engines of free speech and allow for user generated content. The bills are overbroad as sites would be in violation of the bills for “enabling or facilitating” infringement.  How far does the definition of enabling or facilitating go?  Practically, the existence of the Internet itself enables and facilitates infringement.  Youtube and Facebook would have to take positive steps to monitor millions and millions of domestic and foreign users.  They would be subject to the lawsuits and potential criminal sanctions associated with bills if they fail to do so.  This would result in the suppression of both speech and the mediums of speech themselves.  Craigslist, Google, eBay, personal sites of musicians, fan sites of celebrities, and other millions of sites that enable the spread of information, speech and business will inevitably be targeted for infringement claims under the broad nature of the bills.

Also, the mechanism for censorship under the bills is exactly the same mechanism used by the Chinese: DNS blocking.  DNS, or Domain Name System, is the identification protocol for anything connected to the Internet.  The bills will block the particular DNS which supports or facilitates content in violation of IP rights.  This is a wholesale technique which will block other speech under the particular DNS that is not in violation of the bills.  This is concerning because the U.S. has promoted similar legislation in other countries, particularly Russia, which now use the legislation to suppress political dissidents, rather than to protect IP.  Although there is some evidence of China’s and Iran’s use of their anti-piracy laws to censor speech over the Internet, they do not need to use such laws to do so since their censorship laws are so blatant.  But in Russia, the government has used laws similar to PIPA and SOPA to target anti-government dissidents.  Once these bills are passed, the United States runs the risk of allowing the government to abuse, whether discretely or not, their newfound censorship powers.

In conclusion, bills such as PIPA and SOPA are too risky.  The potential for grave and far greater abuse of our Art. 19 and Art. 27-1 rights, rather than protecting violations of our Art. 27-2 rights, justifies the overwhelming protest over the bills.  For now, the bills have been tabled, but not thrown out.  The risk of falling into a censorship system eerily similar to China’s and Iran’s, is not worth the minor potential protection of IP these bills have.  In fact, many critics of the bills believe they are far too focused on enforcement.  The Internet is too dynamic and ever changing to think that DNS blocking and some fear is powerful enough to sufficiently protect IP rights.  Many think that the fix to IP violations over the Internet is to be found in the business realm.  The true path is to focus on user friendly, clean, and intuitive services, such as Netflix and Spotify, that give users incentives to pay for content at a reasonable price.  There seems to be a disparity in how much money proponents of the bills, such as the movie and music industry, want out of their products and what the consumer is willing to pay.  But, from a human rights perspective, the risk seems too great to justify the benefit.

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As Christians in the West have either already enjoyed Christmas festivities on December 25th, or are gearing up to do so on January 7th, Christmas celebrations for Christians in the Middle East, particularly those in the countries of Iraq and Egypt, have been marred by recent waves of deadly sectarian violence, which has targeted some of the world’s oldest Christian groups.

Many of us can remember the Christmas Eve Massacre in Nag Hammadi, Egypt last year, when six young men were gunned down and killed in the street outside of their church as they left Christmas Eve services on January 6, 2010.  Since then, uprising and violence against Coptic Christians in Egypt has escalated, culminating in a bloody New Year’s Eve massacre in Alexandria following a Coptic Orthodox church service where 21 people were murdered and over 100 more injured.  This recent incident, coupled by threats against Christian groups worldwide, has caused churches around the globe to suspend or abbreviate their upcoming Christmas celebrations.

Still, the Copts are not the only Christian group in The Middle East who have fallen victim to repeat, deadly sectarian violence.  This fall, al-Qaeda declared war against Iraq’s Christian population, which has since been riddled with a near constant stream of threats and violence.  These growing threats have caused Iraq’s Christians to leave the country in droves, fearing for their lives.

Between one million and 1.4 million Christians lived in Iraq in 2003.  Since then, over half of Iraq’s Christians have been driven out of the country.  Today, between 400,000 and 600,000 Iraqi Christians remain.  Likewise in Egypt, Coptic Christians, who comprise ten percent of Egypt’s total population, have fallen victim in increased marginalization, discrimination and incidents of violence.  According to The Assyrian International News Agency, “[t]he number of violations against the Copts for the year 2010 are not yet published, but, from January 2008 to January 2010, there were at least 52 incidents of sectarian violence or tension-about two incidents a month-which took place in 17 of Egypt’s 29 governorates.”

In order to illustrate the breadth and scope of violence against the Coptic and Iraqi Christians over the past several months, I created a timeline of incidents of violence and discrimination against Christians in Iraq and Egypt.  Not only is this timeline meant to compile all of the reported incidences of violence against these groups, but also show how these atrocities are beginning to affect Christians around the world.

Timeline of Violence:

October 31, 2010

Baghdad:  Nearly 60 Iraqi Christians are killed and over 100 are injured by bullets and bomb blasts after Our Lady of Salvation Catholic Church is attacked by armed gunmen strapped with bombs.  Al-Qaeda claims responsibility for the massacre and declares that they are waging war upon Christian minorities.  See Bloomberg Report. President Obama calls the attack “barbaric and heinous” while Pope Benedict XVI calls it a “vile gesture.”  See The New York Times

As a result of the bombing, over 10,000 of Iraq’s Christians flee the city in fear and move to the northern Kurdish provinces or abroad. According to the United Nations, 1,000 Christian families left Iraq.  See The Washington Times

November 10, 2010

Baghdad:  Coordinated bomb attacks on Christian homes, including the homes of those Christians who survived the October massacre, kill three Iraqi Christians and injure 26 others.  A group affiliated with al-Qaeda claims responsibility.  The Christian Science Monitor

November 18, 2010:

Washington, D.C.:  United States Congressman Chris Smith (R-N.J.) introduces a resolution on the floor of the House to denounce the Baghdad Christian Massacre and calls on Washington to assist Baghdad in helping find new homes for those Iraqis wishing to flee the sectarian violence.  See The Hill

November 24, 2010:

Cairo:  Two Coptic Christians are killed and 152 arrested as Christian demonstrators protest the Egyptian government’s refusal to allow a community center to be turned into a church in Cairo’s suburb of Omraniya.  (Egyptian law prohibits Christian churches from being built in Egypt without express governmental permission.)  See The Wall Street Journal

December 22, 2010:

Egypt:  Egyptian universities announce that they will hold final exams during the Coptic Orthodox Christmas period despite requests from Egypt’s Coptic Church to postpone the examinations until after Coptic Christmas celebrations.  See Al-Masry Al-Youm, Egypt

December 23, 2010:

Iraq:  A council of Iraqi Christian churches advises followers to cancel public Christmas celebrations for fear of violence amidst threats by al-Qaeda insurgents. Churches in the cities of Baghdad, Kirkuk, Mosul, and Basra, take down Christmas decorations, cancel Christmas Eve Mass, and advise Christian laity to refrain from decorating their homes.  In Kirkuk, an appearance by Santa Clause is cancelled. See The Boston Globe

December 30, 2010

Alexandria:  After a New Year’s Eve service, a bomb explodes in front of Al-Qiddissin “Saints” Coptic Orthodox Church killing 21 worshipers and injuring over 100 others.  According to The Los Angeles Times, “the bomb designed to inflict maximum civilian casualties, bore the hallmark of Al Qaeda militants.”  See Newsweek

Baghdad:  Two Christians are killed and 16 wounded after coordinated bombs are detonated at six separate Christian targets within a one-hour period throughout Baghdad in front of Christian homes.  Among those dead are Fawzi Ibrahim, 80, and his 75-year-old wife, Jeanette, who opened the front door of their home only to find a piece of luggage with a bomb hidden inside. See Los Angeles Times

January 3, 2011

Baghdad:  Christian woman Rafa Toma is shot dead in her bed while asleep in her home.  See AOL News

Europe:  Radical Islamist website affiliated with al-Qaeda posts a “hit list,” which details Coptic Orthodox Christian Churches throughout Europe, including in France, England, The Netherlands, and Germany, that are to be bombed during Julian Christmas Eve services.  Coptic services throughout Europe will be shortened due to security threats.  See CNN

January 4, 2011

Sydney, Australia:  Coptic Orthodox Christian Christmas services due to take place on January 7 are cancelled after threats against Coptic Churches in Australia.  According to Bishop Suriel, Melbourne Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church, “[t]he whole Coptic community all around the world is just in total shock and dismay and never ever expected anything like this to happen in Egypt….The images that are coming out of Alexandria are just unbearable to see… It’s overwhelming for us right now.”  ABC News 24 Australia

Montreal, Canada:  Coptic Orthodox clergy plan to hold Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services under tightened security but cancel all other Christmas-related events.  See The Montreal Gazette

Is the violence against Christians in Iraq and Egypt tantamount to genocide?

Earlier this week, former Lebanese President Amin Gemayel boldly labeled the violence against Iraqi and Coptic Christians as genocide stating that,“[m]assacres are taking place for no reason and without any justification against Christians. It is only because they are Christians.”  While I would not go so far at this point to use the word “genocide” to describe the targeted violence against Christians in Iraq and Egypt, former President Gemayel’s assertion is certainly reasonable given the context and definitely worth at least a short analysis.

Genocide is a very specific and complex term, referring to “an extreme and inhumane form of persecution.”  (See Prosecutor v. Zoran Kupreskic et al.) The United Nations defines genocide as, “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:  killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”  (Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2)  However, the legal significance of the term goes even deeper than the UN’s definition, as to be found guilty of genocide, the persecutor’s general and specific intent must be carefully scrutinized. For example, the term, “intent to destroy” means that the perpetrator of genocide must recognize that his actions target a protected group and also, that his intent must be to destroy more than he alone is physically able to do, thus placing the killing into a genocidal context. (See ‘What does ‘intent to destroy’ in genocide mean?‘ Kai Ambos, International Review of the Red Cross, Volume 91 Number 876 December 2009)

Due to the complexity of the term coupled with our inability, at present, to fully know or understand the mindset of the perpetrators involved, it appears premature to determine whether or not these obviously sectarian acts of violence against Iraqi and Coptic Christians are tantamount to genocide.   That said, one thing does appear certain to me:  If this targeted violence against Christians in The Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Egypt, continues to escalate and if the numbers of Christians living in these regions continues to decrease as a result, it would point strongly to the beginnings of a possible, future genocidal campaign.

That said, The Human Rights Blog strongly and vociferously condemns the growing, recent attacks against Coptic and Iraqi Christians and sends deep condolences to those who lost loved ones as a result of the violence.

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On Wednesday, October 27, 2010, prolific human rights attorney, Asma Jahangir, became the first female President of Pakistan’s highest organization for lawyers, The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA).  Ms. Jahangir narrowly beat Ahmed Owais by a margin of 38 votes.

Throughout the elections, Ms. Jahangir was touted as the voice of the people.  Many hope that her longstanding commitment to the advancement of human rights, rule of law, and religious freedoms will, in time, help free the Islamic Republic of Pakistan from its notoriously stringent adherence to Sharia law, which replaced Pakistan’s predominately Anglo-Saxon laws during President General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq’s process of Islamization in the 1970’s. Ms. Jahangir will also help make the courts more accessible for the common people, and bring fair and equal representation to individuals accused of crimes under Pakistan’s brutal Blasphemy Laws.

Earlier this week, Ms. Jahangir promised that, if elected, she would continue to promote equal rights for all Pakistani citizens, regardless of gender, religion or political affiliation, and that her mission as President of the SCBA will be to “serve mankind with dignity” and work towards her lifelong dream of achieving a rule of law and true democracy in Pakistan.

Ms. Jahangir’s international legal career is far-reaching and her achievements in the areas of human rights, religious freedom, and women’s rights in Pakistan are unmatched. For over thirty years, she has been a critical and outspoken opponent of two of Pakistan’s most controversial and oppressive sets of laws, specifically the former Hudood Ordinances that governed rape, adultery and other sex-related cases, as well as the Blasphemy Laws, a subsection of Pakistan’s Criminal Code, which provide strict punishments and even death for individuals accused of blasphemy against Islam, a practice that is still in effect today and is widely abused by those seeking to punish religious minorities or settle personal vendettas.

The election of Ms. Jahangir is particularly important to the people of Pakistan, especially in light of the country’s recent history of brutal treatment towards its women. In the 1980’s while Pakistan was still ruled by martial law under military President Zia-ul-Haq, Ms. Jahangir and her sister, fellow human rights attorney Hina Jilani, established the first women-owned law firm in Pakistan, which provided legal aid to women.  The two then created the highly influential Women’s Action Forum (WAF), a Pakistani women’s rights lobbying organization, which aimed to combat the systematic subordination of women in Pakistan via Zia-ul-Haq ‘s implementation of the Hudood Ordinances, purdah (the practice of physically segregating women from men and withdrawing them from society) and the Qanun-e-Shahadat or “law of testimony,” which gives a woman’s testimony only half the weight of a man’s testimony and completely excludes a woman’s testimony in Hudood cases. As a result of the lobbying and advocacy efforts of the WAF, Pakistan enacted the Women’s Protection Bill in 2006, which partially amended the Hudood Ordinance.  Ms. Jahangir and Ms. Jilani also founded the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent organization that urges Pakistan to ratify and implement the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights and all related Covenants, Charters and provisions.

Over the years, Ms. Jahangir personally suffered persecution, intimidation, death threats, house arrest, and public abuse for continuing to fight for the rights of both Pakistani women who are charged with crimes of zina (adultery) and religious minorities in Pakistan, mostly Christians, who are often falsely accused of blasphemy or forced to convert to Islam. In the late 1990’s Ms. Jahangir received countless death threats and was attacked numerous times after she took prominent human rights cases; for example, the cases of 14-year old Salamat Masih, a Christian boy who was falsely accused of blasphemy and faced execution as well as Saima Sarwar, a 29-year old woman who was ultimately murdered in an “honor killing” by a gunman that her father, a businessman and mother, a gynecologist, hired after Sarwar sought a divorce from her abusive husband.

In addition to her new role as President of the SCBA, Ms. Jahangir has held the position of UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief since 2004.

The Human Rights Blog congratulates Ms. Jahangir on her well-deserved victory and hopes that she can continue her work towards the advancement of Pakistan’s women and religious minorities and the promotion of fair judges to the Pakistani judiciary!

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On June 1, 2010, seventh grade student Raymond Hosier filed a complaint with the US District Court, Northern District of New York for declaratory and injunctive relief against  Schenectady City School District for violation of his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights after he was suspended from school for wearing rosary beads.  

The complaint alleges that the language used in the school’s dress code policy is “impermissibly vague and unconstitutional on its face.”  School officials point to evidence which suggests colored rosary beads can be indicative of gang activity, and that their school dress code policy prohibits students from wearing any articles of clothing that are gang-related.  The text of Oneida Junior High’s student dress codes states: 

All students are expected to give proper attention to personal cleanliness and to dress appropriately for school and school functions. Students and their parents have the primary responsibility for acceptable student dress and appearance. All district personnel should exemplify and reinforce acceptable student dress and help students develop an understanding of appropriate appearance in the school setting. A student’s dress, grooming and appearance, including hair, jewelry, make-up and nails, shall…[n]ot denote, represent or be deemed to be gang related, included but not limited to bandanas, colors, flags or beads. 

Hosier has worn the rosary beads in school since the beginning of the academic year.  He said that he wears the beads to honor the memory of his little brother who was killed in a 2005 auto accident.  Hosier explained that while his brother was in intensive care, Hosier held the beads in prayer over his brother’s body.  As Hosier’s mother further explained, “”[Raymond’s] uncle died within the past month from brain cancer. His uncle prayed the rosary during his life and taught [Raymond] about the rosary.” (Courthouse News Service)

This is not the first instance where students have been suspended from school for wearing rosary beads.  In May 2008, then-16 year old Marc Castro and then-14 year old Jaime Salazar were suspended from Albany High School for refusing to remove their rosary beads.  At the time, Salazar indicated that Principal Chris Equinoa, “told me it was a rosary, and it was gang-related”…”I told him ‘No, it’s a rosary. It’s a necklace and it’s Catholic.’”

Case precedence

It seems to me that Raymond Hosier has a strong case against Schenectady City School District, as existing case law is directly on point with this case.

The first constitutional challenge to a school dress code policy prohibiting rosary beads came in 1997 when high school freshmen David Chalifoux and Jerry Robertson were suspended from their high school in New Caney, Texas for refusing to remove their rosaries, which they wore in preparation for their confirmation.  In their complaint, the boys sought injunctive relief and damages, alleging that New Caney Independent School District violated their First Amendment rights to free speech and religious expression, and that the language used in the school’s prohibition on “gang-related apparel” was void, on its face, for vagueness. 

In its opinion, US District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, cited Spence v. Washington, which established that “symbolic speech is protectible under the First Amendment if the person displaying the symbol intends to convey a particularized message and there is a ‘great likelihood’’ that the message will be understood by those observing it.” The court went on to rule that, “the symbolic speech at issue in this case is a form of religious expression protected under the First Amendment” because of the great likelihood those observing the rosaries worn by the boys would understand it to be a symbol of Catholicism, and even those unfamiliar with the rosary are “undoubtedly they are familiar with the crucifix attached to the center of the rosary, which is recognized universally as a symbol of Christianity.”

The court went on to note that the Defendants had to show that the boys’ religious speech, i.e. wearing the rosary beads, caused a “substantial disruption of material interference with school activities.” The court found that the school’s activities were not disrupted, explaining that, 1.) the boys were not members of a gang or involved in any criminal activity, 2.) the display of their rosaries did not cause any disruptions or altercations at New Caney High School and 3.) the boys were never approached by gang members because of the rosary beads.

As for the language of the school’s dress code policy, the court found that while the school’s disciplinary rules “need not be as detailed as a criminal code,” the dress code must still contain some degree of specificity.  The court ruled that New Caney’s dress code language “lack[ed] a sufficient definition for ‘gang-related apparel” and was thus, void for vagueness.

Finally, the court ruled that the ban on rosary beads was a violation of the boys’ First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.  The court explained, “[the] Plaintiffs’ decision to wear the rosary as a means of emphasizing their Catholic faith should not be viewed, from a legal perspective, as nonreligious or abnormal,” that the Plaintiffs were sincere in their religious beliefs, and they did not seek to identify themselves with a gang.

Raymond’s case – latest developments

Yesterday, a federal judge ordered that Hosier –and his rosary beads– be reinstated in Oneida Middle School immediately.

Raymond Hosier is represented by The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a long-time defender of Christian religious speech and freedom.  “The ACLJ is specifically dedicated to the ideal that religious freedom and freedom of speech are inalienable, God-given rights.” The ACLJ, based in Washington, DC, was founded by Christian evangelical Pat Roberts in 1990, and has since represented Christian defendants in a variety of cases before the Supreme Court.

Hosier’s next hearing is scheduled for June 11.

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I was pleased to see that I was recently quoted in an article written by Steve Crowe of The Hellenic Voice regarding the human rights work of His Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and Dr. Maria Khoury, First Lady of Taybeh, Palestine. While you need a subscription to view the article on The Hellenic Voice’s website, the article has been reprinted on the website of The Order of St. Andrew the Apostle, Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Here is what they write about The Hellenic Voice:

The article with my quotes can be read in its entirety below:

‘Patriarch, activist named ‘human rights champions’

By Steve Crowe, The Hellenic Voice

Monday, 18 February 2010

The Ecumenical Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church and a Greek-born, American-educated activist in the Palestinian territories were named “Human Rights Champions of 2009″ by the D.C. Human Rights Examiner, part of the national Examiner.com network.

His All Holiness Bartholomew I of Constantinople was commended for his “commitment to the environment and our global community” and for his courage to speak out about “human rights abuses and religious intolerance in his native land of Turkey.”

Dr. Maria Khoury, wife of the mayor of the West Bank village of Taybeh (ancient Ephraim) and a children’s book author, was praised for speaking out on behalf of Palestinian Christians who face persecution by Muslims and restrictions on their freedom of movement by Israel.

The author, lawyer Justina Uram, honored four “Human Rights Champions of 2009″ in all. The other two are US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Mexican human rights activist Esther Chavez, who died on Christmas Day.

Examiner.com is a network of websites in 240 markets in the United States and Canada. Writers, called Examiners, submit blogs on various topics. Uram is the Washington, D.C. Examiner who writes about human rights issues.

In an email interview with The Hellenic Voice, Uram said she selected her Human Rights Champions from a list of people she had met, written about or researched for her blog in the past year.

“These two human rights champions spoke to me because of their unwavering dedication to human rights amidst dealing with their own, personal human rights plights,” Uram said. “I felt as though 2009 was an especially important year for both of them.”

She noted that Patriarch Bartholomew was “quite visible” in 2009, from his visit to Washington, D.C. last fall to his participation and interest in the Copenhagen Summit, to his highly publicized interview on “60 Minutes.” One of her readers (Chris Kotsakis) informed her about Dr. Khoury and her work.

“After researching her, I became drawn to her story as well as her courage in the face of the many dangers and discrimination that Palestine’s Christians face on a daily basis from ‘both sides’ — Israeli and Palestinian Muslim.”

“Dr. Khoury stands as a symbol of strength, faith and optimism for both persecuted Christians who live in the Arab world and persecuted Palestinians who live in a nation severed by the West Bank barrier.”

Uram said “both of these individuals could choose to escape, or run away from, their personal persecutions. Instead, they stay firm in their convictions and human rights work, choosing to fight and struggle.”

She said His All Holiness could easily relocate to Greece or elsewhere, “but he continues to stay in Turkey, despite threats to his life and ability to worship freely.” And Dr. Khoury, who is not a Palestinian, could move back to the United States or return to Greece, “but she continues to strive for the fair treatment of Palestinian Christians and the well-being of the residents of Taybeh, while facing many dangers as an Orthodox Christian in Palestine’s last remaining Christian city.”

“Finally, and on a personal level,” Uram said she felt drawn to them because they were “two remarkably kind, unselfish and humble individuals who are unwavering in their dedication to protecting their fellow man. Their human rights work coupled with their personal stories and struggles, to me, could not be ignored this year.”

Here is what Uram wrote about Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Khoury:

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople

His All Holiness Bartholomew, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, is best known for his role as spiritual leader of the world’s most ancient Christian religion, Eastern Orthodoxy. But Patriarch Bartholomew also goes by another title, as he has been affectionately dubbed, “The Green Patriarch” for his unwavering commitment to environmentalism.

This past fall, Patriarch Bartholomew was welcomed to the White House for a substantive discussion of environmental and human rights issues with President Barack Obama. As a result of this meeting, the president confirmed the United States’ pledge to confronting global climate change and expressed his admiration for Patriarch Bartholomew’s long-standing commitment environmentalism. During that same visit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hosted His All Holiness at the State Department, calling him “a living embodiment of the positive role that faith can play in healing and humanizing our world.”

Despite Patriarch Bartholomew’s commitment to the environment and our global community, His All Holiness himself has fallen prey to human rights abuses and religious intolerance in his native land of Turkey. The Green Patriarch was featured on CBS’ “60 Minutes” [December 20] to talk about these struggles.

Dr. Maria Khoury, of Taybeh, Palestine

For her tireless efforts in the protection of oppressed Palestinian Christians, author and activist Dr. Maria Khoury makes 2009′s list of notable human rights champions. Born in Greece and raised and educated in the United States, Dr. Khoury moved to Palestine with her husband, David Khoury, mayor of Taybeh, shortly after the Oslo Peace Accords of 1993.

Taybeh, which is completely surrounded by the Israeli West Bank barrier wall, is Palestine’s last Christian city. As a result of the West Bank barrier wall’s confinement compounded by Israel’s occupation over Palestine, most of Taybeh’s residents have emigrated to escape. Over 50 percent of Taybeh’s remaining residents are unemployed and all face restricted freedoms of movement and religious worship.

Through her role as First Lady of Taybeh, Dr. Khoury has been instrumental in creating projects to sustain Taybeh’s infrastructure, essentially saving the small city. From establishing Taybeh’s Educational Fund to promoting the One Dollar Campaign for Holy Land Housing to writing children’s books about the Holy Land, Dr. Khoury remains an active figure and powerful voice for Palestine’s Christians.

Justina Marie Uram is a lawyer, writer and human rights commentator. She holds a JD from Pennsylvania State University and a BA in policy studies from Syracuse University. She has studied at the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights and the University of Vienna School of Law. She writes The Human Rights Blog for Examiner.com.

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