Israel Images Diarie by Suchitra Vijayan

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By the PLR member Suchitra Vijayan

ICOR - Instituto do Coração em Maputo realiza cirurgia nº 500

O ICOR realizou neste mês de Julho a cirurgia nº 500. Marcia Langa, de 13 anos foi operada a “triatrial heart” pelo cirurgião René Prêtre do Hospital Pediátrico de Zurique. Esta cirurgia faz parte da missão humanitária da Suiça presente este mês em Maputo, capital de Moçambique.

Anualmente o ICOR recebe várias missões humanitárias no âmbito da sua política de tratamento gratuito aos moçambicanos mais indigentes.

Nestas missões 90% dos doentes operados são crianças tendo como principais doenças as valvulopatias reumáticas, fibroses endomiocárdicas e cardiopatias congénitas. A taxa de mortalidade ronda os 4%. O ICOR tem uma média de 70 a 80 pacientes operados anualmente tendo como meta atingir pelo menos 100.

O ICOR é uma associação humanitária sem fins lucrativos de utilidade pública criada em 2001, em Maputo.

A sua fundação resultou da colaboração de várias ONG’s europeias: La chaîne de l’espoir (França), Cadeia da esperança (Portugal), Chain of hope (Reino Unido), Coeur pour tous (Suiça) e da sua congénere moçambicana Amigos do coração.

Estas ONG’s europeias têm assegurado um imprescindível e dedicado apoio que vai desde a oferta de trabalho, à formação e ao fornecimento de equipamentos.

O ICOR actua na área da cardiologia clínica, cardiologia de intervenção, cirurgia cardíaca e ensino. Na área de investigação tem o suporte do Instituto Magdi Yacoub e já publicou artigos em revistas internacionais, nomeadamente o “New England Journal of Medicine”.

O ICOR não tem qualquer apoio do Estado moçambicano sendo os seus principais recursos oriundos de organizações humanitárias.

____________________________________________________________________

A Cooperação francesa tem tido um papel preponderante na concessão de bolsas de estudo, na formação da equipa médica moçambicana e no financiamento de equipamentos.

Desde a sua criação, doações várias, pontuais ou de forma sustentada, têm sido feitas por empresas moçambicanas.

Para garantir uma maior auto-sustentabilidade o ICOR alargou-se a outras áreas da medicina através de consultas externas e actividades de diagnóstico.

Com 6 anos de actividade este Instituto conta com instalações modernas e tecnologia de ponta na área da saúde e com uma qualidade de recursos técnicos e científicos ao nível de muitos países desenvolvidos. Segundo a Dra Beatriz Ferreira, directora do ICOR, pode mesmo considerar-se um dos melhores equipados do género em toda a África Austral com excepção da vizinha África do Sul.

Texto e fotografias por Helena Nunes - Membro do PLR

The last five weeks in Irak

My trip began with a return to Baghdad ER. Iraq's busiest trauma hospital for combat injuries, it sees its share of the ravages of war.



Moving on to Sadr City, I spent two weeks documenting the wall which now separates between two and four million residents from the rest of the world.



Continuing my documentation of Sadr City, I photographed life in the Jamilla Market. Having sustained severe damage during the weeks of intense fighting, many shops were closed and lines for the few remaining shops were packed tight.



I arrived in Anbar Province a week ago and on my second day was eyewitness to an Al Qaeda suicide bombing and assassination which left over fifty people dead or severely injured.



Not everything has been this intense, I have also had my share of pure boredom and have taken to photographing the graffiti that soldiers write on the walls of the latrines.


Text and Photographies by a War Photographer, Zoriah

www.zoriah.com

Urgent Action

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

PUBLIC AI Index: MDE 12/011/2008
12 June 2008

UA 165/08 Forcible return/Fear of torture or other ill-treatment

EGYPT Up to 1,400 asylum seekers from Eritrea

The Egyptian authorities forcibly returned a group of around 200
asylum-seekers to Eritrea in the night of 11 June, and are preparing
to forcibly return a further 1,400. In Eritrea they will be at risk of
torture and other ill-treatment. The office of the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Egypt has not been granted access
to any of the Eritreans to assess their asylum claims, despite
repeated requests. The authorities appear to have scheduled a number
of special flights to Eritrea.

A group of 169 Eritrean asylum-seekers could be returned as early as
the evening of 12 June: they were moved from Nasr al Nuba police
station near Aswan city, where they had been detained, to Central
Security Forces camp in Shallal, south of Aswan. Hundreds of Eritrean
asylum-seekers are detained in several police stations near Aswan
city. Dozens of others are detained in Al-Qanater prison near the
capital, Cairo. Around 700 are detained near the Red Sea cities of
Hurghada and Marsa Alam. Lawyers representing the asylum-seekers held
in Aswan believe that 200 of those held in Hurghada are being
transported to Aswan, in preparation for forcible return.


The 200 asylum-seekers deported on 11 June had been detained in a
Central security forces camp in Shallal in Aswan city. They were told
they would be transported to the UNHCR office in Cairo. Their lawyers
tried to reach them the same evening to offer medication and food but
could not get to them. The Eritreans were then taken to Aswan
International airport and put on a special EgyptAir flight to Eritrea.

Most asylum-seekers returned to Eritrea are likely to be arbitrarily
detained incommunicado in inhumane conditions from weeks to years.
They will be at serious risk of torture or other ill-treatment,
particularly those who have fled from compulsory military service.


Since the end of February, flows of Eritrean asylum-seekers have
reached Egypt either via its southern border with Sudan or by sea,
south of the city of Hurghada. Others are recognized as refugees by
the UNHCR in Sudan, and are fleeing Sudan to avoid being forcibly
returned to Eritrea by the Sudanese authorities.

Hundreds of the Eritrean asylum-seekers in Aswan were charged with
illegal entry in Egypt and were sentenced to a suspended one-month
prison term. They were however kept in administrative detention by
orders of the Ministry of Interior, as granted under the Emergency law
in Egypt.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) issued
guidelines to all governments opposing return to Eritrea of rejected
Eritrean asylum seekers on the grounds of the record of serious human
rights violations in Eritrea. These guidelines are still in force.

Refugees and asylum-seekers returned to Eritrea have been detained
incommunicado, and tortured. Two asylum-seekers returned to Eritrea by
the German authorities on 14 May are believed to have been arrested on
arrival, and have not been seen since. Another asylum-seeker returned
from the UK in November 2007 was detained in inhumane conditions and
ill-treated before being released.

Thousands of people are detained incommunicado in Eritrea, in secret
and indefinitely, without charge or trial. They have been arrested for
suspected opposition to the government, practicing their religious
beliefs as members of banned evangelical or other churches, evading
military conscription or trying to flee the country.

Military service is compulsory for all men and women aged 18 to 40.
There is no limit on length of service. There is no exemption for
conscientious objectors, and no alternative non-military service. The
usual punishment for evading military service is detention and
torture: this can include having hands and feet tied behind the back
in a painful position known as "the helicopter".


RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as
possible, in Arabic or your own language:
- calling on the Egyptian authorities to immediately stop all forcible
returns of asylum-seekers to Eritrea;
- urging them to respect Egypt's international obligations under the
1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the UN
Convention Against Torture not to forcibly return asylum-seekers to
Eritrea where they would be at risk of torture and other serious human
rights abuses ;
- asking them to ensure that all Eritrean asylum-seekers are given
immediate access to Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in
Egypt to assess their asylum claims.


APPEALS TO:
Minster of Interior
Minister Habib Ibrahim El Adly
Ministry of the Interior
25 Al-Sheikh Rihan Street
Bab al-Louk, Cairo, Egypt
Fax: +20 2 279 0682
Email: moi@idsc.gov.eg
Salutation: Dear Minister


COPIES TO:
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Minister Ahmed Ali Aboul Gheit
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Corniche al-Nil, Maspiro
Cairo, Egypt
Fax: +20 22 574 8822
+20 22 390 8159
+20 22 574 9533
E-mail: minexter@idsc1.gov.eg
Salutation: Dear Minister

National Council for Human Rights
Ambassador Mokhless Kotb
Secretary General
National Council for Human Rights
1113 Corniche El Nil
Midane Al Tahrir
Specialized National Councils Building - 11th floor
NDP Building, Cairo, Egypt
Fax: +202 2574 7497
Email: nchr@nchr.org.eg

and to diplomatic representatives of Egypt accredited to your country.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY. Check with the International
Secretariat, or your section office, if sending appeals after 24 July
2008.



--
Suchitra Vijayan , Barrister-at-Law ( PLR member and correspondent )

www.linesofgrey.org

www.suchitravijayan.com

Tanzanite Mining town of Merarani _ Tanzania

Tanzanite is named after the East African state of Tanzania,the only place in the world where it has been found is in the miningtown in Mererani hills of Simanjiro, in Northern Tanzania. Tanzaniteis soon becoming Africa's new bloodstained gem. Poor workingconditions, wide spread exploitation of miners, lack of cleanenvironment, no worker identifications cards, no labour contracts,poor mining gear, chronic poverty makes this yet another African storyretold.

In 2001 small scale mining was suspended following the accident thatclaimed 39 lives. The then Deputy Mnister of Energy and Minerals, Dr.Ibrahim Msabaha promised implementation of a stricter regime to governthe working conditions of the miners. Six years after this promise,conditions have worsened for the miners. The miners still don't havean organized Labour union to fight for or protect their collectiverights.

While trying to enter the Opec mining complex in Merarani, I asdiligently stopped by the guards who said I needed to pay 50 dollar toenter the premises. After much bargaining I was stopped from enteringthe mining enclosure. However on the way back I meet a few of theminers and spoke to them in length about their mining conditions. Somemore miners joined, the informal interview became an intense heartfelt conversation that lasted over an hour.

These images were shot over the course of the conversation

Photo Story by Suchitra Vijayan Member and correspondent of PLR

Bolhão - a true cause

A small story in a big city that makes the city smaller and the story bigger. Bolhão is the name of a fresh produce market built almost one hundred years ago in the center of Oporto, the main city of Northern Portugal.

Recently, it has been involved in great controversy, as the City Authority opened tenders for the building’s rehabilitation and the winning project granted the rights over the building and the market stalls to a private company for a period of fifty years. Furthermore, this company intended to build there apartments and a shopping center. So Bolhão Market became another episode in a long war between traditional commerce and huge shopping centers, which is a lost war for those who don’t have the means and the strength to fight the “big money”.

The decision adopted by Oporto city authorities met fierce opposition and generated a huge protest from Oporto citizens, and from elsewhere throughout the country, who took the initiative to create a document that gathered 50,000 signatures – http://www.petitiononline.com/ptratt/petition.html – against this proposed deal, thus trying to avoid the destruction of one of the city’s symbols.

The fight of the citizens and the market sellers for the market’s rehabilitation is not only aimed at job keeping but also at preserving the symbols and history of a city that should live for its own inhabitants and not for building speculation.

In a society where the fights for true causes are rare, it’s important to support this citizens’ movement, bearing in mind the social, cultural and historical values that underlie this fight.

http://manifestobolhao.blogspot.com/

Text and photos by Manuela Moreira (PLR member)

This gun's for hire

August 2001, I land at the JFK airport for a few days in NYC. After ten hours of flight, my body just needed to renew its nicotine levels. One month before the 9/11 and there I was at the big apple.

From the airport, by bus, I went to the Rockefeller Center and the avenues of Manhattan. I just walked through there and I entered the NY Institute of Photography to see for the first time an exhibition by Sebastião Salgado.

All the life stories in those photographies, and I got emotioned as I looked at our world so perfectly captured in his work. One of the photos, showing an African woman running away with an expression of fear, almost naked and having a crucifix hanging from her neck, kept my attention. I commented to someone next to me: “How can she beleive in God when she is living in hell?” Faith, faith was the answer I got. Looking to Africa and so many places in this world, with this exhibition in front of me, I had to ask myself if we really have to have faith or do something for real.

This takes me to the recent ONG scandal, and once again the word faith came to my mind as a question about whom can we believe.

A few days after my arrival and many jazz clubs visited, I went to an underground club where a group of Armenians were going to play french music from the 60s. Brassan, Brel, Leo Ferré and many others from May 1968.

40 years after this revolution that changed the world, the French Prime Minister said that this is a date to forget, to wipe out from our minds, and once again my mind travels to that word – faith –, the need to beleive that sentences like these won't be repeated.

From Bronx to Brooklyn and to Harlem, travelling by subway to everywhere, I could see that all is written in English and Spanish, that NYC is like the society of nations living in “small towns”, and every time I see the news about the North American Army in foreign countries and the flags at the American homes, I see that many of those who died for a permit are Hispanic and Afro-American boys; like in Bruce Springsteen’s “This gun's for hire”, they wanted to reach the American dream.

One month later I left NYC, the Twin Towers were attacked and, I confess, I was emotioned with the terrible situation. A western symbol was destroyed at the main city of the empire and thousands of lives lost. The Bush dinasty drawn the evil line immediately on the maps and, in order to destroy the enemies, they invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush dinasty is now moving out from the White House and I may question myself about what they left to the world unless that word of faith – faith that fear, corruption, poverty, hunger among people will be our main concern instead of drawing evil lines on maps.

Text and Photos by Alfredo Muñoz de Oliveira

Voters decide if Russia or EU will be the future of Serbia

Today’s election in Serbia will set the standard for the course of action in the next years and decide what the former center of Yugoslavia will do with its future.

Today, May 11th, we are facing yet another destiny election in Serbia. Since the fall of Slobodan Milošević, eight years ago, the vulnerable democracy of Serbia has been threatened by extreme nationalists.

But after each election until now democratic and western oriented coalitions have managed to get into power. However, after Kosovo declared independence, some months ago, the nationalists are again in a position to reach power. Many are predicting that the radical Tomislav Nikolić and the conservative prime minister, Vojislav Koštunica, will form a coalition after the election that will close the doors to Europe and instead open the gates to Russia.

Even if all polls show that the Serbian people are positive about joining EU there is a lot more to be added to the complex political situation. Kosovo became the perfect symbol of the Serbian disappointment and the Serbians’ feeling of always being the victims. After spending a few days last week in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, I soon found out that this election generates a lot more attention than the previous one.
In Belgrade most people are against the nationalist extremists but elsewhere in Serbia Nikolić and his men enjoy a lot of support. If the nationalists win Sunday’s election, many are afraid that there will be mass arrests of EU friendly politicians. Also will a nationalistic victory put trade and co-operations with other nations the Russia way back. A foreign correspondent I talked to put it this way: “If the nationalists win this election, I will pack my things and leave. It will be almost impossible to do a proper job under their regulations, and I fear that Serbia will be thrown again into a conflict that can easily turn bloody.”

Text and Photos by Torgrim Havlari (PLR member & correspondent)

Lebanon: towards a brain drained future

My first visit to Lebanon, almost 25 years ago as a young UN soldier, totally changed my life. Born in Norway, where most people at that time considered all other Middle-Easterners than the Israelis as low life criminals, I carried a lot of prejudice against the locals. That changed in a day or two.
Never have I met such friendly and nice people as the Lebanese. No matter religion, income, or social status, the Lebanese people are the kindest people I have ever met. That's why it's so sad, after all these years, to hear the same words about the future and find out that nothing has changed. Regular people are still taken as hostages by the neighbouring nations and local political tycoons in need for power.
Downtown Beirut is almost empty. Spring is at its peak and the weather is lovely. The last time I was here the streets were filled with locals and tourists enjoying food, drinks and the stunning Middle East atmosphere. That was in the middle of winter, five years ago, when people, after enjoying peace for some years, had built up a certain hope for the future. I have my breakfast as the only customer at a street restaurant where the owner complains about the hopeless situation in his beloved Lebanon.
Some blocks further down towards the sea promenade, I find over 500 toilets nicely placed in perfect rows on an open space. This is the work of Nada Louisiana, a 48-year-old Lebanese artist based in Beirut “whose work, paintings, and installations,” her Web site notes, “deal with issues of war, personal memory, public amnesia, the writing of history, and the construction of identity.”
Several years ago she told Le Monde, the French daily, that her entire life has been marked by the Lebanese civil war, which ended in 1991. “The ritual, during Lebanon's war, involved hiding in the toilet quite a bit when bombings and gun battles got to be a bit much. [...] These days the Lebanese aren't hiding in that literal toilet, quite. But they're still hiding – from compromise, from themselves, from fear that another 1975 is around the bend”, Sehnaoui told the middleeast.about.com some weeks ago.
Beirut is filled with contrasts. Never have I seen so many young girls driving such expensive cars. Some of the richest people in the world are from Lebanon, but there are also a lot of people who are not that lucky. Alongside newly built luxury hotels you will find bombed out buildings, monuments over too many years of painful conflicts. On July 12th 2006 Israel attacked Lebanon once again, and the suffering part was, once again, ordinary women and men, young and old. Lebanon has been in constitutional crisis since last November, when its last president stepped down. Its sophomoric parliament has been unable to pick a successor.
Almost down at the seaside I stop at the newly erected monument of Rafik Hariri, the Lebanese Prime Minister who was assassinated on February 14th 2005, when explosives equivalent to around 1000 kg of TNT were detonated as he drove past the St. George Hotel. The well-guarded monument is positioned in the front of HSBC main office and a bombed out building still not rebuilt after the civil war. This clearly symbolizes the powers regular Lebanese are fighting against.
Money, Politics and War. Inside Hard Rock Café I meet Wedian Al-Ayache, whose job is to sell T-shirts to customers. Her income is around 500$, a small salary in a city where prices are rising all the time. Her boyfriend, an art designer, is about to leave for Qatar, where the income is up to four times better. “We have a lot of good schools and high educated young people in Lebanon, but when hundreds of them are leaving the country, what is it good for? This place is full of selfish middle-aged men who do whatever they can to get into power. As long as these people are thinking only about themselves, there will be no peace in Lebanon”, Wedian explains.During my week in Lebanon I find no one who lives more than a day at a time. And many tell me that Lebanon will soon have another war. Along the shore side a couple of men try out their fishing equipment while a third one is prying. Soon it’s night in what used to be the pearl of the Middle East.

Text and Photos by Torgrim Halvari (PLR member & correspondent)

Cova da Moura, a twenty-year-old fight

Cova da Moura is an illegal construction quarter, created in the late 70s in Lisbon’s Metropolitan Area. Half of the inhabitants are less than 20 years old. The great majority is of African origin: 75% are Cape Verdean, but there are also Guinean, Angolan and Portuguese. Most of the male active population works in the civil construction (44,5%). Women are mainly employed as domestic and cleaning workers, as restaurant cooks and waitresses and as fish and fruit sellers.
The houses of the quarter were constructed by the people who live in there. It is a place where a “proper way of life” is becoming stronger and fighting the poverty, crime and exclusion that have been long-time and closely associated to the neighbourhood.
Part of the existing equipment for leisure, educational and cultural purposes was created and developed in the quarter by its own inhabitants. An example of this is the Cultural Association "Moinho da Juventude" (http://redeciencia.educ.fc.ul.pt/moinho), a community project that develops social, cultural and economic activities. They fight for the quarter’s requalification, under a principle that respects the present reality of occupation of the space and includes the biggest number of existing buildings. They do not accept the destruction of the built patrimony nor its community life and traditions, of such great cultural and social value.
This fight has a face and a name, Lieve, but there is also a great group of anonimous people who co-operate and help.
They finally got the promise of the requalification program, but now the fight has another form: to prevent the authorities from destroying the small surviving businesses and the African Culture, and thus avoiding becoming just another ghetto with new and clean walls.

Photos and text by Alfredo Muñoz de Oliveira and Cristina Vasconcelos