human rights

Free fall: a Russian drug addict crashes – again!

 

    Irina Teplinskaya: "I addressed the UN to force Russia to introduce a substitution therapy for treatment of drug addicts"

    Last week Irina Teplinskaya, drug user from Kaliningrad (Russia), made a complaint against Russia to Mr. Anand Grover – UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. She complied that Russia doesn’t provide proper treatment to drug users. Below you can read Irina’s life story.  

      Talking about human rights violations in the name of drug control – IDPC/Talking Drugs Magazine, 1

      Drug policy is too often abstract. Government policy makers and Vienna-based diplomats spend much of their time debating drug law ideology, while forgetting the realities of people badly hurt by the laws and policies they create. That's why IDPC, in collaboration with Talking Drugs, initiated a series of magazines which feature personal stories behind the policy debates to give a flavour of how policies affect the real, lived experiences of people on the ground.

        Heavy policing in Oslo

        Once again Oslo’s city council has stepped up the battle against the city’s open drug scene.

          Human and drug trafficking

          Last week the US State Department released the most exhaustive report on human trafficking ever published. Representing a year of thorough research, The Trafficking in Persons Report 2011 – now in its eleventh year - analyzes the extent of human trafficking across the world, placing every country into one of three tiers according to their effectiveness in tackling the problem. Human trafficking is a lucrative hidden industry carrying an estimated annual revenue of $32 billion – more than Wall Street took in the last quarter.

            To lose or to gain: human rights of people using drugs in Russia

            Good afternoon! My cordial greetings to everyone who came here today. I am very much honoured to speak at the final session of this Conference, and I am actually very nervous about it. Unlike most of you, I am very new to the activists community, I have become an activist just recently, and this is my first real experience at the International conference. And I not only feel highly privileged but also deeply responsible to speak up on behalf of all Russian drug users.

              The prison industrial complex

              The anti-prison movement is a clear example of anti-globalisation demonstration. The forsaking of Fordist-Keynesian social compact since the seventies and the crumbling of the black ghetto as an instrument of case control inspired the United States government to replace the welfare regulation of poverty and of the urban disorder spawned by mounting insecurity and racial strife by its penal management via the police, courts and correctional system.

                Suspected drug traffickers executed

                Continuing reports to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran have indicated widespread secret group executions of hundreds of inmates in Vakilabad prison in Mashad, mostly charged with drug trafficking. It is reported that thirteen inmates were executed on 5 October and ten on 12 October in “Execution Hallway”, located near the visitation room, where they were executed one after the other. The executions were carried out contrary to Islamic law and without any prior notice for the families involved or any the victim’s lawyers being informed.

                  Saint Prisoner Reforming Delinquents

                  Submitted by Simha Bode on Sat, 27/03/2010 - 10:55

                  This is a translation of a very touching letter Laura wrote. Laura moved to Mexico to care for Lalo when he was in the jail in Coatzacoalcos. Now that Lalo has been transferred to the Islas Marias Prison (an Island prison colony on the pacific coast of Mexico). Laura continues her work in Coatzacoalcos prison, keeping close contact with Lalo, sending him what he needs, relaying messages etc.

                    UN criticised over new Cambodian drug law

                    “The police asked if I stole anything. I said, ‘No, I’m just a drug user.’ They said ‘You used drugs, where did you get the money?’... They slapped me with their hands and kicked me in the stomach and my shin with their boots. My skin was bleeding and the skin was torn off. They kicked me in the stomach.  They beat me to make me confess that I stole something from the market. Two policemen did this in the police station, in the interrogation room... I did not confess but the police still wrote down [a confession]...

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