Centre for Human Rights

LETTER: Biden Administration Must Accelerate Efforts to Free Kara-Murza

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Thursday, February 22, 2024
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We the undersigned write to express a two-fold request of your administration.

Key Points: 
  • We the undersigned write to express a two-fold request of your administration.
  • Kara-Murza is an extremely vulnerable prisoner, and we fear that he may be the Kremlin's next victim if the United States does not act swiftly.
  • He is also currently being held as a political prisoner by Russian authorities.
  • We urge the Biden administration to act swiftly to bring Kara-Murza home and to increase efforts to seek the release of all Russian political prisoners.

We fact-checked residential school denialists and debunked their 'mass grave hoax' theory

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Tuesday, October 17, 2023
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Recently a politician from a village in Prince Edward Island displayed an offensive sign on his property in which he proclaimed there is a “mass grave hoax” regarding the former Indian Residential Schools in Canada.

Key Points: 
  • Recently a politician from a village in Prince Edward Island displayed an offensive sign on his property in which he proclaimed there is a “mass grave hoax” regarding the former Indian Residential Schools in Canada.
  • Although many have called for him to resign, he is just one of many people who subscribe to this false theory.
  • A hoax is an act intended to trick people into believing something that isn’t true.

There is no media conspiracy

    • As two settler academic researchers, we decided to investigate the claims of a media conspiracy and fact-check them against evidence.
    • To find out, we analyzed 386 news articles across five Canadian media outlets (CBC, National Post, the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and The Canadian Press) released between May 27 and Oct. 15, 2021.

‘Preliminary findings’ of ‘unmarked burials’

    • A National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation Memorial Register has to date confirmed the deaths of more than 4,000 Indigenous children associated with residential schools.
    • But the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) noted its register of missing children was incomplete, partly due to a large volume of yet-to-be-examined and destroyed records.

Countering harmful misinformation

    • In the two years since, a number of commentators, priests and politicians, including the P.E.I councillor with his sign, have downplayed the harms of residential schooling — or questioned the validity, gravity and significance of the the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation’s announcement.
    • We hope that our research can contribute to this work and that our report helps to debunk the “mass grave hoax” narrative specifically.

Cherry-picked ‘evidence’

    • Myths, however, are not pure fiction; they often contain a kernel of truth that is exaggerated or misrepresented.
    • This selective representation of evidence is commonly referred to as cherry-picking, and it’s easy to see how those spreading the “mass grave hoax” narrative rely on cherry-picked evidence.
    • By September, denialists were misrepresenting the extent of media errors to push the conspiratorial “mass grave hoax” narrative online.
    • And we hope our report sparks a national conversation about how important language is when covering this issue.

Challenging Residential School denialism

    • According to Daniel Heath Justice and Sean Carleton (one of the authors of this story), residential school denialism is not the denial of the residential school system’s existence.
    • Read more:
      Truth before reconciliation: 8 ways to identify and confront Residential School denialism

      Residential school denialism, like climate change denialism or science denialism, cherry-picks evidence to fit a conspiratorial counter-narrative.

Truth before reconciliation

    • This is the strategy of disempowering and discrediting residential school denialism advocated by former TRC Chair Murray Sinclair.
    • We hope others will join us in this type of research to help Canadians learn how to identify and confront residential school denialism and support meaningful reconciliation.
    • As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission said in its final report, without truth there can be no genuine reconciliation.

Women's Foundation of the South Expands Signature Programming to Mississippi; Additional Expansion Planned for 2023

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Thursday, March 23, 2023
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NEW ORLEANS, March 23, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Women's Foundation of the South exists to improve futures for women and girls of color in the South by supporting both women-of-color-led nonprofits who do the same and women-of-color entrepreneurs. The organization is pleased to announce that it ended 2022 by expanding its proprietary program, WŌC @ Rest, to Mississippi. WFS hosted 24 women-of-color-leaders at a two-day WŌC @ Rest retreat along the Gulf Coast of MS in December.

Key Points: 
  • The organization is pleased to announce that it ended 2022 by expanding its proprietary program, WŌC @ Rest, to Mississippi.
  • WFS hosted 24 women-of-color-leaders at a two-day WŌC @ Rest retreat along the Gulf Coast of MS in December.
  • Women's Foundation of the South was launched to address and rectify the many troubling issues faced by women and girls of color in the South, with intersectionality coloring almost all aspects of their lives.
  • -Aisha Nyandoro, CEO, Springboard to Opportunities
    Please visit the organization's website to learn more about the Women's Foundation of the South.

Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Announces 2022 Human Rights Award Laureates

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Thursday, May 5, 2022
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WASHINGTON, May 5, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights today announced Cameroonian human rights defenders Maximilienne C. Ngo Mbe and Felix Agbor Nkongho (Balla) as the 2022 recipients of its annual Human Rights Award. A ceremony honoring the two laureates will take place Tuesday, June 7 at 2pm in the Kennedy Caucus Room, U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C.

Key Points: 
  • Annual award recognizes human rights defenders from the Anglophone and Francophone regions of Cameroon, Maximilienne C. Ngo Mbe and Felix Agbor Nkongho (Balla)
    WASHINGTON, May 5, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights today announced Cameroonian human rights defenders Maximilienne C. Ngo Mbe and Felix Agbor Nkongho (Balla) as the 2022 recipients of its annual Human Rights Award.
  • "The RFK Human Rights Award was created to honor and support those who live out my father's core belief - that the power of individual and collective moral courage can overcome injustice," said Kerry Kennedy, president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights.
  • I look forward to working alongside Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights as we continue our struggle for justice, human rights, and peace in Cameroon and Central Africa."
  • The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award honors champions of social justice who stand up to oppression in the nonviolent pursuit of human rights.