Human Rights A Day

Guinea declares total independence from France. When the French colony of Guinea declared independence from France on October 2, 1958, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union eyed it as a place to exert influence in their cold war power struggle. And while the leader of this African country wanted nothing to do with either, he learned to play the two superpowers off one another in an effort to secure financial aid for his country. As Guinea’s first and long-standing ruler, Sékou Touré was both strongly anti-imperialistic and outraged at the number of ties between Western and African governments. This, he surmised correctly, kept intact too many white minority governments exploiting the black majority. Touré, once an advocate of cross-ethnic nationalism, soon turned the country into a one party dictatorship with the usual trappings of no respect for human rights, free expression or political opposition. He became paranoid, with any potential “enemies” being imprisoned where hundreds died. Touré not only drove away

Dr. Charlotte Whitton becomes Canada’s first full-time woman mayor. Dr. Charlotte Whitton joined politics after a distinguished career as an academic at Queen’s University. An expert on child welfare, Whitton served as director of the Canadian Council on Child Welfare during the 1920s and 1930s. Although a champion of women’s rights, she held staunch social conservative views unpopular with more progressive Canadians. Whitton had harsh words for mothers who worked outside the home and she was against liberalizing Canada’s divorce laws. Elected to Ottawa’s municipal council in 1950, she was made acting mayor when the mayor died while in office the summer of 1951. Her handling of that role must have impressed citizens because on October 1, 1951, Ottawa councillors voted unanimously to keep her as mayor. That made Whitton Canada’s first full-time woman mayor. She was re-elected as mayor four more times before her defeat in 1964. Even then, she carried on as an Ottawa city councillor until retiring from politics

Sue Rodriguez loses bid for legally sanctioned assisted suicide. In August 1991, a Vancouver a doctor told Sue Rodriguez that she had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. It meant she would experience a long, slow deterioration of her body, losing her ability to swallow, speak, walk or move without assistance before the disease killed her. She petitioned the Supreme Court of Canada for permission to commit suicide with assistance when she deemed it appropriate. Though she knew that section 241(b) of the criminal code prohibits anyone form assisting someone wishing to commit suicide, she felt this should be declared invalid on the grounds that it violated her rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. On September 30, 1993, in a five-to-four decision, the Supreme Court held that the code was constitutional, pointing to Parliament’s desire to protect the “sanctity of life.” On February 12, 1994, Rodriguez defied the court by dying with the assistance of a doctor and in the c

UN Peacekeepers awarded Nobel Peace Prize. The United Nations attempts to settle, or support those who are trying to settle, conflicts as they arise in various parts of the world. Part of that process includes their peacekeeping operations, which acts as an impartial third body. There are two types of peacekeeping operations, one with unarmed observers and the other with armed military forces. When armed, the forces are only to use their weapons in self-defence. The peacekeepers, first employed in 1948 to monitor the truce between Israel and Arab states, must have the agreement of all parties involved and take direction from the United Nations. On September 29, 1988, the Nobel Peace Prize went to the United Nations’ worldwide peacekeeping forces. UN forces, the Nobel committee noted, had been key to reducing tensions and giving people hope for peace. The 1,400 Canadian Peacekeepers stationed in Syria, Jerusalem, Afghanistan, Cyprus, Korea, Iraq and Iran at the time of the award, shared in its honour. It was t

Taliban take control of Kabul and most of Afghanistan. In the early 1980s, America’s Central Intelligence Agency and Pakistan’s Interservices Intelligence Agency supported any group fighting the Soviets who had invaded Afghanistan. A group of ethnic Pashtuns from various regions of Afghanistan, known as the Talib (pluralized as Taliban, meaning “student” or “seekers of knowledge”), received tens of thousands of tons of American weapons and ammunitions. In 1994, the Taliban were able to take control of towns and cities with relative ease as Afghans supported them over the corrupt and brutal warlords. That year they captured Kandahar City and the surrounding provinces with very few casualties. Within two years they had control of two-thirds of the country. On September 28, 1996 the Taliban captured Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, and executed former president Mohammad Najibullah, hanging his body from a tower. Only Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates would recognize them as the legitimate governme

Ottawa acknowledges its unjust treatment of Ukrainian Canadians during World War I. When World War I started, the Canadian government worried about the allegiance of Canadian citizens who had come from regions around the Austro-Hungarian empire. So the government interned 8,579 “enemy aliens” in 26 camps across Canada under the War Measures Act. More than 5,000 of these were Ukrainians. Another 80,000 – mostly Ukrainians – had to register as enemy aliens and report regularly to local authorities. Inmates of these internment camps were forced to work on infrastructure in mining and logging camps, and on government terrain such as Banff National Park. Even when the war ended, the government maintained the camps for another two years, until 1920. They justified this by referring to their free labour source as “Bolsheviks” rather than “enemy aliens,” and indicating concern about these Canadians’ allegiance to the new Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Ukrainian Canadians who were not interned faced discrimination and publi

Can’t fire an employee based on spouse’s status, Saskatchewan’s top court rules. Heather Ennis was hired to manage the Prince Albert, Saskatchewan Elks Club – then she was fired two weeks later when her employer learned her husband was a convicted murderer serving time in the Saskatchewan Penitentiary. Was that discrimination? Two courts said no, because although Saskatchewan’s human rights code outlawed discrimination based on marital status, the code stated that “discrimination on the basis of a relationship with a particular person is not discrimination on the basis of marital status.” But on September 26, 2002, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal overturned the two lower decisions. Ennis’s rights were clearly violated due to marital status, the court declared, and to rule otherwise would allow any employer near Prince Albert’s federal penitentiary to fire employees with spouses there. Ennis was awarded $6,818. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

One thousand soldiers escort nine black students into Little Rock Central High. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregating schools based on race was unconstitutional. Just days later the Little Rock, Arkansas school board agreed to abide by the decision and drew up plans a year later to begin gradually integrating schools staring in 1957. After some court challenges to speed up the process were denied, the process was to begin with black students attending classes at Little Rock Central High School on September 3, 1957. A defiant Governor Orval Faubus tried to block this by ordering his National Guard to prevent black students from entering white schools. After a court injunction and a first attempt that attracted thousands of protesters, President Dwight D. Eisenhower decided to intervene. He sent in 1,000 members of the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army, and federalized the entire Arkansas National Guard, to ensure that the state’s first nine black students could enter Little Roc

Nelson Mandela asks the UN to lift sanctions against South Africa. When Nelson Mandela addressed the United Nations General Assembly on September 24, 1993, he boldly asked the world to lift sanctions against his country, South Africa. A political prisoner for 27 years under apartheid, Mandela had become a symbol of the oppressive white minority rule in a country populated mostly by blacks. Mandela, president of the once outlawed African National Congress, told the assembly, “The countdown to democracy has begun. On April 27, 1994, all the people of South Africa, without discrimination on grounds of gender, race, color or belief, will join in the historic act of electing a government of their choice.” Cities and countries around the world immediately lifted sanctions that had been in place for a generation or more. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Manon Rheaume becomes the first woman to play for the NHL. Manon Rheaume was born in Lac Beauport, Quebec on February 24, 1972. She began skating at the age of three and joined hockey games as a goaltender by age five. So it may not have seemed a big deal to her when, on September 23, 1992, she goal-tended for the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning team in a pre-season game against the St. Louis Blues. She became the NHL’s first female player that day, but Rheaume was used to firsts. She was the first woman to play in an international pee wee hockey tournament and the first woman to play in a major junior game. Rheaume’s career in various minor league teams and in the NHL carried on until 1997. Her experience as the goaltender for the gold medal-winning Women’s Canadian National Team at the 1992 and 1994 Women’s World Championships gave her the experience to play on the Canadian women’s Olympic hockey team. There, of course, she helped the team bring home a silver medal in 1998. In 1997 Rheaume wrote her book, Manon:

Prime Minister Brian Mulroney apologizes to Japanese Canadians. During World War II, the Canadian government moved Japanese Canadians away from the west coast, confiscated their land without compensation and held thousands as prisoners in internment camps. Even before the war ended, Japanese Canadians urged their government to right this horrible wrong. After years of negotiations and compromise, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney issued a “formal and sincere apology” on September 22, 1988. On behalf of the Canadian government, he told Japanese Canadians he was sorry for their treatment during the second world war. The apology was issued along with a settlement of a $291 million compensation fund designed to pay each of the estimated 12,000 survivors of the internment camps $21,000, tax-free. Included in the entire compensation package was money to rebuild the infrastructure of destroyed communities and $24 million to fund a Canadian Race Relations Foundation. As well, pardons were offered to persons convicted und

Early Canadian female reporter Kay Rex born in Woodstock. Kathleen Amelia Rex was born on September 21, 1918 in Woodstock, Ontario. “Kay,” as she was called, had an interest in writing from a young age, inspired by her aunt Frances Kay Montgomery, who taught French at the University of Western Ontario. Right after university, Rex began work with the local daily newspaper, the Woodstock Sentinel. After a year she began work with Canadian Press in its Vancouver, Ottawa and Toronto bureaus from 1942 until 1953. She then worked at the CBC before moving to Mexico City, where she worked as a freelance journalist. When she joined The Globe and Mail in 1959, she had experience working on women’s issues and that is where she spent much of her time. Rex was able to bring attention to issues that today are commonplace, but back then, were not. She wrote about daycare, poverty, health and peace and the emerging women’s movement. As a woman in a man’s world of journalism, she had to work hard to get her stories on or near

Billie Jean King wins “battle of the sexes” in tennis. No woman player was a match for him, declared 55 year-old tennis star Bobby Riggs. His overtly chauvinist claim drew an estimated 50 million viewers to his September 20, 1973 match with 20-times Wimbledon champion Billie Jean King, aged 29. In Houston, Texas’s packed Astrodome, King beat Riggs in three straight sets – 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 – and clinched the $100,000 winner-take-all prize. Despite the public jabs between them that led to this “battle of the sexes,” Riggs and King became friends until his death from prostate cancer in 1995. Although King is the recipient of numerous tennis awards, including 39 Grand Slams, she always had to push for equality within the world of sports because for many years, women earned less prize money than men for the same sport. One of the final hold-outs was Wimbledon. However, in February 2007 the managers of the world’s most prestigious tournament - the All England Tennis and Croquet Club and the Lawn Tennis Association - a

Workplace collective agreements must be based on human rights legislation, Canadian Supreme Court rules. When Joanne O’Brien went on maternity leave before she’d completed her probationary work period at Parry Sound, Ontario’s social services administration board, she returned to find herself fired. That was 1998. She complained to a labour board, which ruled that her employer had violated her rights under Ontario’s human rights code. After further appeals, on September 18, 2003, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that under Ontario law, a labour board is responsible for spelling out human rights and other employment-related laws in their collective agreement. This established human rights legislation as the basis on which employers must build employer/employee agreements, whether or not the rights they promise are written into their collective agreements. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

New Zealand becomes first country to grant women the vote. Although women in Wyoming and Utah were allowed to vote starting in 1869 and 1870 respectively, New Zealand was the first country to grant women universal suffrage. Initially, it allowed them to vote in a parliamentary election on September 19, 1893. The victory stemmed from the efforts of Christian Temperance Union leader Kate Sheppard, who led the women’s movement in New Zealand, and the support she received from politician John Hall. In Canada, the right to vote for women was taken away when Canada became a country in 1867. In 1917, women of British descent were allowed to vote if they had a close relative fighting in the war. Then all white women were given the right to vote federally in 1919. The vote at the provincial level started with Manitoba in 1916 and finished with Quebec in 1940. Elsewhere in the world, western democratic countries got on the equality band wagon at different times. Women of Germany and Russia got the vote in 1918 while th

RCMP swears in 32 women police officers. One of Canada’s most notable icons is the Mountie – and people expect to see a man. Traditionally, of course, Mounties were male. But the RCMP, like all workplaces, changed in the 1970s. On September 16, 1974, the venerable police force swore in 32 women cadets from across Canada, and sent them to their Regina, Saskatchewan training facility. Six months later, 30 emerged as officers. Dispersed across the country, they met with mixed experiences. .They faced colleagues who didn’t want them there, wives who objected to them working alongside their husbands, and a public that wanted to talk to “real Mounties.” The rookie officers felt forced to prove themselves to each new detachment they joined. As one pioneer constable, Barb Alexander, recalls, "You're not one of the guys. You're not one of the secretaries. You're not one of the wives. You're something different. You couldn't go out with just anyone. You were such an oddity." Women like Alexander, however, made things a

during World War II. After the Japanese bombed the American naval fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941, the American government and military became concerned about the loyalties of its Japanese citizens and residents. By early 1942 approximately 120,000 persons of Japanese descent were moved from the states of California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona to internment camps away from the coast. By early 1945 Japanese Americans were allowed to go back to their lives, and most did. However, the calls for reparation were loud, even before the war’s end. On September 17, 1987, after years of debate, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Civil Liberties Act, which recognized injustices acted upon Japanese Americans during the second world war. The government established a fund of $1.37 billion to partially compensate Japanese Americans interned during the war. Each of the estimated 66,000 survivors received $20,000, while another $50 million funded education programs that explained to the America

Louise Arbour appointed to Supreme Court before heading world human rights. Louise Arbour was born on February 10, 1947 in Montreal, Quebec. Her distinguished career started at the University of Montreal, where she earned her law degree before clerking for a Supreme Court of Canada judge and earning her masters in law at the University of Ottawa. She taught criminal law at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto’s York University, first as a lecturer and finally as associate dean in 1987. Arbour was appointed to Ontario’s High Court of Justice before a quick elevation to Ontario’s top court in 1990. She gained national attention with her enquiry into the Prison for Women in Kingston, Ontario, after violence erupted more than once. She moved to the international stage in 1996 when she was appointed the chief prosecutor of war crimes in the Hague for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, where among other accomplishments, she indictment former Yugoslavia President Slobodan Milošević for crimes against humanity. Arbour l

Dorothea Palmer arrested for distributing information on birth control. In the early 1900s, Canadian women had no access to information about birth control. Most religious and medical leaders even opposed making information about it available. Dorothea Palmer, born in England in 1908 before immigrating to Canada, was instrumental in gaining reproductive rights for women. Palmer worked for the Parents’ Information Bureau in Kitchener, Ontario, where her job involved visiting the homes of poor women. She took on the initiative of informing these women about birth control, even though she knew that doing so was illegal. Palmer was arrested on September 14, 1936 in Eastview, an Ottawa suburb, as she left the home of a family with many children. She was criminally charged with disseminating information about birth control. Her trial, which dragged on from October to March of 1937, entailed 19 days of testimony, four days of arguments and 40 witnesses. In the end, the judge acquitted Palmer, saying she was providin

Canada’s Supreme Court expands religious protections. Easter Monday is an important religious day for members of the Worldwide Church of God. So one of those members, Jim Christie, felt it was reasonable to ask his employer, Central Alberta Dairy Pool at their milk processing plant in Wetaskiwin, Alberta, for an unpaid leave of absence to observe that day. In fact, his religion recognizes a Saturday Sabbath, a five-day Fall Feast of the Tabernacle and five other holy days during the year – one of them being Easter Monday. His supervisor had previously agreed to an early shift on Fridays to avoid the start of the Sabbath at sunset. In 1983, he asked for a leave of absence on Tuesday, March 29th and Easter Monday, April 4th. His employer granted him the Tuesday, but not the Easter Monday, even when he said he would work an alternate day instead. As a milk processing plant, the company receives milk seven days a week, and to avoid spoilage, it must can any milk from the weekend on Monday. As well, the firm point