Declarations: The Human Rights Podcast

This week, in partnership with Global Integrity, we are joined by Dr. Jackie Harvey of Northumbria University and Dr. Pallavi Roy of SOAS University of London to discuss the structures of political power in Nigeria and the underlying systems of corruption that culminated in the protests of the #EndSARS movement. This episode is the first in a two-part series focusing on human rights abuses in Nigeria and the protests fighting to #EndSARS and end police brutality.

In the second episode of Season 5, we are joined by Dan Sullivan, the senior advocate for human rights at Refugees international, and Tun Khin, President of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK to discuss the situation of the persecuted Rohingya minority in the context of Myanmar's second general election,  an event overshadowed by electoral events in the United States.

In the first episode of Season 5, the new team of panellists sets the stage for a broader discussion of human rights under threat. Through their experience with human rights issues in NGO work, academia as well as their personal lives, they problematise some aspects of human rights while highlighting its immense potential for positive change. This season, the theme of the podcast is "In the Firing Line", where we will invite all of those at the forefront of change within the human rights movement to share their experiences and provide a dialogue around the very principles of human rights itself. 

In the past few months, online activism has exploded, enabling us to build transnational solidarity and make cross-topical connections like never before. In this episode, we talk about the possibilities and sometimes fraught experience of online activism,  the importance of doing due diligence, and guarding against burnout.

For some of us, these few months have been punctuated by heavy conversations about race around dinner tables, living rooms, maybe even over calls and social media comment threads. They've been with friends, family, strangers. Some of them have gone well, and many have not. These conversations require all parties to reach across generations, cultures and other forces that shape our worldviews, in order to build a more progressive, inclusive future.  In this episode, our panelists discuss why it is crucial that we keep engaging in these conversations, and provide some tips as to how we can ensure that they are as productive as possible. We hope that this episode offers a safe space to reflect and learn together from the difficult conversations we've been having in our own lives.

Have you heard the phrase 'abolish the police' being thrown around, but you're not really sure what this demand actually entails?  In this episode, we break down the ideas and intellectual histories of arguments to abolish, defund, and reform policing as an institution. We hope our discourse is helpful to you in figuring out where you stand in conversations around race and the criminal justice system. This is a companion piece to our previous episode, 'We Need to Talk: The Prison-Industrial Complex", and aims to give you an insight into the ways in which the criminal justice system can be reformed and detached from the racist structures that currently underpin it.

The prison-industrial complex. What does it mean? Who does it benefit? Who suffers? This week, we discuss how systemic racism manifests in the United States in the form of the prison-industrial complex. From its historical origins in slave patrols to the war on drugs, the criminal justice system has systematically entrapped Black bodies and monetized their labour to serve corporate interests. This is only the beginning: we encourage you to take a look at the resources on our website to learn more.

In this episode, we are giving you a quick crash-course in how to protest safely and effectively, in the UK and in the US. We will cover your legal right to protest in the US and UK, give you tips on how to protest safely considering the current coronavirus pandemic, and discuss protesting as a non-Black person and how to leverage your privilege to help and protect Black protestors.

We need to talk about race.  Since its inception, Declarations has sought to shed light on some of the worst human rights violations across the globe. However right now, there is a specific violation that deserves all of our time, attention and effort - racism. Here at Declarations we are now solely committing ourselves to becoming a resource for anti-racist mobilisation, as we launch our new series - It's Time to Talk About Race. We’re here to talk, discuss, share and inform, and to have those uncomfortable conversations that we have needed to have as human beings for so long.  In this introductory episode, we discuss what it truly means to be an anti-racist ally, addressing all the main themes, trends and buzzwords that we are seeing all over our social media feeds. We unpack the meaning of key concepts such as white privilege, racial capitalism, virtue signalling, emotional labour and white fragility, providing an intellectual base from which listeners can further commit to anti-racist mobilisati

In this episode we discuss the Unist’ot’en campaign to protect their land and preserve it for future generations. In 2010, the Unist’ot’en began constructing a cabin in the exact place where three companies, TC Energy, Enbridge, and Pacific Trails, intended to build pipelines. Their campaign has faced hostility and violence, including from the government of Canada, and its national police force, the RCMP. To the dismay of Coastal GasLink and Canada’s colonial government, the camp has received immense support both locally and internationally, with solidarity blockades of Canada’s railroad threatening to shut Canada down. We are joined by Dr Karla Tait, Director of Clinical Programming at the Unist’ot’en Healing Centre, who speaks to her first hand experience and strategies of reoccupying and reconnecting people with the land.

Join us as we discuss what the viral story of a Christmas card plea from a prisoner inside Shanghai Qingpu Prison tells us about our participation as consumers in regimes of forced labour, as well as the role and responsibility of corporate social responsibility for preventing these human rights violations. We are joined by Peter Humphrey, who speaks first hand about his own experience within this very same prison, where he was incarcerated on false charges for 23 months.

Join host Niyousha and panelists Matt and Muna as they interview Jacinta Gonzalez about her current work regarding hostile environments in the US, as well as discuss the Ellis Island legacy and the expansive infrastructures of technologies of oppression.

From 25th November to 4th December 2019, lecturers in 60 universities across the UK went on strike. Declarations hit the picket lines of Cambridge to find out why academics were swapping their blackboards for banners. 

Join us as we interview Maya Goodfellow, author of 'Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Became Scapegoats', for Part 1 of our series about the racialization of immigration. In this enlightening and extremely topical episode, we discuss security discourses of the 'scary' migrant, racial capitalism and the racialization of citizenship. 

In this episode, we discuss the provision and effectiveness of existing laws aimed to protect the rights of persons with disabilities. Touching on issues of positive discrimination, intersectionality and 'invisible' disabilities, we are joined by prominent student disability advocates Ebenezer Azamati and Rensa Gaunt. 

In this episode we discuss the current human rights infringements taking place in the semi-autonomous state of Kashmir. From the Public Safety Act to the repealment of Article 370, we interview lawyer, activist, and member of the Kashmir solidarity movement Mirza Saaib Beg and Academic and historian Waseem Yaqoob.

This episode focuses on the UK’s policy of deterring refugees and migrants from seeking asylum by extending the Home Office’s domestic “hostile environment” beyond state borders and into mainland Europe. We raise a number of questions on ethical and legal grounds. Our guest Marta Welander, founder of Refugee Rights Europe and PhD candidate and visiting lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University, is here to discuss her work and research toward these issues.

From June to October 2017, the US-led Coalition launched an aggressive and highly destructive military campaign in Raqqa, Syria to oust the so-called “Islamic State” from the city. More than 80% of the city was destroyed via aerial bombardments, leaving Raqqa the most destroyed city in modern times. And over 1,600 civilians were killed. Amnesty and the Digital Verification Corps came to Queens’ College, Cambridge for a panel discussion crossed with an exhibition featuring photographs, interactive screens, and even a Virtual Reality experience. Declarations was invited to the event, to hear from the panel, explore the exhibition, and speak to some of the visitors.

In the first episode of this seasons' Declarations podcasts, the new team of panellists sets the stage for a discussion of some of the human rights issues that do not receive enough attention. The podcast gives rise to a dialogue around the very principles of human rights, informed by the panellists diverse geographical backgrounds and personal interests. Through their experience with human rights issues in NGO work, academia as well as their personal lives, they problematise some aspects of human rights while highlighting its immense potential for positive change.

Until 2015, China harvested organs from prisoners on death row. The State has adopted an official policy that all organs must come from voluntary donations. Yet research suggests that there is a large discrepancy between the official Chinese government’s statistics on organ transplant rates in China (10,000 per year) and reality (estimates of 60,000-100,000 per year). When combined with the ongoing repression of ethnic and religious minorities by the State, this raises questions about the origins of those organs. Human rights groups allege that the State harvests organs from prisoners of conscience including members of Falun Gong, Uyghurs, Tibetans and House Christians. In this episode, we focus on organ trafficking and transplant abuse in China, and the impact that it has upon minority groups. We are joined by Dr David Matas, who is an international human rights lawyer based in Canada and co-founder of the International Coalition To End Transplant Abuse In China (ETAC)