Want to put something right
Law students believe that people shouldn’t feel content just because they are doing well for themselves. Next week they are arranging Human Rights Week for the first time.
På norskHUMAN RIGHTS: - We want people to start caring about human rights in Norway and in the rest of the world, Kaja Kolvig says. She is Head of the organising committee of the Human Rights Week.
Amnesty International Juridisk Studentnettverk (AIJS), an Amnesty International subgroup at the Faculty of Law, aims to make Human Rights Week a yearly event, with debates, lectures, an imaginary trial, quizzes and concerts.
- You don’t have to look further than Russia to see serious human rights violations, says co-organiser Linn Hoel Ringvoll.
Chechnya out of the dark
Program coordinator Zuzanna Godzimirska wishes, among other things, to bring «the forgotten conflict» in Chechnya into focus.
- We never hear about all the atrocities going on in Chechnya. Those who try to write about it are killed, like Politkovskaya, she says.
Aage Borchgrevink will be holding a lecture on Chechnya on 29 February. He is affiliated with the Norwegian Helsinki Committee and recently published the book «Den usynlige krigen», The Invisible War, about Chechnya. He compares the situation in the North Caucasus of today with the Age of Stalin. Since 1994, 100 000 people have lost their lives in the wars, out of a total population of 700 - 800 000 people.
- Since the autumn of 1999, he worst human rights violations in our part of the world have taken place in Chechnya, Borchgrevink says.
Borchgrevink’s most powerful experience in Chechnya was his meeting with a father and son who had been abducted and tortured.
- The father told me how the president himself had tortured them with electricity. He said it felt like all the bones in his body were ripped apart, Borchgrevink recounts.
Committed to change
- When I visited the university of Groznyj two years ago, the Chechen students had neither electricity nor teaching material. Very few could see the value of going to lectures, as there were no jobs to go on to. Because of the corruption, the students had to buy their examination papers anyway, Borchgrevink explains.
He considers the situation today to be better, materially speaking, but says that it is important to keep in touch with the academic environment in Chechnya.
- President Kadyrov has removed some of the university staff, and now independent research and independent student organisations face a difficult future.
He believes that if enough people get involved, the politicians will have to listen.
- Norwegian companies such as StatoilHydro must take responsibility and use the power they have through their agreements with Russian companies, Borchgrevink adds.
