Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley

The lack of adequate health care within reservations makes this an incredibly frightening disease for Indian country, said Wesley Furlong, a staff attorney for the Native American Rights Fund, in this just-published High Country News piece by Kalen Goodluck and the Human Rights Center's Lucy Meyer and Anjali Shrivastava with HRC's Katie Emanuel, Nicole Zhu, Gillian Rose, Danielle Cosmes and Pooja Doctor. The story examines COVID risks to Indigenous communities posed by the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Thank you for enabling us to do meaningful and impactful work during this challenging year. There's still time to make your year-end tax-deductible gift to the Human Rights Center: https://give.berkeley.edu/fund/FU0718000 In celebration of our collective, ongoing commitment to human rights and justice in 2021, please find here our 2020 Annual Report. https://humanrights.berkeley.edu/about/annual-report-2020

HRC's Alexa Koenig talking with Stanford's Digital Impact 4Q4 podcast about the Berkeley Protocol and more: "...the more we learn to communicate across those disciplines, the more we’re actually able to have some kind of human rights impact." https://digitalimpact.io/internet-sleuthing-expanding-digi/

The Human Rights Center Fellowships 2021 are finally open to all UC Berkeley undergraduates, graduates, or graduating students! Applications are due February 19, 2021. RSVP for a Virtual Info Session at tinyurl.com/HRCinfo2021.

We are so lucky that the Cal Band's drum major Mary Mijares is also the Human Rights Center's most amazing student assistant. Read about the band's creativity and resiliency in the time of COVID. "Even if you’re apart, as long as you work together, you’re going to find innovative solutions," says Mary. https://news.berkeley.edu//the-cal-band-virtual-performan/

Celebrating Human Rights Day in San Francisco with an event happening right now (Sat., Dec. 12, 10am PST): "Racial Justice and Human Rights in the 21st Century" moderated by Alexa Koenig, followed by a workshop on "What Everyone Can Do to Verify Social Media Posts" led by our Gisela Perez de Acha and Avani Yadav. Watch here: https://zoom.us/j/91721698004

Join #HRC and #UnitedNations Association of the USA on December 12 for #HumanRightsDay2020. Featuring panels with leading human rights and racial justice scholars! RSVP at https://lnkd.in/g24Xmg9

Find highlights of our live monitoring of the elections today on our HRC blog: https://medium.com//live-monitoring-election-2020-da061439

We're live monitoring social media today with more than 60 studentsall day for our media partners and Amnesty International. We're working with the UC Berkeley Investigative Reporting Program to document any signs of voter suppression or intimidation, violence or misinformation. Here's a pre-COVID photo of what we used to look likefeaturing our elections chief Gisela Perez de Acha Chavez!

Join us for our last Human Rights Talk with our 2020 Fellows! Today, Friday, October 30, 1-2pm (RSVP here for the Zoom link: tinyurl.com/HRCFellows2020 if you don't have it from previous talks): Global Problems and Place-Based Solutions: Striving for Economic Self-Determination. We feature: Dallas Lopez, JD student, School of Law, UC Berkeley, "Blueprinting how Native communities build their own schools: overcoming decades of waiting"; Emiliano Aguirre, JD student, School of Law, UC Berkeley, "An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Navigating the Navajo Nation’s Business Site Lease Process"; and Sara O’Connor on "Urban Citizens’ Movements Under Authoritarianism: A Case Study in Kazakhstan."

Human Rights Talks 2020 continue on Thursday, Oct. 29, noon to 1pm, with TED-style talks on "Meeting the Moment: Flexibility and Service in Human Rights Lawyering." RSVP to tinyurl.com/HRCFellows2020 for the Zoom link. We feature Mara González -Souto, JD student, School of Law, UCLA on "The Quest for Accountability: Challenges and Lessons in Human Rights Advocacy"; Ivey Dyson, JD student, Berkeley Law on "Reflections on Protests for Government Accountability in America and Lebanon"; Vanessa Rivas-Bernardy, JD student, School of Law, UC Berkeley, on "Immigration, Coronavirus, and Trump: Uncertainty as a Strategy of Exclusion at the Border"; Sadaf Doost, JD student, School of Law, UC Irvine, on "Blueprints of Oppression"; and Hugo Santiago, Legal Studies alum, UC Berkeley, on "LGBTQ Refugees & Human Rights." Join us!

Today! Join us for day-two of Human Rights Talks 2020noon to 1pm Pacificon tech and human rights! RSVP for the Zoom link at tinyurl.com/HRCFellows2020: Featuring Fellows S.E. Freeman, PhD student, Department of Geography, UC Berkeley, on "Technologies of Pandemic Control: Privacy and Ethics for COVID-19 Surveillance"; Anne Daugherty, MJ student, Graduate School of Journalism, UC Berkeley, on the "Challenges of Verifying and Reporting on COVID-19-Related Attacks on Health Care Workers and Facilities" and Nilsu Çelikel and Sang-Min Kim on "Handling Open Source Content in an International Justice Context."

This week our Human Rights Talks 2020 series includes four lunchtime talksa new format for our HRC Fellowship Conference due to COVID. Join us tomorrow, Oct. 27, 1 to 2pm: Public Health and Human Rights: No One Left Behind: Stories of neglected issues and marginalized communities worldwide. We hear from Alma Juarez Armenta, PhD student, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley on "Femicides in Mexico: counting a country's missing women"; Lena Musoka, MPH student, School of Publi...c Health, UC Berkeley on "The World of ‘Frogmen’ Recognizing the forgotten workers of the sanitation sector in developing countries."; and Nazineen Kandahari, MD/MS student, UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program on "Sofreh Salamati: A health initiative by and for forcibly displaced Afghan women: Reflections on a qualitative study of health, healthcare access, and more among Afghan immigrant women living in the San Francisco Bay Area." RSVP for the zoom link. See more

Our Faculty Director Eric Stover was in Oklahoma last week to co-produce a documentary about the Tulsa Race Massacre that will air on PBS in May. Here's a photo of him at Oaklawn Cemetery where scientists have uncovered a mass gravepotentially of some of the victims. (Photo by Jonathan Silvers.)

Catch the #HRC Fellows present their research from their summer fieldwork during our four lunchtime panels, covering topics centered on #humanrights through an unconventional lens. RSVP using: https://lnkd.in/gwDvaDY For more info on the panels: https://lnkd.in/gxvjiuY

Mara clerked at the Center for Justice & Accountability (CJA), an international human rights organization that fights to end torture and other human rights abuses around the world through strategic litigation, policy and transitional justice strategies. You can catch Mara’s presentation on Oct. 29, during our four lunchtime panels next week. RSVP using the link on our flyer or bio. For details on the panels: https://humanrights.berkeley.edu//2020-hrc-fellowship-conf

Nilsu and Sang-Min will research the use of open sourcesvideos, photos, and other content uploaded to the internetinvestigations has the promise of contributing to justice and accountability for war crimes and other violations of human rights. This presentation explores the limits and best practices for human rights investigators using open source content to document and prove atrocities and war crimes. Join us as our fellows present TED-style talks with Q&A on current human rights crises during four lunchtime panels, Oct 27 to Oct 30. RSVP using the link on the flyers or bio. For details on the panels: https://humanrights.berkeley.edu//2020-hrc-fellowship-conf

Anne is a multimedia journalist and photographer covering the intersections of public health, human rights, environment, and social justice. She will work with the Human Rights Center’s Investigations Lab, using open source intelligence research methods, to document human rights violations within the context of the coronavirus pandemic. Her research will explore how weaknesses in public service delivery and structural inequalities can disproportionately impact vulnerable popu...lations during public health and humanitarian crises. You can catch Anne’s presentation on Oct 28 during our four lunchtime panels, taking place Oct 27 to Oct 30. More fellows will present their research through TED-style talks with Q&A on current human rights crises. RSVP using the link on our flyer or bio. For details on the panels: https://humanrights.berkeley.edu//2020-hrc-fellowship-conf

S. is partnering with the CITRIS Policy Lab to map the various ways in which surveillance technologies are being used globally in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Comparing data collection practices across countries, including the United States, their research will assess the ethical concerns raised by the use of such surveillance on a mass scale and the potential implications beyond this "exceptional" moment. Join us as our fellows present TED-style talks with Q&A on current human rights crises during four lunchtime panels, Oct 27 to Oct 30. RSVP using the link on the flyers or in our bio. For details on the panels: https://humanrights.berkeley.edu//2020-hrc-fellowship-conf

Join us from 1 to 2 pm today as we talk with UC Berkeley alumni and students about the Human Rights Center's Investigations Labin celebration of Homecoming (Go Bears!). We feature recent alum and current HRC researcher Shakiba Mashayekhi and student leaders AJ Schumann and Ibrahim Khan discussing our work on Syria and Chile. https://homecoming.berkeley.edu//virtual-look-human-rights

We are excited to announce our 2020 HRC Fellowship Events! Our 16 HRC Fellows will present TED-style talks with Q&A on current human rights crises during four lunchtime panels, Oct 27 to Oct 30. RSVP using the link on the flyers or in our bio. For details on the panels: https://lnkd.in/gE_RtMC... Nazineen will be investigating the facilitators and barriers to health and healthcare among Afghan refugees in the Bay Area. With her findings she will develop an educational curriculum in collaboration with Farsi-speaking healthcare providers and Afghan refugees themselves. Her work will inform the deployment of Sofreh Salamati, a program she designed to promote the strengths and self-efficacy of this community, once social distancing is lifted. Her objective is to address the structures limiting the agency of Afghan refugees.