Human Rights Maps (181): Tienanmen Square Massacre

In 1989, 24 years ago tomorrow, a pro-democracy demonstration by Chinese students ended in bloodshed as soldiers tried to clear Tienanmen Square in the center of Beijing. No one knows for sure but thousands may have died. The Chinese government puts the number at 241 dead, and continues to pretend that really nothing important happened. Here’s the story of the event, told by way of maps:

On June 3rd, thousands of troops converge on the square from all directions. The protesters take to the street in order to block the troops. The latter then open fire. Many are believed to have been killed by tanks driving over people.

map of the events during the Tienanmen square massacre, by Ninian Carter

(source, click image to enlarge or view a high resolution version here)

(source)

Here’s another map, showing the places where 176 victims were killed or the hospitals to which their bodies were taken (nothing is known about most of the other victims):

(source, click image to enlarge)

The story of the “tank man” has come to symbolize the events. The day after the crackdown,  an unknown man carrying shopping bags steps out in front of a column of tanks. The first tank tries to drive around him, but the man moves sideways to block its advance. Ultimately, he even climbs on top of the first tank and argues with the driver. He is then pulled away by “onlookers” and “disappears”.

Here’s a video:

More on the massacre here. More human rights maps here.

Human Rights Maps (180): The Death Toll of Illegal Immigration

The days when border guards deliberately shot and killed would-be migrants are over, with a few exceptions. However, illegal migration remains a risky business in many parts of the world. Border fortifications, unsafe means of transportation (such as containers, inappropriate boats or the wheel storage rooms of aircraft), travel by night, unscrupulous “coyotes” combined with a choice of dangerous routes such as deserts (where there’s less border patrolling) result in numerous fatalities among would-be illegal immigrants. Here are some data:

Locations of 1755 deaths at the Arizona-Mexico border

(source, click image to enlarge)

fatalities among illegal immigrants in Europe

(source, click image to enlarge)

And even those illegal immigrants who manage to survive their journey – a large majority fortunately – face certain risks in the places where they live: racist attacks, police brutality etc. Not always fatal, but always bad enough.

See also this depressing anecdote.

More maps on migration are here.

Human Rights Maps (179): Endangered Languages and Indigenous Peoples

People have a right

to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits (art. 27 of the Universal Declaration)

Article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights says it like this:

All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

This right is meant to protect the cultural identity or way of life of different groups of people, usually indigenous people or other people who have a distinct culture, distinct cultural practices or their own language. Some of these groups have a legitimate fear that their identity and way of life are under threat, either

• by their own government (through policies that for example impose an official language and marginalize other languages)
• by an occuying government (such as the case of Tibet) or
• by national or global economic and social forces (e.g. deforestation, cultural hegemony etc.).

There are different ways of determining which groups are under threat, and none of them is straightforward. There’s disagreement about both the definition of a cultural group and the definition and meaning of cultural rights (more about that here). One attempt is the Peoples Under Threat index from Minority Rights Group International:

(source, where you can find an interactive version)

There’s also the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages:

(source, click image to enlarge)

It looks like there’s no substantial overlap between this index and the previous one. There’s also a Google project, appropriately called the Endangered Languages Project, which tries to catalog endangered languages before they are gone forever:

(source, where you can find an interactive version)

Experts estimate that only 50% of the languages that are alive today will be spoken by the year 2100.

More on cultural rights and indigenous people. More maps.

Human Rights Maps (178): Poverty and Road Safety

Another example of the “poverty kills” principle: in low-income neighborhoods in NYC, children face a higher risk from traffic. The same is probably true in any other city, but I only have data for NYC:

(source)

Intersections near public housing appear to be particularly dangerous for children trying to cross the street. That is the case even after correction for a neighborhood’s population size. The design of roads, intersections and public housing complexes is probably one of the major causes of this, together with the fact that poor people and poor children in particular are more likely to use the roads as pedestrians (they have less entertainment alternatives and make less use of cars).

More human rights maps here.

Human Rights Maps (177): A New Middle East?

Here’s an interesting question: do people really want to live in the states they live in? I know that many want to migrate, but those who want to stay may also want to live in a different state.

If we want to respond positively to some people’s desires for a different set of international borders I assume we have to do so democratically. But how do we decide which is the “people” that can vote democratically to change the borders of the state it lives in? A minority which wants to secede? What about the wishes of the rest of the citizens of the existing state?

I guess one principle we could use in deciding whether or not to allow the redrawing of borders is self-government. The purpose of borders and therefore also of the redrawing of borders is to give more groups of people more self-government. If new borders yield more self-government then that’s one good reason to go ahead. Yet I doubt that this is the only principle that has to be taken into consideration. After all, if it were the only principle, single person states would be optimal, and that’s an absurd conclusion.

So, in other words: to what extent should a democratic vote be allowed to result in new states or state borders, and what does a democratic vote mean in this setting? Does a majority or a minority within an existing democracy have a right to secede if it democratically votes for secession? And is a democratic vote for secession a vote within the group that wants to secede? Or a vote among everyone in the existing state? Do those left behind have a right to stop secession? If so, what would be the basis of this right? It can’t be self-government. Those left behind would end up with more self-government, even if they oppose secession.

If self-government is an important right – as it surely is – then is it not the case that secession is also an important right if and when it results in more and better self-government? Perhaps it is. But if it is, how far does it go? It should obviously stop short of the one person state, at least if we agree that the notion of the state as we have it now remains useful – in other words, if we’re not anarchists. Another way of asking this question: what is the optimal state configuration from the point of view of self-government? Clearly, if a state contains marginalized minorities which are also territorially concentrated, and if democratic reforms meant to help those minorities are unsuccessful, then the size of this state is not optimal. The same is true when groups spread over different states have a strong urge to live together and self-govern their destiny. But what of other cases?

For the moment, I don’t intend to examine these questions any further. I’ll instead limit myself to an example: if people in the Middle East could democratically choose what country they lived in, would they choose the one they are in now? It seems not:

What the borders of Middle Eastern countries would be if the people could decide

(source)

This map is conjecture, of course, since people haven’t been asked their opinion. Nor will they any time soon. Imagine current leaders giving up oil fields. Right, you can’t.

However, maybe the Arab Spring makes some things more likely. People don’t only question rulers but also states, and the popular uprisings in the Middle East intensifies this questioning. Listen to the Kurds in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey, to the Baha’i in Iran, etc. Part of the reason is the artificial nature of many borders in the Middle East.

In the Middle East … the countries are mostly the product of a British-French agreement made in 1916 (Sykes-Picot) that paid little attention to local sociopolitical realities. As a result, few possess the historical roots, social cohesion, and legitimacy necessary to nurture the complex institutions that are a prerequisite for development and democracy. On the contrary, most suffer from both sectarian divisions and weak government—the causes of state fragility. (source)

Not that this problem is limited to the Middle East (see here), but it can become more salient during popular uprisings or violent conflict. For example, here’s an animation showing the current borders of African countries and what they will become if different separatist or independence movements will have their way:

(source, where you can also find an interactive version)

More human rights maps here.

Human Rights Maps (176): Free Press and Censorship

Not very precise or informative, but you get the point:

(source)

More interesting maps on press freedom are here. More human rights maps in general are here.

Human Rights Maps (175): The Shifting Identity and Borders of Europe

Kidnapping of Europe by Emil Kazaz (detail)

(source)

Europe – contrary to the European Union, the Council of Europe or individual European countries – is not a legal entity; it’s just an idea. And not a very clear one at that. The vagueness here isn’t limited to concepts such as the “European identity”, the “European culture” or the “European people” (what is the most defining characteristic of Europe: Christianity, humanism, economics or liberty/equality/fraternity?). Even the geographic extent of the “continent” is disputed and changes over time. The geographical uncertainty is in part the consequence of the conceptual uncertainty, although there are also some purely geographical reasons why it’s difficult to say where exactly Europe is. Changes in the geographical meaning of Europe sometimes follow from conceptual changes, as I will make clear below. I will also argue that this has some relevance for human rights.

But before that, a bit of history. Europe is not like Africa or America. It doesn’t have a nice clean shape with natural borders. The northern, western and southern borders are pretty evident since those are formed by the coastlines of the Arctic Sea, the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea respectively. But there has always been and there continues to be fervent disagreement about the eastern border. Some use geographical facts, such as the Ural mountains, the Black Sea and the Dardanelles (or Hellespont) in order to say where Europe stops in the east. That would result in the exclusion of Turkey – or most of Turkey.

However, these geographical facts are hardly determinant, or at least not as determinant as the geographical facts that determine the other three borders. They often have an arbitrary ring to them. Which is why discussions about the eastern border are really about non-geographical facts even if they are ostensibly about geographical ones. They are about identity, culture and religion. The elusive concept of a European cultural identity is central to determining the geographical concept of Europe: can Muslims be Europeans? Or only Christians? Or is religion irrelevant? Answers to these questions will determine the geography.

(Of course, generally speaking it’s quite correct to say that geographical issues may be independently determinant in discussions about the composition of continents: it’s unlikely that a continent includes a land area thousands of miles away from the main land area of the continent and separated from it by countries belonging to another continent; e.g. South Africa will never be European, even if a large segment of its population is culturally European, whatever that means. In the case of the eastern border of Europe, however, geography cannot be determinant).

Those who focus on identity, religion and culture to determine the nature of Europe often use the history of geography as a means to exclude Muslim countries in general and Turkey in particular. They can do so because historically, the word “Europe” had a very limited meaning:

Europe was merely that bit of land on the continent that the Persians had to cross to get from the Hellespont to Greece proper. (source)

This is the Hellespont:

(source)

That the area above the Hellespont was originally called “Europe” can still be seen from this Roman map:

Europa as a dioecesis of the Thracian province of the Roman empire, around 400 A.D.

(source)

Extrapolating from this historical fact, one can argue that Europe stops at the mainland of Turkey – Istanbul and everything north of the Hellespont is then still European, the rest of Turkey is not. And one can also argue that those “European” areas of Turkey – often called Thrace although Thrace was originally smaller than that – aren’t really Muslim anyway, since Istanbul was once Constantinople and as such a center of Christianity.

However, it’s just as easy to use the same historical reference in order to argue that Turkey does, historically, belong to Europe: if the “original” Europe was in Turkey, why shouldn’t Turkey be in today’s Europe? Again, geography by itself does not determine the nature and extent of Europe.

The more northern part of the eastern border is less controversial than the southern part – at least it is now. Most do now agree that the Ural mountains are a nice and convenient natural border. There aren’t any cultural or religious issues in play here. In other words, there aren’t any Muslims there we need to keep out. The only problem that had to be solved is Russia: difficult to exclude completely from Europe – they are Christian after all – but equally difficult to include entirely. If you include it entirely, then why not also Mongolia, Alaska and some of the old Soviet republics? So people have come to accept the more or less arbitrary geographical cut in the middle of Russia. However, this decision followed centuries of uncertainty and movement, as you can see from this map:

(source)

Some continue to dispute even this. The Ural doesn’t neatly cut Russia in two: what about the areas above and below the Ural? And why the Caucasus?

The conclusion of all this is that discussions about the geographical extent of Europe – and therefore also discussions about the nature of Europe – are difficult and far from settled. As a result, there’s a wide variety of views. Some claim that Europe is the collection of the countries that cover the relatively small area of that curvy western peninsula of the larger Asian continent that starts at the Atlantic Ocean and stops at the border of Turkey, or perhaps even at the borders of the Balkan countries (some of which are Muslim as well). Others see Europe as a giant continent spanning the globe from Iceland on one side – Iceland being geographically closer to America than to the European mainland – to the Bering Strait, close to Alaska, on the other side. Some include the UK, others do not. Etc. The maximalist view would include some 50 countries in Europe, including Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

Why mention all of this under the heading of “human rights maps”? Questions such as “what is Europe?”, “where is Europe?”, “how far does Europe reach?” and “which countries belong to Europe?” have a cultural and historical significance, but they can also have an impact on human rights. For example, if Europeans – whoever they are – agree that a country is inside Europe, then it can become a member of the European Union (if also certain other conditions are fulfilled). This membership offers a lot of advantages to the citizens of member countries and many of these advantages mean better protection for certain rights: freedom of movement, easier reunion with family members already living in a “European” country, looser visa restrictions for traveling to certain countries outside of the European Union, the advantages of free trade, subsidies, bailouts etc. Membership of the Council of Europe is also reserved to “European” countries, and this membership offers citizens access to the European Court of Human Rights, the most powerful international court for the protection of human rights. I’m sure many Turkish citizens are eager to profit from being accepted as Europeans, as do the citizens of other countries that may or may not be European.

So the question about the definition of Europe is an important one. Below are some bonus maps illustrating the uncertainty about the extent of Europe. This one seems to suggest that certain parts of the Middle East belong to Europe (the Judeo-Christian parts):

1884 map of 12th century Europe during the age of the crusades

 (source, click image to enlarge)

And this one omits Greece and the other territories occupied by the Ottoman empire:

Europe during the 15th century

(source, click image to enlarge)

When the Turks controlled large parts of the Balkans, those areas were considered to be beyond Europe, the eastern edge of which was the border between the Austrian and Ottoman Empires. (source)

More human rights maps are here.

Human Rights Maps (174): The “Scramble for Africa” and the Long-Run Effects of Artificial Borders on Ethnic Conflict

Lord Salisbury

(source)

[We] have been engaged in drawing lines upon maps where no white man’s foot ever trod, we have been giving away mountains and rivers and lakes to each other, only hindered by the small impediment that we never knew exactly where the mountains and rivers and lakes were. Lord Salisbury

It’s common knowledge that the territories of African countries are an inheritance of colonial rule. These territories correspond to the borders between the old colonial empires, which in turn were the result of occupation, aggression, imperialism and balance of power politics. The “scramble for Africa” resulted in a partition of the continent that took little notice of ethnic groups or pre-colonial African states and that has survived the end of colonialism:

[T]he “Scramble for Africa” … started with the Berlin Conference of 1884–85 and was completed by the turn of the 20th century. In this brief period, the prospective colonisers partitioned Africa into spheres of influence, protectorates, colonies, and free-trade areas. The borders were designed in European capitals at a time when Europeans had barely settled in Africa with little knowledge of the geography and ethnic composition of the areas whose borders they were designing. Despite their arbitrariness these boundaries endured after African independence. As a result, in most African countries a significant fraction (around 40-45%) of the population belongs to groups that have been partitioned by a national border. (source)

However, before we get into the story about the link between this historic fact and current ethnic troubles in Africa, I have to make a few general remarks about borders and diversity. All countries, not just those in Africa, are culturally and ethnically diverse. They are all the product of aggression and none of them correspond to divisions between ethnic groups. And this diversity is not in itself a problem. On the contrary: diversity is good because it helps to promote tolerance and it enriches our thinking and feeling. Purity, on the other hand, leads to exclusion and expulsion. The ideal of national purity is therefore not acceptable.

It follows that political states which do not perfectly align with pre-existing ethnic or national communities are not, by definition, problematic. And neither are they “unnatural”. If anything, ethnic diversity is the natural condition of states.

At the same time, we have to admit that national or ethnic groups may desire national self-determination and a state of their own, separate from other groups. This desire may spring from a history of hostility between groups, a hostility which is believed to endanger the cultural, linguistic or ethnic survival of groups. In extreme cases, this hostility leads to more than just difficult cohabitation and results in separatist conflict and civil war. To some extent, this is also the case in Africa. With the emphasis on “also”.

We should also remember that well-functioning democracies can deal with such problems, to a certain extent, and can do so a lot better than alternative forms of government. A democracy protects minority rights, religious freedom, tolerance and local self-government. The idea that a strong government is necessary to keep hostile groups from attacking each other is a myth. Violent suppression of antagonism will only make it worse in the long run.

However, those democratic solutions may not always prevent extreme hostilities between ethnic groups within a political state. Hence, secession or other ways of redrawing borders may be necessary.

The fact that many African countries have their fair share of ethnic conflict is, in part, the consequence of dysfunctional or absent democratic governance, but also of the history of colonialism. The colonial powers imposed the borders of African countries without consulting the populations or their leaders. These powers had neither self-determination nor peaceful coexistence in mind, only their own interests. African national liberation movements took those borders as given and had no interest in questioning them, which was understandable given the risks of conflicts with newly independent neighboring countries.

Because African borders cut across ethnic lines, politics in many African countries has, to this day, a strong ethnic and tribal component. (But, again, the same is true in many countries outside Africa). When combined with dysfunctional or absent democratic governance, tribal politics often leads to violence: minority ethnic groups feel excluded from power or discriminated in other ways; ethnic brethren in neighboring countries may feel the need to intervene; and so on. Difficult to say which is the dominant cause: 19th century map drawing or bad governance, or perhaps something else entirely, such poverty, resources or crime.

When we look at governance, the Europeans share part of the blame for present-day authoritarianism in Africa:

Africans often didn’t live in anything like the absolutist ethnic states which Europeans wanted them to live in — which would have made it easier to govern them [and extract labor and resources] — so Europeans colonial administrators worked very hard to create absolutist ethnic tribal groups and then force Africans to live in them. This is not to say that ethnicity didn’t exist before colonization; that sort of generalization is also hard to sustain, as most continental level generalizations are. But the general rule was that the sort of political state which was suited for organizing and controlling a population’s labor and resources did not exist before colonial rule, and had to be invented, and was, by Europeans. (source)

And Europeans also share part of the blame for the role of ethnicity in present-day conflicts. Not only did they draw the borders without regard for ethnicity, they in a sense enhanced the importance of ethnicity in Africa:

“Gikuyu,” for example, means “farmer,” and it distinguished the people (in what is now Kenya) who lived by farming, and took a pride in it, from the people who lived a more pastoral life in the same area, and spoke a different language. But the groups intermarried, crossed over, and traded with each other when they felt like it, and neither was a single political group anyway; there was no Maasai state or nation, nor was there a Gikuyu nation. That is, until Europeans — with their maps and censuses — decided that there was, and codified it into colonial law. After that, there were such “ethnic” groups. (source)

Not surprising then that there’s authoritarianism and tribalism in Africa today. However, there’s more than that. The colonial experience and the colonial need for authoritarian government created long running authoritarian national structures as well as national feelings and “peoples”, despite the artificial nature of African states. That’s why there are strong feelings of patriotism across ethnic groups in most African countries. Again, just like anywhere else in the world.

So, with this bit of context, I hope we can avoid simplistic and monocausal narratives about artificial African countries torn apart by ancient tribalism, and about the long term effects of 19th century map drawing by ignorant and self-interested Europeans. A lot of other stuff also explains current violence in Africa, and Africans aren’t simply tribalists.

But still, we have to acknowledge that map drawing and tribalism does explain something. This paper (also here) shows

how arbitrary border decisions have affected war and civil unrest in Africa, particularly among split ethnic groups and their neighbors. Not surprisingly, the length of a conflict and its casualty rate is 25 percent higher in areas where an ethnicity is divided by a national border as opposed to areas where ethnicities have a united homeland. Examples of divided (and conflicted) groups are the Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania, and the Anyi of Ghana and the Ivory Coast. The conflict rate is also higher for people living in areas close to ethnic-partitioned hot-spots. … Using a 1959 ethnic homeland map from ethnolinguist George Peter Murdock, the authors studied African conflicts from 1970 – 2005 (the “post-independence period”) and found that “civil conflict is concentrated in the historical homeland of partitioned ethnicities.” (source)

ethnic homeland map from ethnolinguist George Peter Murdock, merged with map of current national borders, showing partitioned ethnicities

(source, click image to enlarge)

Here’s a more detailed version of the Murdock map:

1959 ethnic homeland map from ethnolinguist George Peter Murdock

(source)

And here’s a simplified version of the ethnic map of Africa:

ethnolinguistic groups and national borders in Africa

(source, click image to enlarge)

The following map shows that African borders correspond less to ethnicity than borders in most other parts of the world:

Average number of ethnic links to a neighbouring country

(source)

More about Africa here. More human rights maps here.

Human Rights Maps (173): Migrant Boat Tragedy Off the Coast of Libya

In the early spring of 2011, in the middle of the conflict in Libya, 72 desperate sub-Saharan men, women and children tried to get to Lampedusa. Instead, they were left to die in a small, overcrowded inflatable rubber dinghy as their calls for help went unheeded. When things first started to go wrong and fuel and food supplies were dwindling, a call was made from a satellite phone to Father Zerai, a contact person whose number they had been given in case of an emergency and who subsequently notified the Italian coast guard. By that time, the boat was drifting with little fuel left and taking in water. The phone call enabled the Italian coast guard to establish the boat’s location. A helicopter was sent to drop some drinking water and food.

The boat was now drifting in the middle of the Mediterranean. Rough waters threw some people overboard and currents sent the boat back to Libya. Fishing boats in the vicinity ignored the vessel. On the 5th day at sea, people started dying onboard. A large military vessel also failed to assist. On the 15th day, only 11 people were still alive. On April 10th, the boat stranded on the Libyan coast. The 11 survivors were arrested. One died in custody due to lack of care.

Here’s an animated map depicting the events:

(source)

Those who ignored the boat could possibly be facing judicial action.

More on migration and Libya. More human rights maps.

Human Rights Maps (172): Africa as an Exploding Skull

I don’t know what this is supposed to represent, but it’s probably some form of commentary on Africa’s “exploding” problems:

Fernando Vicente's "Craneo" map of Africa

(source, source)

Here’s another version:

(source, source)

If it’s a denunciation of Africa’s problems, then I have to say it’s a bad case of overacting. As if everywhere in Africa life is horribly miserable, brutal and short. In fact, things are looking up.

This one, by the same artist, is even more offensive:

(source)

More prejudiced maps here, here and here. More human rights maps in general are here.

Human Rights Maps (171): U.S. Military Intervention

U.S. military intervention abroad isn’t necessarily incompatible with respect for human rights. Sometimes it’s the only means to stop large scale violations. While military intervention always means imposing a certain level of harm on the local population, it’s possible to argue that in some cases intervention results in a net benefit. WWII could be viewed as belonging to this category of cases. Had the U.S. intervened in the Rwandan genocide, that could also have been a net benefit even if many Rwandans had died in the process. Of course, there are strict limitations to this kind of calculus – normally, it’s not OK to kill two in order to save three. However, in catastrophic circumstances, some sacrifices are probably morally acceptable if they are necessary to save thousands or even millions. That’s even more true if those who are sacrificed are responsible for the harm that triggered the intervention. (More on so-called humanitarian intervention here).

The argument that foreign intervention is necessary in order to protect the rights of U.S. citizens at home is somewhat harder to make. That was the rationale for the invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq, but those probably did not help to reduce the terror threat at home. Perhaps the contrary was the case. And if you count the harm done to the invaded populations – as you should – then the net result is clearly negative, even if the invasions did succeed in reducing the terror threat in the U.S.

Furthermore, very few if any of all the military interventions ever carried out by the U.S. – either before or during the War on Terror - were meant to protect anyone’s human rights – neither those of Americans, not those of the people in the invaded countries. The central concerns were about spheres of interest, balance of power, economic profit etc., and the usual outcome was a human rights disaster.

Those interventions were numerous, especially if you add the quasi-military ones, namely those that involved support for local guerillas, assassinations etc. Many interventions had long-lasting effects: military bases were established, autocrats received military training and long-term financial support and so on. In fact, there have been so many interventions that they can’t all fit on a single map, unless you want to have something awful like this. Here’s a better map showing some of the American interventions in one part of the world:

map of US interventions in Latin America

(source, click image to enlarge)

Here’s a map from an earlier period in history, just to show that this is nothing new:

(source, click image to enlarge)

The number of troops or military bases abroad is another way to represent the extent of U.S. intervention in the world:

(source, the sharp increase in the late 60s is of course due to the Vietnam war, the sharp decline in the early 90s follows the fall of the Iron Curtain)

US military bases abroad

(source, click image to enlarge)

Here’s a map of US military bases in the Middle East:

(source)

More maps on international intervention are here. More human rights maps in general here.

Related articles

• Human Rights Maps (158): Women with Unmet Need for Family Planning (filipspagnoli.wordpress.com)
• Human Rights Maps (153): Female Life Expectancy in the U.S. (filipspagnoli.wordpress.com)

Human Rights Maps (170): Hate Crime Rates

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What drives hate crime? Some say it’s poverty, and this seems to be corroborated by the following map:

(source)

On the other hand, the data here paint a different picture.

More data on hate crime here. More hate crime maps here. More human rights maps in general here.

Human Rights Maps (169): Legislation Prohibiting Employment Discrimination on the Basis of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

Anti-discrimination legislation tends to become more inclusive over time, in two ways:

• more groups enjoy protection against discrimination (the disabled, transsexuals, older people, short people etc.) and
• discrimination becomes illegal in more social settings (employment, trade etc.).

I’ll focus here on employment discrimination, and more specifically discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Employment Discrimination laws seek to prevent discrimination based on race, sex, religion, national origin, physical disability, and age by employers. A growing body of law also seeks to prevent employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. Discriminatory practices include bias in hiring, promotion, job assignment, termination, compensation, retaliation, and various types of harassment. (source)

In the U.S., many states have laws that protect all public employees against employment discrimination, including discrimination of people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Many large cities and other localities have similar rules. A minority of states ban this type of discrimination in private employment: 21 states plus DC have laws banning discrimination in private employment that also cover sexual orientation, and 15 plus DC have laws that also cover gender identity.

Here’s a map showing those 21 and 15 states:

Legislation prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and Gender Identity in private employment

(source)

And here’s a map showing legislation covering both private and public employment:

Legislation Prohibiting Employment Discrimination on the Basis of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

(source)

An interesting new development: employers seem to be discriminating against the unemployed. When evaluating candidates for positions, employers prefer to hire someone who already has a job elsewhere. They often even announce in their job postings that they don’t hire applicants who aren’t currently working. Unemployed candidates, even if they have the same qualifications, are refused because their current lack of a job is supposed to signal laziness or other disqualifying characteristics. Some therefore propose to include also discrimination of the unemployed in legislation prohibiting employment discrimination. Others think that would be a bad idea subjecting businesses to frivolous lawsuits every time an unemployed person fails to get a job.

More on discrimination here. More human rights maps here.

Human Rights Maps (168): Countries That Have Ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women

Another sign that human rights are becoming the morality of the world:

Participation in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women

However, international law may be no more than window-dressing, at least in this case. In large parts of the world, national law does not conform to the obligation of CEDAW or it’s not enforced when it conforms:

(source, click images to enlarge)

(source)

More maps on country participation in international human rights instruments are here. More human rights maps in general are here.

Human Rights Maps (167): Hate Crime Laws

I’ve expressed my views on hate crime laws many times before, and I don’t want to rehash the old arguments: that it’s wrong to equate hate crime laws with hate speech laws, that there is no free speech, freedom of thought or freedom of religion problem here etc. So let’s cut to the chase.

Here are the States of the US that have hate crime laws covering crimes motivated by race, religion or ethnicity:

blue: presence of hate crime laws covering crimes motivated by race, religion or ethnicity, dd Oct 2009

(source)

An interesting question is to what extent the concept of hate crime should be open to modification: when is it appropriate or necessary to include new groups? Whereas a lot of hate crime legislation is limited to attacks on racial or religious groups, other laws include sexual orientation and gender identity, in which case homosexuals and transgendered people enjoy added protection:

hate crime legislation including secual orientation and gender identity

(source)

(source)

(source, click image to enlarge)

Data on Europe are below:

hate crime laws incl. sexual orientation in Romania, Croatia & Greece

(source, the full version of this map is here)

Another hate crime map here. More human rights maps here.

Human Rights Maps (166): Killing Fields

These are the locations of prisons and burial sites during the Cambodian genocide:

(source)

This more or less tracks population density:

(source)

Meaning that the genocide was pretty much everywhere, something that’s also represented in this strange map (inspired by the iconic skull images of the Killing Fields):

(source)

More human rights maps here.

Human Rights Maps (165): Some of the World’s Most Fortified Borders

All national borders are the locus of strict enforcement: there is no country on earth where foreigners can just come in as they wish, and all states are eager to defend the integrity and completeness of their territory and the security of their citizens against attacks by other states or by terrorist infiltrators. Some authoritarian states also use force to keep their people inside their territory.

However, certain borders are fortified more than others. The US-Mexican border, the India-Pakistan border, the separation wall between Israel and the Palestinian territories, and the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea are among the places where the toughest national security and anti-movement policies are in force. Below are some maps and aerial images that illustrate the extent of these policies.

The US-Mexican border

The US is constructing a border fence in order to stop illegal Mexican immigrants - as well as “terrorists” according to some. This fence currently covers about a third of the border. Right wing politicians want to expand it, even though the non-fenced areas are so remote or rugged as to make a fence pointless or impractical. Together with drone aircraft, helicopters, video surveillance, seismic sensors, infrared sensors, private vigilantes and thousands of border patrol guards in all-terrain vehicles and on horse-back, it has indeed driven down the numbers of illegal immigrants – although the recession has also done its bit.

(source, click image to enlarge)

(source, more on SBInet here)

aerial photo of border at Imperial Beach, CA

(source)

The India-Pakistan border

The border between these two countries is hotly contested, especially in the region of Kashmir. India is also wary of terrorist infiltration along the entire border. Sometimes called the “Berlin Wall of Asia”, the border has only one road crossing. Half of the border is floodlit, and hence can be seen from space:

India Pakistan border as seen from the International Space Station (southern part to the right side of this image)

(source)

India Pakistan border as seen from the International Space Station (northern part on the left side of this image)

(source)

(source)

The separation wall between Israel and the Palestinian territories

To so-called Westbank Barrier between the West Bank and Israel will be approximately 760 kilometres upon completion. In some places it’s a concrete wall. 12% of the West Bank area is on the Israel side of the barrier, meaning that parts of the occupied territories captured by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967 are now “in Israel”. The main rationale for the barrier is protection against terrorist incursions, specifically by suicide bombers. The barrier severely disrupts free movement in the Westbank as well as access to Israel for Palestinians working there. Some Jewish settlers, on the other hand, condemn the barrier for appearing to renounce the Jewish claim to the whole of the “Land of Israel”.

(source)

(source)

The DMZ between North and South Korea

Since the end of the Korean war, there’s a country-wide demilitarized zone between the two Koreas, cutting the Korean Peninsula roughly in half along the 38th parallel. It’s 250 kilometres long – plus extensions into the sea – and approximately 4 km wide. It’s the most heavily militarized border in the world.

Korean dmz map

(source)

The South has discovered four tunnels crossing the DMZ, dug by North Korea. The North claimed they were for coal mining but no coal has been found in the tunnels, which are dug through granite. Some of the tunnel walls have been painted black to give the appearance of anthracite. Not very cunning. The tunnels are believed to have been planned as military invasion routes.

The border is visible from space at night, not because it’s floodlit but because of the large difference in electricity use between the prosperous South and the impoverished North:

(source)

And, no, it’s not dark because they’re all building tunnels…

All these borders are sad reminders of humanity’s penchant for xenophobia, exclusion, parochialism, national hostility and war. And a testimony to almost universally shared misconceptions about property rights over the earth, about freedom of movement and about the value of diversity and equal opportunity.

More human rights maps here. More on satellite images and human rights here.

Human Rights Maps (164): Largest Chinese and Indian Immigrant Communities

More than 60 million Chinese and more than 20 million Indians live abroad. If all of the world’s migrants from all nationalities would form a separate nation, it would be the world’s fifth-largest.

Largest Chinese and Indian immigrant communities

(source)

Another version, only for China:

(interactive version here)

Within the US, this is the distribution of the Chinese population:

Percent Chinese population by US county

(source, the same map for the Indian population is here)

Also interesting, but without information about the origin of the migrants:

(source)

Amsterdam	Netherlands
Auckland	New Zealand
Brussels	Belgium
Dubai	United Arab Emirates
Frankfurt	Germany
Hong Kong	China
Jerusalem	Israel
Jiddah	Saudi Arabia
London	United Kingdom
Los Angeles	USA
Medina	Saudi Arabia
Melbourne	Australia
Miami	USA
Muscat	Oman
New York	USA
Perth	Australia
Riyadh	Saudi Arabia
San Francisco	USA
San Jose	USA
Singapore	Singapore
Sydney	Australia
Tbilisi	Georgia
Tel Aviv	Israel
Toronto	Canada
Vancouver	Canada

If you’re wondering in what sense immigration is a human rights issue, go here, here and here. More maps on immigration are here. More human rights maps in general are here.

Human Rights Maps (163): Food Security and Food Spending

The Food Security Risk Index (FSRI), released by Maplecroft, is a combination of 12 indicators, measuring the availability, access and stability of food supplies across all countries, as well as the nutritional and health status of populations. Risk factors include conflict, displacement, low capacity to combat the effects of extreme weather events such as drought, water shortages, land degradation, prevalence of poverty and failing infrastructures undermining both food production and emergency food distribution capacity. In 2011, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo ranked lowest in the world:

Food Security Risk Index map 2011

(source, click image to enlarge)

A somewhat related map, showing the percentages of food spending in total spending:

(source, source, click image to enlarge)

In general, a higher percentage means more average poverty. And also higher vulnerability. If you spend 50% rather than only 10% of your income on food, you’ll be hit much harder by price hikes or income loss. And, as a result, your food supply is much more insecure.

Maps on hunger here and here. More human rights maps here.

Human Rights Maps (162): Apprehensions of Illegal Immigrants at the US-Mexico Border

A combination of better law enforcement and an economic recession has resulted in a steep decline of illegal immigration from Mexico to the US. One way to measure illegal immigration is to extrapolate on the basis of the number of Border Patrol apprehensions. These went down fast, as is shown by this map:

(source)

Here are the total numbers:

(source)

I personally regret this since I’m in favor of open borders (see here). If it’s the recession that drives down illegal immigration, then that means an increase in poverty or at least an absence of a decrease. And if it’s border apprehensions that drive it down, then that means a violation of people’s freedom of movement, freedom of association etc.

More about the recession and immigration here and here. More immigration maps and statistics. Something on the measurement of the number of illegal immigrants here. More human rights maps here.

Human Rights Maps (161): Early 20th Century Views on Civilization

“The Degree of Civilization To-Day”, from “Civilization,” The World Book, 1920

(source)

Another version of the same map, less legible I’m afraid:

Ellsworth Huntington’s map of general progress

(source)

And here’s a somewhat earlier map from 1837, showing the “moral and political” composition of the world (by engraver William C. Woodbridge):

(source, click image to enlarge)

A zoom of the legend:

(a high resol

There’s some overlap between the two maps, but many areas of the world are viewed differently.

More on colonialism, prejudice, parochialism and progress. More human rights maps here.

Human Rights Maps (160): Gun Crime in the U.S. in 2010

(source)

More data on violence here. Some similar maps are here. More about gun rights here and here. More human rights maps here.

Human Rights Maps (159): Death Row in the U.S.

(source)

More data on death row are here. More maps here.

Human Rights Maps (158): Women with Unmet Need for Family Planning

The map below shows the percentage of fertile women of reproductive age (15 to 49 years) who are married or in a consensual union, who are not using contraception, and who report that they do not want children or want their next child with a delay of two years or more:

(source)

Women who have unwanted children may not be able to fully enjoy several of their human rights: they may have to abandon their education or quit their job, and they may be forced to marry someone. Education, work and marriage are all human rights.

More human rights maps here.

Human Rights Maps (157): Homicide in NYC is Primarily a Problem of and for Male African Americans

Apparently, it’s more dangerous to be a male black person in NYC than a person of any other race or gender:

(source, where you can find an interactive version of these maps)

African Americans represent only 25% of NYCs population, but 61% of murder victims. The racial distribution of the perpetrators is strikingly similar to the racial distribution of the victims; and men are not only the main victims but also the perpetrators in 92% of cases.

A note of caution: correlation doesn’t imply causation. In this case, this means that the race of most of the perpetrators shouldn’t lead you to the conclusion that black people are more likely to engage in murder because they are black. A third element, hidden in the correlation and more common among blacks, is most probably the cause of the high murder rate (perhaps poverty). In which case, distorted homicide rates may be a symptom of racism and discrimination.

Another note of caution: a common feature of a lot of statistical data in map form is that they exaggerate the prevalence of the phenomenon that is measured, and so it is with these images of murder in NYC. The town is full of it, if you can believe the images. But that’s obviously not true. 500 or so homicides per year, on a total population of 8 million, amounts to one murder per 16.000 people, only slightly higher than the 1 in 18.000 for the US nationwide (it’s not surprising that it’s higher for a densely populated urban area).

Also, the numbers have trended downwards in NYC:

(source)

Apparently the same pattern can be seen in Chicago:

(source)

And Washington DC as well – data are here:

(source, where you can find an interactive version)

More maps on violence are here, and more human rights maps in general are here.

Human Rights Maps (156): Progress on the Millennium Development Goals

Here’s an overview of the countries that have progressed most in terms of the 1st, 4th and 5th Millennium Development Goals (respectively: reduce the number of people living on less that $1.25 a day, reduce under age 5 mortality rate and increase the number of births attended by skilled personnel):

(source, these are the countries that have improved by the largest margins compared to the initial measurement, regardless of their initial conditions or initial distance from the targets)

More on the MDGs here. More human rights maps here.

Human Rights Maps (155): Legally Required Paid Annual Leave

Leisure is a human right (see here). You can laugh about that, but then you probably don’t work in slave-like conditions.

mandated paid annual leave

(source)

(source)

More maps on labor conditions are here.

Human Rights Maps (154): Journalists in Prison

(source, where you can find an interactive version of the map with precise country data)

Another version is here:

(source, where you can also find an interactive version of the map with precise country data)

Those numbers seem to be a bit low, in my opinion. Probably they only include the officially recognized cases and governments that incarcerate journalists aren’t eager to admit that they do. A related map is here. More human rights maps here.

Human Rights Maps (153): Female Life Expectancy in the U.S.

Although national rates of life expectancy for American men and women have risen over the last two decades, women in many parts of the U.S. are now living less long than 25 years ago:

(source, click image to enlarge)

This may be a symptom of bad lifestyles or unhealthy habits, but it may also be caused by deficient healthcare, poverty, a lack of education, gender discrimination etc., in which case it becomes a human rights issue (living standard, health and education are human rights).

This is the same map for men:

(source, click image to enlarge)

Only in very few places has life expectancy for men decreased. The fact that the same isn’t true for women indicates that there’s something more going on than just lifestyles and the habit choices. After all, women’s lifestyles aren’t particularly more self-destructive than men’s.

More maps on life expectancy and health. More human rights maps.

Human Rights Maps (152): Union Membership in the U.S.

First a word about the reasons why union membership is a human rights issue. Article 23 if the Universal Declaration states:

Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

However, union membership is not only a right in itself, but also a prerequisite for other rights, such as good labor conditions, equal pay (see also art. 23), the right to strike (art. 8 of the International Covenant) etc. The right to union membership is also a special case of the freedom of association (art. 20 of the Universal Declaration). Obviously, none of this implies that labor unions are inherently beneficial, that the right to strike is absolute and so on.

It’s well-known that union membership was never very widespread in the U.S. and has been declining steadily:

(source, I must say I’m a bit surprised to see France here at the bottom)

Here’s a map:

(source)

Apart from the right to be a member of a union, there’s also the separate right to engage in collective bargaining (negotiations between employers and the representatives of a unit of employees aimed at reaching agreements which regulate working conditions). However, it’s a lot more difficult to engage in collective bargaining if unions are practically non-existent. Here’s a map about collective bargaining rights in the U.S. public sector:

(source)

More human rights maps here.

Human Rights Maps (151): Child Poverty in the U.K.

(source)

Manchester and the London borough of Tower Hamlets have the highest proportion, with 27%. More than 20% of children also experienced severe poverty in Birmingham and Liverpool. There are a total of 1.6 million severely poor children in the UK. Severe poverty in the UK means an income less than half the average income (a relative measure therefore). More about poverty in the UK here.

More maps on child poverty are here. More maps on poverty in general are here. And more human rights maps are here

Human Rights Maps (150): The Spread of the Printing Press in 15th Century Europe

cities with printing 1450-1500

(source, click on the image if the animation doesn’t start)

It’s easy to forget in our internet-age when printing may be on its way out, but Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the movable type printing press in the middle of the 15th century started a revolution in freedom of speech. Access to and dissemination of information was no longer the privilege of an elite.

From a single point of origin in Mainz in Germany, printing spread within several decades to hundreds of cities in many European countries. By 1500, printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million volumes. In the 16th century, with presses spreading further afield, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies. It’s impossible to tell how many copies there are in the world today – some say more than 3 billion. According to Google Books, more than 130.000.000 books have been published.

The printing revolution not only promoted freedom of speech but also boosted the democratization of knowledge, undermined the power of political and religious authorities, improved education, and laid the material basis for the modern knowledge-based economy and for rapid improvements in prosperity. The latter effect was already evident at the start of the printing revolution:

economic growth was higher by as much as 60 percentage points in cities that adopted the technology. (source)

A similar map that looks at the spread of printing across Europe in the 1400s (the animation below shows the number and location of printed works by year):

(source)

More human rights maps here.

Human Rights Maps (149): Freedom of the Internet

Lots of authoritarian regimes impose restrictions on the types of information their citizens can access or publish on the internet. Some countries systematically limit the available websites, and others only do so when their citizens use the internet to organize protest actions (as was recently the case in Iran, Tunisia and Egypt).

China is often criticized for its large-scale and systematic filtering (dubbed the Great Firewall of China), but the phenomenon is relatively widespread. Here are some maps showing the extent of internet censorship:

internet filtering of social content

internet filtering of security content

internet filtering of political content

(source, where you can also find more detailed information)

And this is the index of Reporters Without Borders:

reporters without borders map of internet censorship

And the 2011 version:

map of internet censorship

(source)

More data on this are here and here. More on free speech and the internet is here. Something about the related topic of internet access rights is here. More human rights maps in general are here.

Related Articles

• In Egypt: Access denied – Washington Post (news.google.com)
• Online Censorship Grows in 2010, Showing Power of Netizens (pbs.org)
• Is Internet access a human right? (technolog.msnbc.msn.com)

Human Rights Maps (148): The Right to Internet Access

(source)

The right to internet access is obviously not a widely recognized right yet, but should it be? As a rule, we should avoid rights inflation because creating new rights dissolves the importance of rights in general. However, in this case we may be able to argue that a right to internet access is necessary for the protection and realization of other, existing rights. I’m thinking of course of the right to free speech – maybe also the right to association or education, but I guess it will be a lot harder to make the case that the internet is necessary for those rights.

So let’s take a look at free speech. I think it’s useful for present purposes to break this right down into two parts. The right to free speech is in fact the aggregate of two distinct rights:

• the right to freely express yourself, and
• the right to receive information (which is the right to read and hear the free expressions of others).

Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is explicit about this:

Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice [my emphasis].

This clearly encompasses the two elements of free speech. It also makes it illegal to prohibit the use of the internet for free speech because it mentions all media. However, the right to freely use the internet for speech is different from the right to have internet access; I’ll come back to that in a moment.

Now let’s see how it can be argued that these two rights, expression and information, require the right to internet access. Normally, the right to free expression doesn’t include a right to the means of expression. Suppose I lose my vocal cords in an accident or because of a disease. That doesn’t undermine my right to free speech, and this right doesn’t create a derivative right to the possession of vocal cords. That’s the case because if I can’t speak I can still write and express myself in other ways.

So that doesn’t seem promising. However, one could argue that things are different with the internet, and that the internet has become so important that it overwhelms all other means of speech. It has, therefore, become a necessary condition for free speech because free speech would be meaningless without the internet. I’m not sure we’re quite there yet, but it’s not a silly argument. Losing access to the internet or never having had access isn’t quite the same as losing other, more traditional means of speech. Falling back on those other means when the internet is not available does render freedom of speech much less meaningful and the consequences of the loss or absence of internet access aren’t comparable to the loss of vocal cords.

The same argument can be made for the other part of the right to free speech, namely the right to receive information. And it’s probably even stronger in that case because people depend even more on the internet for their information requirements than for their expressive needs.

What about internet censorship (also known as internet filtering)? As I’ve said, that’s a different although obviously related matter. Internet censorship means that a government actively intervenes to violate people’s right to free speech on the internet (given article 19). In the case of internet access, on the other hand, we have a government failing to act and to provide the means to use a right. Of course, a government intent on censoring the internet can do so by failing to provide internet access (take the recent case of the Egyptian government blocking the entire internet as a means to stop protests), and that would be just as effective as content censorship. Likewise, a government that doesn’t want to censor the internet but fails to provide access because of other reasons (ineptitude or lack or resources for example) merely produces the same result as a government that does censor.

Still, it’s useful to distinguish the two rights: the right to use the internet for expression and information gathering (an existing right, see article 19) and the right to have internet access (not as yet a recognized right in most parts of the world) are clearly not the same thing, even if the results of respecting or violating these rights can be the same.

This reminds me of the eternal misunderstanding about negative and positive rights, and about how only the former are real rights. So let me repeat, all rights are both negative and positive in the sense that they all require both forbearance by the state and positive action by the state. Take the case we’re discussing here: the right to freedom of speech on the  internet does not only require that the government abstains from censorship; it also requires of the government that it actively intervenes to stop private censorship (for example, there have been cases in which internet providers favored certain sites above others). Conversely, the “new” right to internet access does not just require positive action from the government; for example, the government, when setting up a system of universal access, should abstain from according the provider contract to a provider monopoly because that would inflate prices and hamper universal access.

However, from the fact that these two rights – free speech on the internet and free access to the internet – are both negative and positive rights doesn’t follow that there’s no difference between them. They are clearly different rights.

Here’s what the public thinks about the right to internet access:

(source)

And this is how much work countries still need to do when such a right is enacted:

(source)

Here’s another version of this map (click to enlarge):

(source)

This map juxtaposes population density and internet access (populated places in blue, about 350,000 locations of IP addresses in red, and white dots indicate places where many people live and many IP addresses are available):

(source, where you can find a higher resolution image)

More human rights maps here.

Related Articles

• Is Internet access a human right? (technolog.msnbc.msn.com)
• In Egypt: Access denied – Washington Post (news.google.com)
• How Egypt shut down the internet (telegraph.co.uk)
• Twitter co-founder: Freedom of expression is a human right (latimesblogs.latimes.com)

Human Rights Maps (147): Casualties in the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars Between 2004 and 2010

Based on the Wikileaks data, this map by Max Braun dramatizes the number of casualties by way of “drops of blood” on the location of each casualty:

casualties in the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars Between 2004 and 2010

(source)

It’s obviously an exaggeration. And there’s nothing wrong with that in this case because it’s clear that the map doesn’t intend to convey statistically accurate information, although it is based on it (see here). The exaggeration is a deliberate tool in the dramatization of the wars, and that’s OK because war is tragic. However, exaggeration often occurs in statistics – meaning in forms of communication meant to convey accurate information. And then it’s a problem. There’s an example here.

Statistics in map form are particularly vulnerable to this: putting events on a map quickly overloads the map and gives the impression that a phenomenon is much more common than it really is. Take for instance the map below, which makes it look like the U.S. and especially the east of the U.S. is inundated by hate crime groups:

map of hate crime groups

(source)

This can give an altogether misleading message.

Similar maps about casualties in the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars are here, here and here. More human rights maps in general are here. More on the war on terror is here.

Related Articles

• “Wikileaks Iraq War Logs on Google Maps” and related posts (googlemapsmania.blogspot.com)
• U.S. military says 77,000 Iraqis killed over 5 years (ctv.ca)
• Pixelating the Casualties in Iraq (infosthetics.com)

Human Rights Maps (146): Income Inequality

(source)

Well, it’s not really a map, or not really a real map, but I found it telling. And this is what the “map” looks like when we use some actual figures about U.S. corporate profits and compensation (but a similar pattern occurs in other developed countries):

(source)

Corporate profits are doing just fine, and are even better than before the recession. Workers’ compensation, on the other hand, has at best been stagnant:

(source)

Add to that the unemployment figures, and you have a nice downward slope. The “map” hints at “going under water”, and that’s about right for many of us.

More serious and more informative maps about income inequality are here, here, here and here. More on the link between income inequality and human rights is here. More data on income inequality are here. Something in the recession is here, and here are more human rights maps.

Related Articles

• Inequality, A Collection of Images (2) (filipspagnoli.wordpress.com)
• Human Rights Facts (211): U.S. Public Opinion on Income Inequality (filipspagnoli.wordpress.com)
• The Causes of Wealth Inequality (12): Immigration (filipspagnoli.wordpress.com)
• Income inequality in Toronto (ekonometrics.blogspot.com)
• Would income inequality result in higher mortality rates for the poor? (ekonometrics.blogspot.com)

Human Rights Maps (145): Urbanization in Africa

(source)

(source)

Lagos and Cairo are Africa’s largest cities. A third of Africa’s 1 billion inhabitants currently live in urban areas, 70% of those in slum conditions. Similar data for the world are here. Here’s another version:

(source, click image to enlarge)

More on urbanization, slums and overpopulation. More maps.

Related Articles

• Lagos to overtake Cairo as Africa’s most populous city (vanguardngr.com)
• Africa warned of ‘slum’ cities danger as its population passes 1bn (guardian.co.uk)
• How Africa ‘can feed itself’ (bbc.co.uk)
• The fight to stem Africa’s rural exodus (cnn.com)
• Population of African cities to triple: Get the data (guardian.co.uk)

Human Rights Maps (144): The “Criminal Immigrant” Stereotype

I’ve argued many times before that the link between immigration and crime is a particularly nasty piece of political cynicism and populism, completely fact-free but unfortunately not devoid of harmful consequences. Three different groups suffer these consequences:

• potential migrants who have beneficial opportunities taken away from them
• existing migrants who are unfairly targeted by law enforcement
• and the native populations who also can’t benefit from increased immigration.

Here’s one sickening cartoon in map form, claiming that Mexico, following the example of Colombia, is drowning in blood, and that the blood is spilling across the border, when in fact immigration reduces crime rates:

(source)

More maps on migration are here. More human rights maps in general are here.

Human Rights Maps (143): Hiroshima Bomb Damage

Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki, with roughly half of the deaths in each city occurring on the first day. Of the people who died on the day of the explosion, 60% died from flash or flame burns, 30% from falling debris and 10% from other causes. During the following months, large numbers died from the effect of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness. In both cities, most of the dead were civilians.

In Hiroshima, the radius of total destruction was about one mile (1.6 km), with resulting fires across 4.4 square miles (11 square km). The residents of Hiroshima were given no notice of the atomic bomb.

Map of the damage inflicted by the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima

(source)

Let’s focus on the area near ground zero, the hypocenter of the explosion, which is this part of the map above (the green lines are the rivers):

Below are a few 3D maps/maquettes of this area – which obviously suffered the most destruction – taken from an exhibition in the Hiroshima museum. They show the area before and after the explosion. In each one, you can see the famous dome structure which has become iconic for the event (I marked it on the images).

the red mark on the left is the impact spot

From another viewpoint:

(source, source)

More on Hiroshima here, and on nuclear weapons here and here. More maps here.

Human Rights Maps (142): Countries That Have Ratified the International Convention Banning Cluster Bombs

(source)

Here’s a version that looks like it’s a bit more up-to-date:

(source, purple = ratifications, blue = signatories)

The convention,

banning the manufacture, use and stockpiling of cluster munitions, … came into force last year [2010], [and] has been signed by 108 countries and ratified by 60 of them [as of today, November 2011]. But 17 of the non-signatories continue to produce the weapons (see map below), and two have used them in conflict this year: Thailand during border clashes with Cambodia in February, and Libya under Muammar Qaddafi during the battle of Misrata in April. (source)

Cluster munition is a particularly horrible type of bomb that spreads large numbers of small bomblets over a wide area. Because of the aimlessness of the device, it poses high risks to civilians both during attacks and afterwards since many bomblets remain unexploded after they land. They kill or maim civilians long after a conflict has ended. Unexploded submunitions are costly to locate and remove. The UN estimates that 98% of victims of cluster munitions are civilians. More here.

More on the law of war, and more human rights maps.

Related Articles

• Cluster Bomb Ban Takes Effect Minus Support of Major Producers (waronterrornews.typepad.com)
• Cluster Bomb Ban Goes International Without U.S. (firedoglake.com)
• UN chief hails treaty banning cluster bombs (independent.co.uk)

Human Rights Maps (141): The American Indian Wars

19th century depiction of representatives of native American tribes

In remembrance of Custer’s Last Stand, which earlier this week was 135 years ago to the day, a few words and maps about the Indian wars. This is the name for the series of violent conflicts between the native peoples of North America and the colonial settlers assisted by the federal U.S. government, lasting roughly from the beginning of the 17th century till the end of the 19th. The European settlers wanted to open land for westward settlement, land that was often occupied by native Americans. Although initial contacts were normally friendly and peaceful, increased settlement and westward expansion provoked resistance on the part of the natives, who saw their lands and other resources taken away from them. This resistance was also caused by cultural differences as well as mutual feelings of superiority.

Cultural differences–the failure of each side to understand the assumptions of the other–led to frequent misunderstandings that in turn led to warfare. One of the most elementary forms of misunderstanding, for example, was the anger felt by the Indians over the colonists’ allowing their cattle and hogs to roam in unfenced freedom. The consequence was often the destruction of the Indians’ corn, which led to the Indians’ killing the offending animals, which led to retaliation by the settlers upon the Indians who had killed the animals, and so on. And too often those retaliating failed to discriminate between the Indians who were responsible for the “offense” and those who were not. (source)

Another example of cultural differences leading to conflicts:

[T]he northern Europeans made only limited use of Indian labor. Rather, they wanted land; if it had not been acquired through war or simple occupation, they sought to purchase it. But often the Indians assumed they were conferring on Europeans only the right to use the land without losing their own right to continue to use it for hunting, fishing, or gathering food. (source)

These cultural differences, together with other factors such as railroad expansion, new mining ventures, the destruction of the buffalo, the deliberate slaughter of Indian horses and the often barbaric attacks on both parts led to bad faith and escalations in hostilities. The settlers and the government regularly engaged in scorched-earth policies, the destruction of entire villages and the murder of women and children.

A turning point in the history of the Indian wars was the American Revolutionary War. Most native Americans perceived the colonial pioneers as a greater threat than the British government, and hence sided with the latter, a decision for which they would pay dearly after the war’s end.

For the American rebels the American Revolutionary War was essentially two parallel wars: while the war in the East was a struggle against British rule, the war in the West was an “Indian War”. The newly proclaimed United States competed with the British for control of Native American nations east of the Mississippi River. The colonial interest in westward colonization, as opposed to the British policy of maintaining peace, was one cause of the war. Most Native Americans who joined the struggle sided with the British, hoping to use the war to reduce settlement and expansion onto their land. The Revolutionary War was “the most extensive and destructive” Indian war in United States history. … When the British made peace with the Americans in the Treaty of Paris (1783), they ceded a vast amount of Native American territory (without the consent of the indigenous peoples) to the United States. The United States treated the Native Americans who had fought with the British as a conquered people who had lost their land. (source)

Other Indian wars soon followed (there a list here) and lasted until the end of the 19th century. The French, Russians and Spanish also fought Indian wars, but obviously not to the same extent as the Settlers and the U.S. government.

The wars resulted invariably in the conquest of native Americans, their assimilation or forced relocation to Indian reservations, and ultimately in the near-destruction of the indigenous peoples. There’s disagreement about the claim that the settlement of North America was a genocidal assault by more powerful intruders upon weaker, more “primitive” peoples. Conservative estimates put the total population of native Americans at about 8 million before the arrival of the Europeans. Although infectious diseases brought over by the Europeans were the overwhelming cause of the population decline of the American natives, many of the latter, probably tens of thousands, died a violent death during the Indian wars or the forced resettlement. The fact is that by the end of the Indian wars, at the end of the 19th century, only around 200.000 native Americans remained. Some say that the destruction of the tribes was largely involuntary because it resulted from the imported diseases for which the Indians had no immunity. Others point to widespread murder, the destruction of the Indian economy, and the forced removals. Also, if the Europeans brought diseases, they could have done something to protect the natives. They didn’t. Some even claim that there have been cases of groups of Indians being purposefully infected.

Here’ a map depicting some of the battles in the Indian wars:

A map of the Western United States showing the general location of tribes and the location of some army posts and battles.

(source, click image to enlarge)

Here’s an interesting artistic rendering of these events, in quasi-map form:

This painting shows "Manifest Destiny" (the religious belief that the United States should expand from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean in the name of God). In 1872 artist John Gast painted a popular scene of people moving west that captured the view of Americans at the time. Called "Spirit of the Frontier" and widely distributed as an engraving portrayed settlers moving west, guided and protected by Columbia, a goddess-like figure and aided by technology (railways, telegraphs), driving Native Americans, wild animals and bison into obscurity. Columbia leads civilization westward with American settlers, stringing telegraph wire as she travels; she holds a school book. It is also important to note that she is bringing the "light" as witnessed on the eastern side of the painting as she travels towards the "darkened" west.

(source)

See also this map about imperialism in North America. Other human rights maps are here.

Human Rights Maps (140): Poverty in the U.S.

Here’s a map of the number of people in the U.S. below the poverty line (year 2009):

(source, where you can view an interactive version of this map)

(source)

In total, around 14% of the population was considered poor in 2009. (Around 13% in 2008).

And these are the numbers for 2010:

(source)

Here’s another version:

(source)

Data for 2011:

(source)

Read more here about the way in which the poverty line in the U.S. is set and about some of the problems with the system. More maps about poverty in the U.S. are here, here and here. More data are here.

More human rights maps are here.

Human Rights Maps (139): Casualties in the War in Iraq, 2004-2009

The Wikileaks Iraq war logs have made it possible to map the occurrence of violent death during the Iraq war:

Wikileaks, mapping of Iraq war deaths

(source, where you can zoom in on the map)

This follows more or less closely the population density of Iraq, meaning that the war has been equally horrible for everyone, with the exception of some parts of the north of the country where violent death has been somewhat less common:

Iraq population density map

(source)

Some key figures:

• The Wikileaks database records 109,032 deaths in total, 66,081 civilians, 23,984 insurgents and 15,196 Iraqi security forces. Baghdad alone saw 45,497 casualties. Colation forces lost 3,771 soldiers in the period covered.
• There were 65,439 IED explosions (improvised explosive devices), resulting in 31,780 deaths. Another 44,620 IEDs were found and cleared.
• Here’s how some of these numbers evolved over time:

(source)

(source)

These numbers are probably low estimates because not every event is recorded.

Let’s focus on Baghdad for an instant, the epicenter of violence. December 2006 was the worst month. Below are the details of one of the city’s deadliest days, Dec. 20. There were 114 separate episodes of violence that day, resulting in the deaths of about 160 Iraqi citizens and police officers (an interactive version of the map is here).

(source, click image to enlarge)

More maps on Iraq here and here. More human rights maps in general are here.

Related Articles

• Iraq War logs released by Wikileaks shed new light (flowingdata.com)
• “Wikileaks Iraq War Logs – Part Two” and related posts (googlemapsmania.blogspot.com)

Human Rights Maps (138): Pornography Laws

Pornography is often framed as a free speech issue. This map shows where adult consumption of pornography is legal or not:

(source, click image to enlarge)

More on pornography and free speech here and here, more on obscenity and free speech here. More maps here.

Human Rights Maps (137): The Demise of Traditional African Religions

Traditional African religions used to be adhered to by the majority of Africa’s population. However, colonialism and the rapid expansion of Christianity and Islam have had detrimental consequences for the indigenous African cultures, including religion. (Some would call it cultural aggression). Traditional African religions have now become minority religions across much of the continent, although Christianity and Islam in Africa are often mixed with some aspects of the original religions.

This evolution can be clearly shown in map form. First, there is this map from 1913, in which the traditional cultures are dismissed as “heathen”:

(source, click image to enlarge)

Today, only in a few countries are traditional religions still the religions of a majority:

(source)

Excluding the remaining traditional religions and just focusing on the two main religions, we get this:

(source)

More on religion, on Africa and on colonialism. More human rights maps.

Human Rights Maps (136): The Gulag Archipelago

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The Gulag – or GulAG – was the government agency that administered the Soviet system of penal labor camps. The Gulag camps, although they housed also petty criminals, were in fact the major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, likened the scattered camps to “a chain of islands”, hence the Gulag Archipelago, and described the Gulag as a system where people worked to death.

More than 14 million people passed through the Gulag from 1929 to 1953. Harsh treatment resulted in the death of more than a million of them. The total population of the camp system at any one moment varied between 500.000 and 1,5 million. The number of camps was roughly 500. Some of today’s major cities in Russia were originally camps.

A significant proportion of the camp population were political prisoners. Many of the inmates never had a trial. Some had a show trial. Although the camp system was dramatically scaled down in the 1960s, the USSR continued to imprison political opponents until the very end of the regime.

The Gulag, together with the purges, the terror famine and the deportation and exile to remote areas of the USSR of 6 to 7 million people, constitutes the major crime of Stalin’s totalitarian rule in the USSR.

Gulag map

(source, click image to enlarge)

Gulag prisoner stats, 1934-1953

(source)

More on communism, Stalin, Russia, and totalitarianism. More human rights maps.

Human Rights Maps (135): The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and Child Soldiers

The Lord’s Resistance Army is a religious and military group formed in 1987 and headed by Joseph Kony, who claims to be the “spokesperson” of God and a spirit medium, primarily of the Holy Spirit. The inspiration is mainly Christian. The LRA first engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government, but later moved its activities to parts of Sudan, Central African Republic and DR Congo. It’s infamous for widespread human rights violations, including murder, abduction, mutilation, sexual enslavement of women and children, and forcing children to participate in hostilities.

(source)

(source)

More on child soldiers is here and here. More maps about child soldiers are here. More human rights maps in general are here.

Human Rights Maps (134): Gerrymandering

Original cartoon of "The Gerry-Mander", the political cartoon that led to the coining of the term Gerrymander. The district depicted in the cartoon was created by the Massachusetts legislature to favor the incumbent candidates of Governor Elbridge Gerry over the Federalists in 1812. Combining the salamander form and the name of the Governor gives "gerrymander".

Democracy is a human right. This is of course an excessively vague statement, and so we should define democracy. There are many ways to do that (and we have a whole blog series about it), some good and some less good, but for better or worse we usually define democracy as a representative system in which people cast votes for candidate-politicians, and the candidates who collect a majority – sometimes a plurality – of those votes go on to become the representatives of the people. Those representatives govern, again usually by way of majority or plurality votes amongst each other, and this government is considered a good proxy of government by the people (demo-cracy). It’s considered a good proxy because of many reasons:

• Representatives have an incentive to govern in accordance with the wishes of the people, since they supposedly want to be re-elected in the future.
• The people can influence their representatives through free speech, organized political activity and the threat of dismissal.
• The people can verify the coherence between their views and the actions of politicians because of freedom of the press, government accountability rules, freedom of information rules etc.

The argument that we need a proxy for direct government by the people is itself contentious but let’s temporarily bow to standard opinion for the sake of argument.

One problem with this model of democracy is that it can be gamed. For practical purposes, the “people” in this model are usually partitioned into different sections – districts, states, provinces, constituencies etc. Each section of the people then gets to vote, and the majority – or plurality – within each section then appoints a representative to be seated in a national parliament. It’s clear that the way in which the boundaries between these sections or districts are drawn determines to some extent the outcome of the vote, and that decisions to redraw – “redistrict” – can alter the outcome substantially.

This knowledge has led politicians to exert influence on the way in which the boundaries are drawn, so as to favor their electoral prospects. For example, a white upper-class politician can manipulate district lines in such a way that the voters in the district are mainly white upper-class. Her opponent, who happens to be from a poor black community, will likely do less well with the given electorate. If the district boundaries cut across class and race, the two candidates will have a more equal contest.

It can also happen that a particular group of constituents manipulates the district boundaries, perhaps with the help of politicians or officials, for example because of racist motives: attributing black communities to other districts makes it unlikely that black politicians will have influence over racially biased white populations.

These kinds of district manipulation are called gerrymandering, and it includes both a spatial and a quantitative aspect:

• the spatial dimension of borders is manipulated – e.g. poor black neighborhoods are excluded from the district and attributed to another one
• and/or the size of the electorate is manipulated – e.g. boundaries are fixed in such a way that a relatively small pocket of voters is grouped into one district and therefore gets it’s own representative (also called malapportionment).

Needless to say, it’s usually incumbents who engage in this kind of manipulation, since it’s they who often have the authority and power to modify district boundaries.

[I]n no fewer than 44 of America’s 50 states, it is state legislatures, composed as they are of party politicians, who decide where the lines should be drawn for seats in the House of Representatives in Washington, DC. The potential for abuse is so obvious that it is a kind of miracle that the system has survived as long as it has. (source)

As the saying goes, in gerrymandered election districts, the voters don’t choose their politicians – the politicians choose their voters.

The stylized example below shows the possibly dramatic effects of gerrymandering, limited to the manipulation of the borders, not the size of the districts. It’s a fictional country containing 15 citizens. There are three districts, every district gets to vote and the majority in each district decides on one of the three national representatives. The three districts are of equal size and the gerrymandering won’t modify the size of the districts, only the borders. There are two political parties, the Orange Democrats (round shapes) and the Purple Republicans (square shapes). 9 of the 15 citizens systematically vote Purple, 6 Orange, and they keep their residence fixed.

(source)

The original district lines, A, gives 1 district to Orange and 2 to Purple, roughly equivalent to the total voting pattern of 6:9. Now, as a result of this more or less correct districting, Purple becomes the majority in government, and therefore able to engage in some redistricting, which gives us situation B. Given districting B, the next election guarantees a 3 district win for Purple, a result that’s disproportional considering the nation-wide 9:6 Purple majority. Orange is no longer represented at all. However, for some mysterious and irrelevant reason, some further redistricting occurs, which gives situation C. At the next election, Orange ensures a 2-1 win notwithstanding its nation-wide minority position of 6:9.

Gerrymandering can have different motives:

• It can be used to give a certain political party a disproportionate share of national power (especially when district systems are combined with first-past-the-post elections in which the one candidate with the most votes – majority or plurality – wins the seat reserved for that district; in political systems that give seats in parliament in proportion to the total national votes, it makes no sense to gerrymander).
• It can be used to favor a certain political class (e.g. when wealthy people are systematically attributed to smaller districts).
• An individual candidate can use it to impose an electoral disadvantage on a particular opponent.
• Groups of citizens can use it to maintain supremacy and to exclude others from political participation. This exclusion can take many forms:
  • groups may be included in another, very large district in which their voice will be drowned
  • a group may be scattered over many districts so that they can’t unite in a coherent voting block
  • or they may be attributed to a district in which their group will win anyway, in which case their votes are wasted.
• etc.

This means that it can also be used in a positive way, e.g. to give disadvantaged groups a larger weight in elections. However, the word gerrymandering usually has negative connotations, and rightly so.

Sometimes it’s difficult to prove that gerrymandering took place, but a highly irregular geographical shape of a district, or big differences between the sizes of the populations of districts are good indications. Ideally, districts boundaries should be drawn randomly on the basis of census data, and should therefore not result in highly irregular and contorted shapes.

Some examples of such irregular shapes from the US:

California's 11th congressional district drawn to favor its then-Republican incumbent

(source)

The earmuff shape of Illinois's 4th congressional district packs two Hispanic areas while remaining contiguous by narrowly tracing Interstate 294

(source)

Utah's 2nd congressional district was redrawn after the election of Democrat Jim Matheson in 2000 to favor future Republican majorities. The predominantly Democratic city of Salt Lake was connected to predominantly Republican eastern and southern Utah through a thin sliver of land running through Utah County. This particular redistricting did not have the desired effect, as Matheson is still in office.

(source)

U.S. congressional districts covering Travis County, Texas (outlined in red) in 2002, left, and 2004, right. In 2003, the majority of Republicans in the Texas legislature redistricted the state, diluting the voting power of the heavily Democratic county by parceling its residents out to more Republican districts.

(source)

More maps about democracy are here. More human rights maps in general here.

Related Articles

• “Gerrymandering” carves out a dull argument (reuters.com)
• Jeff Reichert: What Is Prison-Based Gerrymandering? (huffingtonpost.com)
• Electoral boundaries in America: Time to bury Governor Gerry (economist.com)
• Redistricting: Gerrymandering as a Competitive Sport | Dissident Voice (wilderside.wordpress.com)
• Florida Supreme Court Rules Against Attempts to Stop Redistricting Reform Ballot Measures (elections.firedoglake.com)

Human Rights Maps (133): Stalin’s Terror Famine in Ukraine (Holodomor)

The Holodomor (a Ukrainian word for  “death by hunger”) was a famine in the Ukraine from 1932–1933, during which millions of inhabitants died of starvation (estimates range from 2.6 million to 10 million).

Scholars disagree about the causes of the famine: natural factors, bad economic policies and deliberately engineered measures are possible factors. Some have argued that the famine may have been provoked as an attack on the rise of Ukrainian nationalism, and therefore that it falls under the legal definition of genocide. Hence the expression “terror-famine”. Others blame unwise policies of industrialization and collectivization of farming.

These are the countries that do recognize it as a genocide:

Countries which officially recognize the Holodomor as genocide

(source)

This map shows the population decline during the famine:

rate of population decline during the Holodomor Famine map

(source, source; click image to enlarge)

More on famine. More human rights maps.

Related Articles

• YES: Stalin killed millions. A Stanford historian answers the question, was it genocide? Naimark… (pajamasmedia.com)
• Who’s Afraid of Ukrainian History? (nybooks.com)

Human Rights Maps (132): Democracy, the Difference Between Self-Identification and Reality

First, if you doubt that democracy is a human rights issue, go here. The following map shows the countries of the world that self-identify as a democracy in green, and the tiny minority that doesn’t in red (Vatican, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Fiji, Tonga and Brunei):

countries that self-identify as democracies (green) or not (red)

(source, click image to enlarge)

Now, compare this to the latest Freedom House scores, which helpfully but completely coincidentally have the same color codes:

Freedom House scores for 2001 and 2009

(source)

This raises two related questions: why is there a difference between self-identification and reality, and why do countries think it is important to claim that they are democracies, even when the facts clearly belie this claim and the governments making the claim probably know better? Self-delusion can’t be excluded. Some governments probably have an excessively optimistic view of their country’s institutions and achievements. Some may have an excessively minimalistic view of democracy (but then again, Freedom House makes the same mistake…). Some may believe to have the support of the people and think that this is a sufficient condition. Some may hope that claiming the support of the people will allow them to get away with more on the international scene, or to get some beneficial treatment from other countries. And some may hope for a self-fulfilling prophecy effect.

What we can take away from this is that the idea of democracy seems to be very powerful. I just wish it was more than merely the idea that is powerful.

More maps about democracy are here. More about democracy measurement is here. More human rights maps are here.