Press release
UN Climate Change Conference 2016 in Marrakech: Morocco cements the human rights violating occupation of Western Sahara with dirty deals for allegedly clean energy. Siemens wind turbines disrupt the UN peace process in the Western Sahara conflict. A detailed report highlights the unclean linkages.
The media coverage around the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio had little positive to offer apart from the medal celebrations. One week after the end of the Games, the dust has settled a little, this is the right opportunity to reflect on a conclusion. And this does not only provide bitter insights. There is also reason for hope.
Young people around the world are already making an important contribution to a sustainable future. But with support they could do much more. This is what the UN is pointing out on today's International Youth Day. We have been saying this for years, prioritising support for young people in a different place than the UN.
Manguinhos is just one of many communities in Rio de Janeiro affected by evictions, police violence and human rights violations. And this in the name of major sporting events. One of the victims who is fighting against this is Ana Paula Gomes de Oliveira. In a short conversation, she reported on the suffering that she and her family have experienced.
It is not surprising that the inhabitants of Rio speak of the "games of exclusion". The legacy of the 2016 Olympic Games will mean for them a militarized city marked by social exclusion. A week of action by grassroots organisations is intended to highlight the high social costs of the 2016 Olympic Games.
With the Children Win campaign, Terre des Hommes has been demanding for years that major sporting events should not have a negative impact on the inhabitants of the host cities. The worst fears have been confirmed for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Civil society is fighting back against these fears.
The opinions of passers-by were quite clear: people do not want melons from the conflict area of Western Sahara in Swiss supermarkets. We spent a day on the Limmatplatz and recorded our meetings of 21 May 2016 in a shortened video.
Together with over 30 organisations of Swiss civil society, terre des hommes schweiz is calling on the national and state parliaments not to make savings on the backs of the poorest people, but to devote 0.7 percent of our national income to public development cooperation. The "wake-up call against hunger and poverty" is supported by more than three dozen prominent first signatories from the worlds of politics, business, science, the church, sport, culture and entertainment.
In the issue of 09.02.2016, the consumer programme Kassensturz reported in detail on the unclean declaration of tomatoes from Western Sahara. terre des hommes schweiz is demanding that Swiss retailers immediately stop importing products from Western Sahara. Take action and write to your retailer!
Today the Citizens' Committee of Rio is publishing a report on the human rights situation in the run-up to the Olympic Games, which will be held in Rio next summer. The report, in which Terre des Hommes has collaborated, documents a series of serious human rights violations. "It is time for the International Olympic Committee to assume its responsibilities and act in accordance with the values set out in the Olympic Charter," said Ignacio Parker, Secretary General of the International Federation Terre des Hommes.
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