Amnesty International Map (francais) - USA worst human rights offender, part II

Hi, this thread follows this one which was closed before I ever had a chance to write about it.

To summarize:

A swiss daily newspaper, written in french, published an Amnesty-inspired and Reuters-created map of the world where the US looks like the “worst human rights offender”.

Although the previous sentence is never written, the whole map heavily hints this conclusion. Guess which country (with six sins, versus at the most four for all other countries) is the worst human rights offender on the planet?

The info is revealed in this blog.

I am the blogger of this site.

Since my reputation was attacked (“I’m not at all happy, to put it mildly, about the authenticity of the map…”) before I had any chance to respond, here are some additional infos:

  • The newspaper Le Matin Bleu is the largest free daily newspaper of the swiss region.
  • There’s a Reuter graphics daily, and from experience I doubt the newspaper can choose the topic of the day, let alone edit it: tight deadlines, mostly
  • Instead of smearing my reputation, a board member (Kellner) just followed the link to the newspaper and could check data by himself. He didn’t report any difference between the blog info and the originally published info.
  • Indeed, the map doesn’t show ALL countries in the world. Just USA, North Korea, China, Afghanistan, Iran, Irak, Haiti, Angola, Syria, among others. And the USA are clearly seen as the worse of the lot, with six symbols when the next has four. If you take the actual symbols into account and don’t just count them, USA are still worse than Uzbekistan or China.

Aquila Be finally asked
“I’m inclined to think many Dopers would be strong supporters of Amnesty International, but would the propagation of this kind of information be sufficient to damage or destroy the credibility of Amnesty International?”

Good question, but it should be asked to Reuters or Amnesty itself, not me. I can’t tell if this “rating” is more caused by Amnesty data, Reuters graphic, or both. I never implied that only Amnesty was responsible here - since I can’t tell Amnesty and Reuters apart. But either way it’s a serious communication issue. And perhaps even AI should inquire on the matter - unless they are satisfied with such a view of the world.

Having a larger variety of human rights abuses does not equal being the worst. Zimbabwe which has an ineffective ruling party and no opposition parties with any real clout could be seen as worse. The Sudan where there is an active genocide occurring that is supported by the government and its Chinese backers could be seen as worse.

Certainly, I am opposed to having detentions without trials, and torture in prisons, and I think the USA needs to fix those problems immediately, I don’t find it all that compelling.

I have never heard of the US using child soldiers.

I find it hard to believe that China’s only transgression is ‘executions’.

It’s not the variety of crimes against humanity, but the proportion that should be the relevant measure. Anything else is just propaganda and hurts the legitimacy of anyone making the claims.

It’s very easy to take information out of context and fit it to mean what you want it to mean, or at least you want people to think it means. To actually give an honest interpretation of that data requires a little more work.

You passed on the information. Perhaps you should be a little bit more critical of the data you choose to put on your blog, and express your reservations if you want people not to judge you based upon flawed data. Kind of like how we feel about the way this makes the US look.

Do you seriously believe that the U.S. is a worse human rights offender than China or Uzbekistan?

Could you provide a link or verifiable provenance that this is indeed an original Reuters map?

Okay, I never wrote that US are the worst human right offender, I point out a Reuters graphic heavily implying that.

Please at least click on the picture above to see what’s about. Note that the symbol for child soldiers is annoyingly similar to the one for death penalty; it’s the latter that applies to the US.

If you want to see the published graph yourself, you’ll have to navigate to the 5th june 2007 edition of the newspaper Le Matin Bleu. (but since the website is in french, it might be tricky.) Kellner managed to do it tough.

In that case the death penalty and executions are redundant, so the US only has 5 symbols.

No, there are six. Have you looked at the picture?
Redundant or not, they are all shown here. Indeed, making several symbols out of a single case is a good way to soil US reputation.

How do you know Reuters produced the graphic?

Kotrin, please prove that this is indeed a Reuters map. I’ve searched the Reuters site over the past ten minutes and can’t find anything resembling it.

Not a map cobbled together by, according to Wikipedia (take that as you wish):

And we all know how unreliable free newspapers are. :wink:

It almost looks like something made up by someone with an agenda to make AI and Reuters look ridiculous.

Canada’s not even mentioned? Typical.

You gotta put more back into it. I suggest invading Greenland on a false pretext. Indeed, those fuckers are always laughing at you behind your back: “Call that a frozen waste? SuXXorz!!!1!lol”

O.K., seven human rights violations. :frowning:

I am not sure what we’re debating, here.

The initial thread was opened to consider whether various posters should/would continue to support Amesty International based on evidence that AI is explicitly anti-American in its approach.

That thread was closed when the OP determined that the provenance of the information was sufficiently obscure to cast doubt on the anti-American nature of Amnesty International.

Now, I am sure that it is frustrating to find one’s efforts denigrated based on misuindestandings, but is this thread an attempt to restore the good name of the (hiherto unknown) blogger now posting as Kotrin?

Is this thread an attempt to demonstrate that even if the visuals in the Le Matin Bleu article are of uncertain provenance, it remains true that the U.S. is the new evil empire and the world’s most corrupt nation?

Is this thread an attempt to ascertain whether Reuters or Le Matin Bleu or some third party intermediary is guilty of shoddy journalism?

Before this becomes a trainwreck of the worst sort, I would just like to know what we’re actually discussing.

I have no idea where the map used in the originally linked article was created.
However, here is the Amnesty International 2007 Report home page which the map purports to represent. I did not find (although I may have missed) any single, icon-filled map in that site. Instead, I found that if one selects for a country (or selects a region and then clicks on the country), one may get a specific text-based analysis of each country. My review of that (minus any further edits by mapmakers) indicates that the U.S. is closely matched or exceeded for depravity by Russia and China. However, some of the text-based descriptions were not carried forward to the map as icons.
(I will also note that I have been protesting the worst abuses of the War on Terror since it was first offered as an excuse to establish U.S. hegemony over the world and I have long been an opponent of the death penalty. However, I also note that in several of the events for which AI is deploring the U.S., the actions are known and being reported because the U.S., itself, considered them heinous and brought the perpetrators to public trial. One does not see similar descriptions in the articles on Russia or China.)

At any rate, I will re-assert that I would like to see a specific thesis set forth in this thread before it becomes a donneybrook headed for The BBQ Pit.

[ /Moderator expressing curiosity ]

Massive hijack: what does “donneybrook” mean in this context? There’s an area in Dublin called Donnybrook, which is quite posh these days. It used to have a fair - horse trading I believe. It’s too close a name/word to be a coincidence, IMO.

It means a fight. I suppose it’s a mild slur on the Irish.

Sorry. I did not realize that donnybrook had not made the return trip across the Atlantic. (And I have no idea why my finger hit an “e” the first time I typed it.)

Fascinating!

AFAIK (~10 years’ residency in Dublin) the term is not used in Ireland any more. Though I doubt it’s a slur.

Anyway, apologies for the hijack, and back to the map question.

Sure six symbols, but only 5 concepts. One is irrelevant ‘executions’, because it is covered by the more specific ‘extra-judicial executions’ and ‘death penalty’ symbols.

In Canadian Ice Hockey, before the NHL became gelded it was referenced when ever a bench clearing brawl broke out.

Declan