15th Annaul Asian American Heritage Conference

The controversial issue of human rights in Asia and the media response to it was the theme of a presentation and discussion on April 1 at NEIU as part of the Asian American Heritage Conference.

The presenters for the event included Ameet Sacdev, Business Reporter for Chicago Tribune, Judy Wang, News Anchor for CLTV and Lily Jo Kim, a Communications Director for the Dorothy Brown campaign for Cook County Board president.

Sacdev said, "One of the most important human rights is freedom of speech." He gave an example of how some freedoms have been taken away from the Chinese.

The Chinese government's shut-down of Google is an attempt to stop the search engine in redirecting Chinese citizens/residents to uncensored sites. Sacdev said that this shut-down is a dramatic human right's story. He called it a clash between censorship and freedom of information.

Giving as an example the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, he said that when internet users use Google in the United States they see different pictures, than users in China. He explained that this example illustrates a great divide between internet users in the U.S. and in China. Sacdev added that China, along with Iran, Egypt and Russia say that the censorship is to protect their citizens from pornography, terrorism and hate speech. Without denying the problems, Sacdev cited Hilary Clinton, who has said, "These challenges are not an excuse for governments to violate the rights and privacy of those who use the internet for peaceful and political purposes."

Wang started her presentation by informing the audience about her background, which plays a role in her involvement with the human rights issue. She said that her parents were part of the movement that attempted to fight the communist regime in China. "They had to leave and the fight for human rights is the reason they left," she said.

In Chicago, which she called "the melting pot of cultures," people's attitude toward the problem depends on their background. "For the Asian-American community in particular, the human rights issue hits home because it's why many of our ancestors came to this country," said Wang.

She said that people's demand for news on their own time plays a huge role in covering such issues. She said, "This [demand] forces the reporters to get the news stories on the air and online faster than ever." Wang said that for this reason, reporters tend to stay away of human rights stories, which are more complex and take more time to research. The best thing to do to bring more human rights stories to the media, according to Wang, is to ensure that news stations have diversity in their reporters and staff. Kim, the third speaker, is currently a host and producer for a news magazine covering Asian communities. She played a National Geographic video clip from North Korea depicting the country as the most isolated on earth. She recommended everyone to see the whole series on Youtube.com by typing, "Inside Undercover in North Korea" to learn about a country where there is no internet, and cell phones are banned.

Kim explained that there are concentration camps in North Korea with gas chambers. The only newspaper people have access to is the government's newspaper. People do not know what is going on outside their country; there is no freedom of expression and no religion.

She also said that people who have escaped have told their stories all over the world, and nobody is doing anything. The reason why we have not gone over there and done anything more drastic is fear. "We are just scared," she said.

The floor then was open for questions. An audience participant, Bilal Hussain, asked, "What can the young people do?"

"The key is that you have to be informed," said Sacdev. Kim advised to constantly check the news and to donate even just a dollar to causes that support human rights worldwide.