Unit #13 - Human Rights Violations & Genocide

• Apartheid - A system in South Africa which separated the races (blacks from whites) giving whites control over the country and denying blacks basic civil & human rights
• Sharia - laws in Islam based upon the Quran
• ethnic cleansing - the removal, usually by killing, of one or more ethnic group from a country/nation/region or society
• genocide - The killing of people from a ethnic group, religious group, gender, or people from a specific nation
• refugee - a person fleeing an area/region they consider their homeland
• human rights - the rights held by people inherently from nature and/or God
• Armenian Genocide - In 1915, the Ottoman government's systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians, mostly Ottoman citizens within the Ottoman Empire and its successor state, the Republic of Turkey
• Cambodian Genocide - was carried out by the Khmer Rouge regime led by Pol Pot between 1975 and 1979 in which an estimated 1.5 to 3 million people died
• Rwandan Genocide - In 1994, was known as the genocidal mass slaughter of between 500,000 to 1,000,000 Tutsi in Rwanda by members of the Hutu majority government
• Rape of Nanjing/Nanking (Najing Massacre) - During the Sino-Japanese War between China and Japan, Japanese military killed many of the men in the capital city of Nanjing (Nanking) and raped the children and women
• Ukrainian Famine - Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, designed a series of events to cause a famine in the Ukraine to kill the people there seeking independence from his rule which killed approximately 7,000,000 people
• Darfur Famine - The Sudanese government exploited ethnic, religious, and tribal differences by arming ethnic Arab militia groups, known as the "Janjaweed," to attack the ethnic African groups. Many were killed or displaced and women were raped.
• Tiananmen Square Massacre - in 1989, Chinese students protested for democracy and freedom. The communist government responded with troops, and tanks. The number of civilian deaths has been estimated at anywhere from hundreds to thousands.
• Guatemala Civil War - the government of Guatemala committed widespread human rights violations against civilians (1960 to 1996)
• economic sanctions - a policy to put trade barriers up against a government to force them to change a policy the other countries wish them not to continue
• United Nations - The United Nations (UN) was created in 1945 to attempt to solve world problems and disagreements between nations before they escalate into conflicts. Over 190+ countries are members
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights - was a UN approved agreement in 1948 between all of the member nations to prevent violations of human rights and genocide around the world
• displaced person - a person who is forced to leave their home country because of war, persecution, or natural disaster; a refugee.
• The Holocaust - a time period during Nazi Germany (1933-1945) in which the systematic violation of human rights of Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, mentally & physically handicap, Jehovah Witness, political opponents, etc. This would eventually lead to the genocide of 12 million people
• emigrate - To leave one country or region and settle in another
• imigrate - to enter and live in a new country