Skip to content

Human Rights

UN Expert Demands Immediate Shutting Down Of Guantanamo Prison

UN special rapporteur Fionnuala Ní Aoláin on Monday, June 26, asked the US authorities to shut down the infamous Guantanamo Bay prison and apologize for the torture of inmates. She asked that all persons responsible for such abuses in the last 20 years be held accountable. Ní Aoláin was addressing a press conference in New York on the occasion of UN’s International Day in Solidarity with the Victims of Torture. She also released her report on Guantanamo Bay prepared after visiting the prison earlier this year. “The US government must urgently provide judicial resolution, apology and guarantees of non-repetition,” Ní Aoláin said, claiming that the establishment was in violation of international human rights laws.

The Unfolding Medicaid Disaster

As states have begun clearing out their Medicaid rolls for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly three quarters of the Americans who’ve lost coverage have been terminated not because they’re ineligible for the low-income health insurance program, but due to administrative reasons, such as failing to quickly respond to a piece of mail. In February, President Joe Biden bragged in his State of the Union speech that “more Americans have health insurance now than ever in history.” Biden made that comment six weeks after he set the stage to massively increase the United States’ uninsured population, when he signed legislation from Congress ending the pandemic-era requirement that states maintain Medicaid beneficiaries’ coverage in exchange for extra federal funding.

Microsoft, IBM, Cisco And Dell Enable Surveillance And Control In Palestine

In September, Israel installed an AI-powered gun at a military checkpoint in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. Now, that same technology has been deployed at the entrance of the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem. Across occupied East Jerusalem, you can find surveillance cameras strategically placed on street corners. And throughout the West Bank, Palestinians’ encounters with Israeli soldiers often include not only violence but face-scanning apps designed to capture their personal data. Technology has become integral to our modern lives, but for Palestinians, Big Tech has also become another way Israel enacts control.

Biden’s Asylum Policy Continues Tradition Of US Cruelty To Haitians

As the repressive Trump-Biden Title 42 asylum policy ended on May 11, migrant rights advocates hoped that humane asylum rules would follow. Title 42, which allowed the U.S. government to expel asylum seekers with no due process, led to nearly 3 million expulsions since Donald Trump initiated the ill-conceived policy in 2020. The Biden administration, however, “has made it a practice of recycling Trump-era policies” which will continue to harm asylum seekers, particularly those from Haiti, according to Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, a nonprofit that advocates for humane treatment of migrants.

Where Is The Outrage?

The former USA president, putative candidate for the next presidential election, admitted that he wanted to “collapse” a duly elected democratic government in this Hemisphere; to take it over, to appropriate all its oil. This is an admission of the violation of fundamental international laws and an intent to commit crimes against Humanity. Why is there little or no reaction to Trump’s stark admission from those politicians, media and commentators that actively joined USA’s imperial adventure of “regime change”? Where are the spokespersons of those 50 governments that, following Trump’s lead, denied the Venezuelan government’s legitimacy insisting that a bogus unelected individual was the real Venezuelan president, and obeyed illegal sanctions against Venezuela?

A Juneteenth Call To Close Prisons

Juneteenth has become a federal holiday—yet prison slavery under the 13th Amendment continues. Uprooting the prison industrial complex is vital to completing the abolition of slavery. In California, the Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) coalition aims to close 10 state prisons in the next 5 years as part of the People’s Plan for Prison Closure. CURB Executive Director Amber-Rose Howard joins Rattling the Bars to discuss this bold plan. Amber-Rose Howard is a poet, public speaker and organizer from Pomona, California. She currently serves as Executive Director of CURB.

What Juneteenth Looks Like For Prisoners

Juneteenth is a bittersweet day for us — and all Black people in prison holding onto the promise of freedom. Let’s start with history. The Emancipation Proclamation — issued by Abraham Lincoln on Sept. 22, 1862, during the American Civil War — declared that all slaves in the Confederacy would be “forever free.” Unfortunately, that freedom didn’t extend to the four slaveholding states not in rebellion against the Union, and the proclamation was of course ignored by the Confederate states in rebellion. For the roughly 4 million people enslaved, Lincoln’s declaration was symbolic; only after the Civil War ended was the proclamation enforced.

US Sentencing Commission Could Reduce Prison Time For Thousands

On April 27, 2023, the United States Sentencing Commission submitted to Congress amendments to the federal sentencing guidelines that would recommend lower sentences for certain defendants. If these changes are applied retroactively, some 18,775 people in federal prison could become eligible for a sentencing reduction—including 3,288 individuals who could be eligible for immediate release. Mary Price of Families Against Mandatory Minimums joins Rattling the Bars to discuss the proposed amendments and what they could mean for thousands of prisoners and their families.

International Law, Human Rights And Ukraine, With Alfred De Zayas

You can indict Vladimir Putin over war crimes in Ukraine. But if you do, you’d better indict Joe Biden as well. That is the message that Professor Alfred de Zayas, world-renowned human rights and international law expert, gave “MintCast” host Alan MacLeod on today’s episode of the series. A Swiss-American lawyer, academic and United Nations official with over 50 years’ experience in the field of human rights, de Zayas joins us for a wide-ranging discussion about international law and Ukraine, U.S. sanctions, whistleblowers, the successes and failures of the United Nations and its bodies, and the growth of a new and cynical “human rights industry” that weaponizes the concept to attack foreign governments.

More Than 530 Anti-LGBTQ Bills Have Been Proposed Across The Country

Several different legislative trackers have noted that, in the first five months of this year leading up to Pride Month, which began on June 1, hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills have been proposed in statehouses across the country, with dozens of them passing. A tracker managed by Erin Reed, a transgender journalist and activist who provides daily updates on LGBTQ-focused legislation (both negative and positive bills), found that more than 530 anti-LGBTQ bills have been drafted and proposed in state legislatures and in Congress. Of those bills, which were submitted between January 1 and May 31, 68 have been enacted into law, with only 122 officially failing so far.

Justice For Forced Sterilization Cases During Fujimori Dictatorship

After almost six months of a coup regime that has murdered over 80 people during continuous protests against the illegal ouster of President Pedro Castillo, survivors of another case of human rights abuses may finally be seeing justice. On May 19th, former dictator Alberto Fujimori was summoned virtually from Penal de Barbadillo (where Pedro Castillo is also imprisoned on preventative detention) by the Chilean Supreme Court for the cases of forced sterilization during his regime in the 1990s. Between 1996 and 2000, approximately 270,000 women and 22,000 men were forcibly sterilized under the dictatorship’s “family planning” measures, all from poor rural indigenous areas.

300 March For LGBTQ Youth At Louisiana Capitol

Baton Rouge, Louisiana - On May 27, almost 300 people gathered at the Louisiana State Capitol to protest the attacks on LGBTQ rights. The demonstrators then marched to Governor John Bel Edwards’ mansion and listened to several speakers. Protests like this are sweeping the nation as states move to pass anti-LGBTQ legislation. Many of the attendees and speakers were students and young people, who these reactionary bills directly attack. Protesters demanded that Edwards, a Democrat, veto all anti-LBGTQ legislation. They condemned bills such as “Don’t Say Gay” (HB 466), which would ban teachers from discussing gender identity and sexuality.

Minneapolis Continues Encampment Evictions, Displacing Hundreds In May

Minneapolis, MN — During the month of May, the City of Minneapolis has been busy evicting encampments of unhoused people, displacing hundreds and throwing away many people’s only belongings. Minneapolis Police (MPD) displaced about 80 unhoused people on East Franklin Avenue in South Minneapolis on May 10. Each week since, they’ve evicted several smaller camps erected from those displaced from the Franklin Ave. sweep, continuing a punishing and deadly cycle. “This is what he touts as his great success,” said American Indian Movement member Mike Forcia about Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and homelessness.

The Human Consequences Of Economic Sanctions

On May 19, 2023, the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) brought together leading experts in the study of economic sanctions to help to answer a critical, but often-ignored, question: What are the human consequences of US economic sanctions? Assessing a wide range of evidence, the findings of our panelists were unanimous: economic sanctions, even when touted as targeted, often have widespread deleterious effects on entire national economies, and therefore severely harm millions of everyday people.

Palestinians Speak Out During Israeli Assault

On May 18, thousands of Palestinians in Gaza joined the “Palestine Flag March” to protest Israel’s “Flag March” happening the same day. On “Flag Day,” tens of thousands of ultraright-wing Israeli settlers, who illegally live on stolen land, attacked Palestinians and journalists, chanting “Death to Arabs” and “Your village will be burned.” “The Israeli Flag March means nothing, they walk in our streets, and the land denies their existence,” Gaza resident Amna al-Banna told Mondoweiss. “Raising the Israeli flag in Jerusalem will not make people ignore that it’s Palestinian land, and that Israel occupies it.”
assetto corsa mods

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Sign Up To Our Daily Digest

Independent media outlets are being suppressed and dropped by corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our daily email digest before it’s too late so you don’t miss the latest movement news.