Human Rights

Time For UK Government To Come Clean On Ties To US Torture Program

February 16, 2022 John Kiriakou, Covert Action Magazine. Educate! Al-Qaeda, Human Rights, Torture, United Kingdom (UK), US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

We Americans have had a painful and difficult national debate over the past 20 years relative to torture. Torture was official U.S. government policy from 2002 until at least 2005, and that iteration was not formally outlawed until passage of the McCain-Feinstein Amendment in 2015. (The torture program was a highly-classified secret from 2002 until I revealed it in a nationally-televised interview in December 2007.) In truth, torture has been illegal in the U.S. since at least the end of World War II. In 1946, the U.S. Government executed Japanese soldiers who had waterboarded American prisoners of war. In January 1968, the Washington Post ran a front-page photograph showing an American soldier waterboarding a North Vietnamese prisoner.

Class Struggle And Freedom Beyond Colonial Borders

February 13, 2022 Charisse Burden Stelly, Hood Communist. Organize! Africa, Class Struggle, Colonialism, Human Rights

The global COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp relief how truly interconnected our world is, how superficial colonial borders are, and thus how the struggle for freedom must link localized organizing to broader global insurgencies. Of course, this is not new. Though our epoch offers unique challenges, problems, and articulations of the dialectic between repression and resistance, history doesn’t repeat itself—but it rhymes. In a world structured by racial capitalism, white supremacy, and imperialism, Blackness has often been the antithesis of freedom. After legal emancipation from racial slavery, freedom for Black folks has generally meant freedom to die and suffer—or simply “slavery by another name.”

Will Scathing Amnesty Apartheid Report Lead To Change In Israel’s Criminal Practices?

February 11, 2022 Miko Peled, Mintpress News. Strategize! Apartheid, Human Rights, Israel, Palestine

The reality that this report has brought forward opens doors to a much more aggressive anti-apartheid campaign than we have seen so far. When Zionist organizations hold events, they do so in support of Israel; they encourage others to support Israel financially and politically. These organizations need to reserve conventions centers and hotels, the corporate offices of which should have copies of the Amnesty report on their desks alongside a demand that they refuse to cater to Zionist organizations. According to the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, “[i]nternational criminal responsibility is to apply to individuals, members of organizations and representatives of the State who commit, incite or conspire to commit the crime of apartheid.”

The US Is Wrong On Yemen – Again

February 5, 2022 Kate Kizer, Foreign Policy. Educate! Human Rights, Saudi Arabia, Wars and Militarism, Yemen

Last week, Brett McGurk, the White House coordinator for the Middle East, boiled down the millions suffering in Yemen into a false binary in which Washington has done everything it can for peace. He claimed that the Houthi rebels in Yemen are to blame for the continuation of this seven-year conflict that has become the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. With the Houthis launching ballistic missiles at the United Arab Emirates, and a litany of their own war crimes, it’d be easy to fall for this simplistic analysis of the conflict. Yet, in suggesting that reaching a ceasefire and ending the war is simply up to the Houthis, rather than the Saudi-backed government, McGurk reveals his misunderstanding of the conflict.

Mexico Has Become A ‘Roofless Prison’ For Haitian Refugees

February 3, 2022 Chantal Flores , In These Times. Educate! Human Rights, Immigration, Joe Biden, Mexico

Monterrey, Mexico —Wilson sits, constantly refreshing his phone, waiting for COMAR, the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance, to reschedule his appointment, originally set for Oct. 13, 2021. A day prior he received a cancellation through email. “I’m still waiting for the new date,” says Wilson, who asked not to use his full name for protection, with his gaze fixed on the phone. The Casa Indi migrant shelter in Monterrey, in northeastern Mexico, received 1,600 Haitian migrants in September 2021, a month after a tropical storm damaged large swaths of the island and contributed to the destabilization that has forced tens of thousands of Haitians to flee. “At least 214 children arrived, less than 8 years old, 215 women, and about 10 pregnant women. Two children have already been born here. What about the human part?” asks José Jaime Salinas, Casa Indi’s accountant.

US Approves Massive Arms Sale To Egypt

February 1, 2022 People's Dispatch. Educate! Egypt, Human Rights, Wars and Militarism, Weapons Sales

The United States approved a massive arms deal worth USD 2.5 billion with Egypt on Wednesday, January 26. The deal includes the sale of 12 Super Hercules C-130 aircraft and other related equipment worth USD 2.2 billion, along with an air defense radar system worth USD 355 million. The deal was cleared despite concerns raised by human rights groups and members of the US Congress about the deteriorating human rights situation in Egypt. Several US politicians and rights groups have repeatedly urged the US government to take a tougher stance on the human rights abuses being perpetrated by the Egyptian government under president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. According to reports, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified the US congress about the possible sale on Tuesday.

Water For All

January 30, 2022 Kendall Dix, People's Policy Project. Create! Food and Agriculture, Human Rights, Public Good, Water

By some estimates, more than two million people in the United States do not have running water and sanitation in their homes. Water utilities shut off water access to about one out of every twenty people, or close to fifteen million people, every year for nonpayment. Unsurprisingly, this affects racial minorities more than others. This barbaric practice has likely killed tens of thousands of people during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given how wealthy the United States is, it doesn’t have to be this way. And throughout the pandemic, we’ve caught some brief glimpses of alternatives. Though the federal government declined to pass a national moratorium on water shutoffs, some states and cities passed laws to prevent utilities from shutting off water to people during the pandemic.

Michael Ratner Was A Revolutionary Lawyer Like No Other

January 29, 2022 Robert Scheer, Scheer Post. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Human Rights, Legal Activism, Michael Ratner, Podcast

When Michael Ratner died in 2016, the world lost one of the great human rights lawyers of the past century. A descendant of holocaust survivors, Ratner embodied the courage and integrity that is often sorely lacking among his peers in the legal field, taking on cases that seemed impossible to win, but were always essential to protecting human rights. He served as president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) as well as the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), and spent much of his life advocating for the protection of civil liberties and civil rights. One of his greatest achievements was winning the case Rasul v. Bush, which set the legal precedent for hundreds of detainees held in Guantanamo Bay to be able challenge their detention in U.S. courts.

From Rikers To Santa Rita: Close The Death Camps!

January 28, 2022 It's Going Down. Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Human Rights, Hunger Strike, New York City (NYC)

January 27, 2022/25th Sh’vat 5782, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, is the 77th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps, where so many of our ancestors were incarcerated and enslaved, raped and robbed, maimed and murdered. We are an anonymous collective of Jewish New Yorkers who are striking this day, across the five boroughs of NYC/across occupied Lenapehoking, in solidarity with the hunger strikers at Rikers Island and with all who are resisting this genocidal regime. This is a regime which took the lives of 15 fellow New Yorkers last year alone – a number which has continued to rise in the new year. Add that to the 44+ incarcerated people across New York State who perished after becoming infected with COVID in custody. We know a death camp when we see one, and Rikers Island is a death camp.

Following ‘Unjustifiable’ UAE Bombing, US And UN Condemn Yemeni Retaliation

January 26, 2022 Ahmed Abdulkareem, Mintpress News. Educate! Human Rights, Saudi Arabia, Wars and Militarism, Yemen

Saada, Yemen – In a scene rife with chaos and crying, volunteers and a rescue squad pulled the bodies of 91 prisoners from the rubble of the Sa’ada City Remand Prison in southern Yemen on Tuesday. Early last Friday morning, United Arab Emirates (UAE) warplanes supported by the United States targeted the overcrowded prison, which houses up to 3,000 inmates from across Yemen and Africa. The attack was one of the deadliest since the war began in 2015. At least 91 people were killed and more than 236 seriously injured in the attacks, which left bereaved families in shock across Yemen and Africa. Witnesses describe the scene of the attack in its first minutes as chaotic and tragic. Fighter jets were heard over the skies of Saada while people were sleeping, before three violent explosions were heard from the prison, red fires mixed with dust and smoke illuminated flying rubble.

Trial Monitors Condemn Judges For Attacks On Donziger

January 26, 2022 IMPETUS, Popular Resistance. Resist! Human Rights, International Law, Legal System, Steven Donziger

This executive summary presents an overview of key findings of a international group of legal scholars and practitioners who conducted impartial monitoring of the case of United States v. Steven Donziger, No. 19-CR-561 (LAP); 11-CIV-691 (LAK). This summary sets a brief background, the principle findings of the monitoring group and the Panel's recommendations. The summary contains no footnotes; references to relevant sections of the fully-footnoted report are provided. The Panel has determined that the conduct of judges and prosecutors in Steven Donziger's case has led to numerous and serious violations of his rights with respect to liberty, arbitrary detention and fair trials under international human rights law, in particular Articles 9 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by the United States in 1992.

Leonard Peltier Pleads For Help Amid Constant COVID Lockdowns

January 24, 2022 Jennifer Bendery, Huff Post. Resist! COVID-19, Human Rights, Leonard Peltier, Prisons

Never mind that he shouldn’t be in a federal prison at all. Leonard Peltier, the Native American rights activist whom the FBI put behind bars decades ago without any evidence that he committed a crime, tells HuffPost that his facility’s prolonged COVID-19 lockdowns and failure to provide at least some inmates with booster shots has left him ― and likely others ― unbearably isolated and preparing for death. “I’m in hell,” Peltier said in a Friday statement, “and there is no way to deal with it but to take it as long as you can.” Peltier, who is 77 and has serious health problems including diabetes and an abdominal aortic aneurysm, said “fear and stress” from the prison’s intense coronavirus lockdowns are taking a toll on everyone, including staff.

We Are Human, But In The Dark We Wish For Light

January 21, 2022 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Egypt, Human Rights, Revolution

For over a decade, Alaa Abd el-Fattah has been in and out of Egypt’s prisons, never free of the harassment of the military state apparatus. In 2011, during the high point of the revolution, Alaa emerged as an important voice of his generation and since then has been a steady moral compass despite his country’s attempts to suffocate his voice. On 25 January 2014, to commemorate the third anniversary of the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak’s government, Alaa and the poet Ahmed Douma wrote a moving epistle from their dungeon in Tora Prison, Cairo. This prison, which houses Alaa and other political prisoners, is not far from the beautiful Nile and – depending on Cairo’s traffic – not too far from the Garden City office of Mada Masr, where the epistle was published.

The Scandal Of US Prisons

January 19, 2022 John Kiriakou, Consortium News. Educate! Bureau of Prisons, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Human Rights, Prisons

Michael Carvajal, director of the Justice Department’s Bureau of Prisons (BOP), resigned in disgrace last week after being overwhelmed by scandals, none of which were necessarily of his doing so much as they were a result of his unwillingness or inability to make changes to the Justice Department’s largest and best-funded bureau. The scandals—and his resignation—reinforce the conventional wisdom that the BOP is broken and must be overhauled dramatically. The Associated Press reported that Carvajal, a Trump appointee, was forced to resign after more than 100 BOP employees had been arrested for or convicted of crimes during his short two-year tenure. The employees were prosecuted for crimes ranging from smuggling drugs and cell phones into prisons to sell to prisoners, to theft, to a warden raping a prisoner.

Ugandans Escalate Movement Of ‘Radical Rudeness’ Following Violent Arrest Over Mean Tweet

January 14, 2022 Phil Wilmot, Waging Nonviolence. Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Human Rights, State Violence, Uganda

“Men with guns are breaking my door. They say they’re policemen but are not in uniform. I’ve locked myself inside.” This was the final Facebook post by Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, 2021 winner of the PEN Pinter International Writer of Courage Award, on Dec. 28. Within minutes of his post, Rukirabashaija was abducted by Uganda’s Special Forces Command, a military outfit notorious for torturing nonviolent activists. Rukirabashaija — author of a political allegory novel and an autobiographical book detailing his previous torture — has only surfaced once since his brutal kidnapping. When his lawyer Eron Kiiza summoned Rukirabashaija’s captors to present him in court, they violated the summons and brought their victim to his rural home in Iganga to search his home, much to the terror of his wife and children.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

assetto corsa mods

Daily movement news and resources