Tomorrow marks the 20thanniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which is typically seen as the end of the Cold War. I expect that the blogospherewill be filled with far more in-depth commentary on the subject tomorrow, but for today I would just like to point out one of the articles that is already […]
After over a decade of delay, it seems that Karadzic will be tried in absentia.
Southeast Asia has officially joined the ranks of Europe, the Americas, and Africa in launching their own regional human rights commission. Speculation on the proposed human rights body for The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has dominated political commentary in the region for the past year. Yet, now that the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights […]
While it is no secret that racism lives on in the United States, it was nonetheless shocking news that a justice of the peace in Louisiana had refused to marry an interracial couple because he doesn’t “believe in mixing the races that way.” Keith Bardwell, the justice of the peace in question, has […]
In a strange legal loophole, American companies—including those that receive government contracts such as Halliburton—can require their employees to sign contracts waiving their right to bring a civil trial against fellow employees that rape or otherwise sexually assault them. This egregious loophole was first spotlighted when Jamie Leigh Jones, a former contractor for one-time […]
Governments and religions around the world remain intensely interested in what women, but not so much what men, are wearing in public. On September 6, 2009 I wrote about the proposed parliamentary ban on the public wearing of the niqab in France. On September 8, media outlets lit up with discussions of the recent trial […]
A recent story in The Guardian highlighted the ongoing abuses of police forces in Venezuela and the difficulties in bring about police reform. Increasingly, police in Venezuela act with complete impunity and growing brutality against criminals, their families, and anyone else caught in between. Stories of disappearances and false imprisonment by police, especially in Caracas, […]
President Hugo Chávez is on a weeklong trip overseas, to strengthen alliances in “the fight against imperialism”. His itinerary includes stops in Libya, Syria, Iran, Algeria, Belarus, and Russia. Freedom House, a US-based non-profit (and declaredly non-partisan) publishes “Freedom in the World, the annual survey of global political rights and civil liberties”. It ranked each […]
France’s center-right and left political parties are coalescing around a controversial issue: the idea of a national, parliamentary ban on the niqab. Proponents of the ban cite the threat of Islamism to France’s position as a secular state, and argue further that the niqab is both a symbol of and an act of the oppression of […]
A court in Kazakhstan sentenced a prominent human rights activist to four years imprisonment for manslaughter yesterday in a case that many observers believe was politically motivated. The charges against Yevgeny Zhovtis stem from a car accident in July where Zhovtis hit and killed a man while driving his car. However the initial forensic exam […]
It appears that for now, while some improvements are being made, women are still fighting for the hearts and minds of the Afghan people.
In an unusual and unprecedented move, the Chinese government sent a strong message to its citizens seeking legal redress in Beijing: stay home, or be seriously penalized. Petitioners routinely travel to the capital to seek assistance regarding what they see as the failure of their local system, such as corruption in the courts, land-grabbing by […]
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