Human Rights

April Attack Killed 80 Civilians; Aid Delivery Hindered Human Rights Watch – (Beirut) – US military strikes on the Ras Issa Port in Hodeidah, Yemen, on April 17, 2025, caused dozens of civilian casualties and significant damage to port infrastructure, Human Rights Watch said today. The attack should be investigated as a war crime. As […]

Gay Rights

The War on Trans People: White Christian Nationalism in the Age of Trump

Tomdispatch

By Aaron Scott, Liz Theoharis and Moses Hernandez McGavin ( Tomdispatch.com ) – This year, Pride Month arrives at an especially dire moment for the LGBTQ+ community. Under the second Trump administration, homophobic vitriol and violence are on the rise. On Elon Musk’s X platform, a “deepfake” video of Donald Trump canceling Pride Month has […]

Featured

German Chancellor Merz in Historic Rebuke of Israel: Attacks on Civilians not Justified by Hamas Terror

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Because of the Nazi Holocaust in which six million European Jews were murdered, German governments have felt a need to provide Israel with unqualified support. Without German persecution of Jews in the 1930s and then the genocide of the 1940s, arguably Israel would never have come into existence. There were […]

Donald Trump

The End of Human Rights? Donald Trump Has Ripped Off the Human Rights Veneer That Once Graced U.S. Foreign Policy

William D. Hartung

By Ashley Gate and William D. Hartung ( Tomdispatch.com ) – The Trump administration seems intent on undermining America’s ability to make human rights a significant element of its foreign policy. As evidence of that, consider its plan to dramatically reduce policy directives and personnel devoted to those very issues, including the dismantling of the […]

Human Rights

Syria: Türkiye-backed Armed Groups Detain, Extort Civilians

Human Rights Watch

New Syrian Government Should Ensure Accountability Human Rights Watch – (Beirut) – Syrian National Army (SNA) factions that fought the Assad government with backing from Türkiye continue to detain, mistreat, and extort civilians in northern Syria, Human Rights Watch said today. These fighters are being integrated into Syria’s Armed Forces, with their commanders appointed to key government […]

censorship

Kneecap Band Member’s Arrest is not the Issue, Criminalizing Opposition to Genocide of Palestinians Is

Middle East Monitor

by Brendan Ciarán Browne and Elian Weizman ( Middle East Monitor ) – Anyone with the most modest modicum of common sense and critical insight will be well aware – Kneecap, more specifically the mass hysteria that has erupted over a band member holding a Hezbollah flag on stage at a gig […]

Academic Freedom

Protesting NYU’s Withholding of Degree over Gaza Protest

Committee on Academic Freedom

Committee on Academic Freedom | Middle East Studies Association Letter to New York University concerning its decision to withhold the degree of graduating senior Logan Rozos and initiate disciplinary proceedings against him Linda G. Mills President, New York University office.president@nyu.edu Dear President Mills, Provost Dopico and Dean Rosner: We write on behalf of the […]

censorship

Stopping Israel’s Attack on Civil Society, Justice and Human Rights: A Call to Action

Human Rights Watch

( Human Rights Watch ) – With the start of Israeli Knesset’s summer session on May 4, the undersigning organizations observe with grave concern the series of legislative initiatives and policy measures, currently making their way through the legislative process, that pose existential threats to the survival and mandate of human rights organizations in Israel. […]

Donald Trump

Detained! Trump’s America as one Big Black Site

Andrea Mazzarino

( Tomdispatch.com ) – I don’t know about you, but the news continues to stress me out. Trump administration officials are using any excuse they can think of to detain and deport people whose points of view — or whose very existence on U.S. soil — seem to threaten their agenda. Deportations to El Salvador […]