Human Rights

By Ardeshir Tayebi | – ( RFE/RL ) – Iran has charged 16 people, including several teenagers, in the northwestern Iranian city of Urmia for planning demonstrations and accusing them of espionage amid reports those detained gave confessions after being beaten. In November, 25 people were arrested for allegedly having connections with “spy organizations” and […]

censorship

Saudi Arabia: Government Agents infiltrate Wikipedia, sentence Independent Admins to Prison

Global Voices

By SMEX | – ( Globalvoices.org ) – The Saudi Arabian government infiltrated Wikipedia by recruiting the organization’s highest ranked administrators in the country to serve as government agents to control information about the country and prosecuting those who contributed critical information about political detainees, said SMEX and Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) […]

Pentagon

Why does the Pentagon Budget Really Keep Growing? When Democracies Pursue Imperial Dominance it doesn’t End Well

William J. Astore

( Tomdispatch.com) – Imagine this scenario for a moment: a “great power” watches another major power fight a war in a nearby nation for 10 years before its army limps home defeated and, not so very long after, that country implodes. A little over a decade later, by then unofficially the “last superpower” on planet […]

Authoritarianism

Dual Iranian-British national Alireza Akbari’s execution plunges Iranian Relations with the West to a new Low

Farhang Jahanpour

Oxford (Special to Informed Comment) – On Saturday 14 January, the Iranian regime executed a 61-year old dual Iranian-British national and a former deputy defence minister, Alireza Akbari. The 15th branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Court, presided over by Abolqasem Salavati who had been the judge of numerous controversial cases and who has been sanctioned […]

Apartheid

Criticizing Israel: Letter to the President of Harvard University regarding Kenneth Roth

Committee on Academic Freedom

Committee on Academic Freedom | Middle East Studies Association of North America | Lawrence S. Bacow President, Harvard University president@harvard.edu Dear President Bacow: We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our grave concern about the July 2022 decision […]

Authoritarianism

Iran Executions: the Role of the ‘Revolutionary Courts’ in breaching Human Rights

The Conversation

By Simon Rice, University of Sydney | – (The Conversation) – The Iranian government has attempted to brutally suppress the widespread protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody in September 2022. Central to Iran’s response have been the country’s “revolutionary courts”. They have conducted heavily-criticised trials resulting in at least […]

Displaced and Refugees

Who will Help Rohingya Women and Demonstrate Global Leadership?

The Conversation

By Deeplina Banerjee, Western University | – The UN Security Council recently adopted its first resolution on Myanmar in more than seven decades. The resolution demanded an end to the violence and called on Myamnar’s military junta to release all political prisoners. In 2021, the military seized power in the country in a violent coup […]

Domestic Surveillance

Red State Plans to Investigate Abortion Seekers and Trans Youth Require Sanctuary States to Lock Down Data

Electronic Frontier Foundation

By Adam Schwartz | – ( Electronic Frontier Foundation ) – In the wake of this year’s Supreme Court decision in Dobbs overruling Roe v. Wade, sheriffs and bounty hunters in anti-abortion states will try to investigate and punish abortion seekers based on their internet browsing, private messaging, and phone app location data. We can […]