Human Rights

( Tomdispatch.com ) – The world is in danger, mind-numbingly so, from a combination of crises: disease, hunger, mass displacement, racial and economic inequality, war and the threat of more war, a rampaging climate crisis, and an accelerating nuclear arms race (and that’s just for starters) — all occurring in a climate of massive mis- […]

Academic Freedom

Emory University’s Shocking Suspension of Umaymah Mohammad for Exercising her Right to Free Speech on Palestine

Committee on Academic Freedom

Gregory L. Fenves President, Emory University president@emory.edu Dear President Fenves: We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our deep concern about the one-year suspension of Umaymah Mohammad, a dual MD/PhD student, from the Emory University School of Medicine (ESM) […]

Displaced and Refugees

“The Lion has Fallen:” The End of Syria’s Brutal Regime and the Fate of the Refugees

Tomdispatch

By Helen Benedict ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Six years ago, at the time of the first Trump administration’s Muslim ban and its initial round of vicious anti-immigrant policies, I visited a refugee camp on the Greek island of Samos to see how Europe was handling its own immigrants and refugees. Within a day, I met […]

Unlawful Imprisonment

The Forever Charade: Gitmo, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Karen J. Greenberg

( Tomdispatch.com ) – On January 10th, one day before the 23rd anniversary of its opening, a much-anticipated hearing was set to take place at the Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility on the island of Cuba. After nearly 17 years of pretrial litigation, the prosecution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the “mastermind” of the devastating attacks […]

censorship

Protesting to Columbia U. over Forced Retirement of Professor Katherine Franke for Palestine Advocacy

Committee on Academic Freedom

Committee on Academic Freedom | Middle East Studies Association | – Senator Greg Fryer Co-Chair, Faculty Affairs, Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee Columbia University Senate gaf1@cumc.columbia.edu Senator Letty Moss-Salentijn Co-Chair, Faculty Affairs, Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee Columbia University Senate lm23@cumc.columbia.edu Dear Senators Fryer and Moss-Salentijn: We write on behalf of the […]

censorship

Iran: Unchecked Repression of Dissent

The Conversation

Human Rights Watch – (Beirut) – Iranian authorities have continued their brutal, targeted repression even though the new Iranian president has promised change, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2025. The authorities have targeted human rights defenders, women, ethnic and religious minorities, and families of those arrested or killed in the 2022 protests. For […]

Featured

The Qur’an’s Celebration of Diverse Skin Colors: Forms of Equality in the Muslim Scripture

Juan Cole

I am reprinting part of this essay that appeared in Renovatio, the literary magazine of a small Muslim liberal arts college — Zaytuna — in Berkeley, Ca. The Qur’an is the most hated book in America that no one has ever read, and there are already new visa bans on Muslims deriving from severe misunderstandings […]

Antisemitism

Death shaded the Life of this Holocaust historian. The cancer Memoir he began in Hospital was a final ‘Act of Love’

The Conversation

By Tess Scholfield-Peters, University of Technology Sydney (The Conversation) – Mark Raphael Baker began writing his final book, A Season of Death, from his hospital bed, in the wake of his terminal pancreatic cancer diagnosis. His second wife, Michelle, would later observe: “More than a comfort or distraction, in him it was a need.” The […]

censorship

Professor Katherine Franke on being Fired from Columbia Law School for Palestine Advocacy

Katherine M. Franke

Statement from Katherine Franke, January 10, 2025 For the last year and a half, as students at Columbia University and across the globe have protested against the Israeli government’s genocidal assault on Palestinians after the October 2023 attacks, a response that has resulted in horrendous devastation in Gaza, I have ardently defended students’ right to […]