Human Rights

San Francisco ( Tomdispatch.com) – Sometimes the good guys do win. That’s what happened on August 8th in San Francisco when the Council of Representatives of the American Psychological Association (APA) decided to extend a policy keeping its members out of the U.S. detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The APA’s decision is important — […]

Colonialism

Human Zoos in the Age of Trump

Ariel Dorfman

Durham, NC (Tomdispatch.com) – When Donald Trump recently accused “illegal immigrants” of wanting to “pour into and infest our country,” there was an immediate outcry. After all, that verb, infest, had been used by the Nazis as a way of dehumanizing Jews and communists as rats, vermin, or insects that needed to be eradicated. Nobody, […]

Displaced and Refugees

World to 22 mn Refugees: Only 200K of You can be Helped

John Feffer

New York (Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Over 22.5 million people have been forced to flee their countries. Last year, less than 200,000 were resettled. It’s a famous story, though perhaps not famous enough. The 1939 voyage of the MS St. Louis, a German ocean liner, was recounted in a 1974 book and a […]

Displaced and Refugees

“Death Sentence:” Dems Slam Sessions’ Denial of Asylum to Gang, Abuse Victims

Paul Handley

Washington (AFP) – US Attorney General Jeff Sessions declared Monday that victims of domestic and gang violence will no longer qualify for asylum, in an effort to stem a flow of illegal immigrant families from Central America. In a deciding opinion on a case of an unidentified woman from El Salvador who was raped and […]

Children

UN: ‘Nothing Normal’ about U.S. Detaining Immigrant Children

TeleSur

“Detention is never in the best interests of the child and always constitutes a child rights violation,” officials said. The United Nations has called on the United States to stop detaining irregular migrant families and separating children from their parents on its border with Mexico, saying that the acts broke the law. Several hundred children […]

Displaced and Refugees

Can America Heal the Psychological Wounds of our Syrian Refugees?

Arash Javanbakht

Detroit (The Conversation) – War in Syria and the refugee crisis have been the subject of a heated debate in United States politics, leading to a travel ban and drastic reduction in the number refugees to the U.S. this year. We occasionally hear about brutal deaths and starvation of civilians in Syria from the news, […]

Human Rights Watch

Saudis Arrest 7 Women’s Rights Activists who had Upstaged Crown Prince on Driving

Human Rights Watch

Beirut ( Human Rights Watch) – Saudi authorities since May 15, 2018, detained a total of seven prominent women’s rights defenders, Human Rights Watch said today. The activists have long advocated ending the ban on women driving and abolishing the discriminatory male guardianship system. Among those arrested are Eman al-Nafjan and Lujain al-Hathloul, along with […]

Displaced and Refugees

100,000 Yemenis displaced by Saudi-led Coastal Offensive, with Millions on edge of Famine

AFP

Aden (AFP) – A Yemen government offensive backed by ground troops and warplanes of the Saudi-led coalition has displaced tens of thousands of people along the country’s western coast, Amnesty International said Thursday. The rights group warned “the worst could be yet to come” after surveying civilians who made the perilous escape from front line […]

Torture

The CIA and The Banality of Haspel

John Feffer

( FPIF) It would be hard to find someone with more experience to run the CIA. And that’s why she’s a terrible choice. Trump’s CIA director nominee Gina Haspel made herself an irreplaceable cog in an organization doing reprehensible things. (Shutterstock) Gina Haspel is a consummate professional who has served the U.S. intelligence community with […]