Human Rights

By RFE/RL’s Radio Farda ( RFE/RL ) – Pop singer Mehdi Yarrahi has been given 74 lashes for a song criticizing Iran’s mandatory dress code for women, ending a criminal case against him that also included a prison term. His lawyer, Zahra Minuei, wrote on X on March 5 that Yarrahi’s flogging sentence had been […]

censorship

Protesting to NY Gov. Hochul for Quashing the Palestinian Studies Post at Hunter College

Committee on Academic Freedom

Committee on Academic Freedom | Middle East Studies Association | – The Honorable Kathy Hochul Governor of the State of New York Governor.Hochul@exec.ny.gov . . . Dear Governor Hochul, Chairperson Thompson and Chancellor Rodriguez: We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on […]

Featured

The Netanyahu Cabinet’s War against Human Rights in Israel: B’Tselem in the Crosshairs

Dan Steinbock

In early 2023, the most far-right cabinet in Israel’s history launched its war for “judicial reforms” to replace democracy with autocracy. In fall 2023, it began an obliteration war against Gaza. Now it is readying to decimate the last human rights defenders in Israel. New York (Special to Informed Comment; feature) – In the view […]

Featured

Should Biden, Blinken, Austin and Trump be tried at the Hague for Gaza Genocide?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The civil society human rights NGO DAWN (Democracy for the Arab World Now) has submitted a detailed filing to the International Criminal Court in the Hague urging that Joe Biden, Tony Blinken and Lloyd Austin be indicted for war crimes for their deep involvement in prosecuting the genocide in Gaza. […]

Bill of Rights

For Trumpism “Free Speech” means Neo-Nazi Speech

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Convicted felon Donald Trump is eviscerating the US Constitution in a particularly insidious way. Previously, I have written about Trump’s efforts to hijack the Free Speech Movement, and invert it, thrusting us all down the Republican rabbit hole. This perversion of free speech takes a most precious, […]

censorship

Protest to MIT about Denying a Palestine Course to Professor Michael DeGraff

Committee on Academic Freedom

Committee on Academic Freedom | Middle East Studies Association | – Sally Kornbluth President, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sally.kornbluth@mit.edu . . . Dear President Kornbluth and colleagues: We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our concern about the […]

art and photography

Make Art, not War

William D. Hartung

( 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 […]