Human Rights

Saudi Arabia: Mass Execution of 81 Men: Rampant Abuses in Criminal Justice System, lack of Fair Trials

Human Rights Watch – (Beirut) – Saudi authorities’ execution of 81 men on March 12, 2022 was its largest mass execution in years despite recent promises to curtail its use of the death penalty, Human Rights Watch said today. Rampant and systemic abuses in Saudi Arabia’s criminal justice system suggest it is highly unlikely that […]

Human Rights

Putin is Thumbing his Nose at International Law – Betting that the Age of Impunity will Continue

The Conversation

By Shelley Inglis, University of Dayton | – Images of pregnant women fleeing a bombed maternity ward in Mariupol, Ukraine, raised again the question of how far the Russian military will be willing to go to conquer the country – and whether war crimes are being committed. In just over two weeks of the invasion, […]

Displaced and Refugees

Humanitarian corridors could help civilians safely leave Ukraine – but Russia has a history of not respecting these pathways

The Conversation

By Kirsten Gelsdorf and Jacob Kurtzer | – As Russia continues to target houses, apartment buildings, hospitals and civilians in Ukraine, there are mounting calls from international aid groups to safely evacuate and protect Ukrainians caught in the war. Simultaneously, rising numbers of people still in Ukraine are in desperate need of food, medical supplies, […]

Human Rights

Ukraine: Russian Assault Kills Fleeing Civilians, suggesting Laws of War Violations (HRW)

Human Rights Watch

( Human Rights Watch ) – For several hours on March 6, 2022, Russian forces bombarded an intersection on a road that hundreds of civilians were using to flee the Russian army’s advance in northern Ukraine to Kyiv, Human Rights Watch said today. The repeated nature of the attacks, which according to the government killed […]

Authoritarianism

The River of Refugees becomes a Flood as 84 Million flee War, Violence and Tyranny

Nick Turse

( Tomdispatch.com ) – We live on a planet in motion, a world of collision and drift. This was once an Earth of super-continents — Gondwana, Rodinia, Pangea. The eastern seaboard of the United States sidled up against West Africa, while Antarctica cozied up to the opposite side of the African continent. But nothing in […]

Displaced and Refugees

Why Putin’s War against Ukraine is Illegal in International Law

The Conversation

By Hurst Hannum | – Both international law and the United Nations Charter say that countries should not invade each other. But who has the ability to enforce those rules? U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres put them to the test on Feb. 24, 2022, when he called on Russia to stop its fast-moving ground invasion of […]

Afghanistan

Operation Allies Welcome Resettling 70,000 Afghans in US, but they are only Guaranteed 2 Years Here

The Conversation

By Kathryn Libal and Scott Harding | – As of February 2022, some 65,000 Afghans evacuated during the American withdrawal from Afghanistan have settled in U.S. communities. Several hundred more remain on military bases in the U.S., while nearly 2,800 are still waiting on U.S. bases abroad. The Biden administration, which aims to have all […]

Antisemitism

My Life with Maus: Or How I Was Banned (Even If in a Second-Hand Way) by a Trumpian World

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Sometimes life has a way of making you realize things about yourself. Recently, I discovered that an urge of mine, almost four decades old, had been the very opposite of that of a rural Tennessee school board this January. In another life, I played a role in what could be thought […]

Apartheid

US Gov’t depends on Amnesty Int’l for Human Rights Reports, but Rejects Finding of Israeli Apartheid

Phyllis Bennis

( Otherwords.org ) – One day last spring, Palestinians in Israel and the occupied West Bank declared a general strike to protest years of repression they faced under Israeli rule. The nonviolent strike came as Israel attempted to evict seven Palestinian families from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem, part of a longstanding effort to […]