Human Rights

Charleston, WV (Special to Informed Comment) – This month’s Supreme Court decree that gays cannot be fired from jobs simply because they’re gay is a solid blow to white evangelicals, the heart of the Republican Party. Such born-again conservatives claim they have “religious freedom” to treat gays cruelly. Now they’re exposed, once again, as more […]

African-Americans

On Juneteenth: That Time Muslim Tunisia Pleaded with Antebellum US to Abolish Slavery

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor| (Informed Comment) | – – Back in 2017, then Trump chief of staff John Kelly created a controversy with an argument from historical relativism, defending the honoring of Confederate figures. I addressed his glib argument, and reprise it here in honor of Juneteenth. Juneteenth.com explains the origins of today’s commemoration of the end […]

Colonialism

All the Lies Trump told the West Point Graduates about American Militarism

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – It was bad enough that Trump endangered the health of the graduating class at West Point for the purposes of a photo op for his reelection campaign by insisting on bringing them back to campus. It was bad enough that he gave an alarming performance in which some observers saw […]

African-Americans

Top 5 Reasons We must, despite Trump, change the name of Fort Bragg, since Braxton Bragg was a horrible Human Being

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Responding to the Black Lives Matter protests that have sent people to the streets since the killing of George Floyd, the US military was on the verge of changing the names of the US military bases named for Confederate generals when the odious Trump intervened to stop it. African-Americans make […]

African-Americans

Riot or resistance? How media frames unrest in Minneapolis will shape public’s view of protest

The Conversation

Danielle K. Kilgo | – A teenager held her phone steady enough to capture the final moments of George Perry Floyd’s life as he apparently suffocated under the weight of a Minneapolis police officer’s knee on his neck. The video went viral. What happened next has played out time and again in American cities after […]

Authoritarianism

How Middle East Governments are using Covid-19 as a Pretext to Crush Human Rights

Global Voices

By Saoussen Ben Cheikh | – (Globalvoices.org) – In response to COVID-19, governments around the world have declared states of emergency, allowing them to take exceptional measures to contain the pandemic. Liberal democracies from the United States, Canada to European countries, Malaysia and South Africa imposed emergency measures that restricted mobility under lockdowns. Likewise, in […]

Displaced and Refugees

Locked up with no escape: refugees and migrants in Libya face bombs,virus and everything in between

Open Democracy

By Marwa Mohamed | – (openDemocracy.net) – Libya today is facing its greatest challenge to date. In spite of years of internal conflict, the country must gear up to fight a virus with a depleted healthcare system and a fractured state. While the situation is overall bleak, it remains exceptionally desperate for refugees and migrants […]

Drone Warfare

In War Crime, United Arab Emirates Drone Strike in Libya kills 8 Civilians

Human Rights Watch

(Beirut) – An apparently unlawful drone attack by the United Arab Emirates that hit the Al-Sunbulah biscuit factory in Wadi al-Rabie, Libya, south of Tripoli, on November 18, 2019, killed 8 civilians and wounded 27, Human Rights Watch said today, after investigating the incident. The UAE appeared to take little or no action to minimize […]

Featured

Trump’s Buddies in Saudi Arabia abolish Flogging, but Dissidents are Still Dying in its Jails and Journalists being Threatened

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Middle East Online reports that Saudi Arabia has abolished flogging as a punishment. Henceforward, offenders will be fined or jailed instead. It had been one of some 29 countries that still apply corporal punishment. Most of these countries are formerly British colonies that have retained older British penal laws from […]