Human Rights

By Todd Miller | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – When I first talked to the three Honduran men in the train yard in the southern Mexican town of Tenosique, I had no idea that they were climate-change refugees. We were 20 miles from the border with Guatemala at a rail yard where Central American refugees […]

censorship

Saudi Arabia makes it ‘Terrorism’ to Criticize the King

contributors

Human Rights Watch | – – (New York) – Saudi Arabia’s new counterterrorism law includes vague and overly broad definitions of acts of terrorism, in some cases punishable by death, Human Rights Watch said today. The law replaces a widely criticized counterterrorism law promulgated in 2014, adding definitions of specific acts of terrorism and their […]

Bill of Rights

Trump’s attack on UCLA Athletes’ right to Dissent an Attack on America

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – So Trump intervened with Chinese authorities to release three UCLA basketball players guilty of shoplifting from a mall in Hangzhou while playing in China. They thanked him, he told them to change their ways. Then Levar Ball, the father of LiAngelo Ball–one of the three freed […]

Displaced and Refugees

The Saudi-US war on Yemen is killing 130 Children a Day & Other Bleak Statistics

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Saudi-led coalition is waging total war on Yemen in a bid to defeat the guerrilla group, the Houthis or the Helpers of God. The Houthis took power in Sanaa in fall of 2014 and consolidated it in early 2015. By March-April, Saudi Arabia’s Muhammad Bin […]

Climate Change

Climate change victims need official refugee status: Oxfam

contributors

By Marion Candau | EURACTIV.fr | translated by Paola Tamma | – – With the COP23 climate conference ongoing in Bonn, Oxfam published a troubling report on people displaced by climate change. EURACTIV France reports. Since 2008, about 26 million people have been displaced each year due to natural disasters. The figure for 2016 was […]

Displaced and Refugees

Voices of Yemen’s ‘Forgotten War’ Speak Out, Despite Legal Barriers

contributors

Global Advocacy Netizen Report | (GlobalVoices.org) Yemeni blogger Afrah Nasser was awarded this year’s International Free Press Award for her work covering the conflict in Yemen despite the many obstacles faced by journalists in the country. But Nasser, who also holds Swedish citizenship, was nearly unable to attend the awards ceremony in New York in […]

Displaced and Refugees

Escaping Death: Meet The Rohingya Muslim Refugees Fleeing Myanmar (Video)

contributors

AJ+ | (Video News Clip) | – – “Late at night, Dudu Mia and his family wash up on the shores of Bangladesh. Their village in neighboring Myanmar was attacked by the military in an ongoing campaign to purge the Rohingya Muslim minority from the country; the refugees bring with them countless horror stories of […]

Featured

Dear John Kelly: Yes, Slavery was wrong in 1860s & Muslims helped Convince Americans to end It

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – John Kelly’s ignorant remarks about the Civil War and compromise on Laura Ingraham’s show have rightly angered a lot of people. One of the arguments he made was for historical relativism: ““I think we make a mistake, though, and as a society and certainly as, as […]

Slavery and Trafficking

That Time when Muslim Tunisia advised the Antebellum US to Abolish Slavery

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Revised classroom version Some observers imply that in 1861, most people in the world believed in slavery and so you can’t blame the American South for retaining it. This premise is not true. For one thing, a majority of American states had abolished slavery. Ohio did […]