The situation in Haiti is quietly, exhaustedly unstable. People I talk to in camps complain of flooding when it rains, and children get fevers and diarrhea for lack of clean water. Port-au-Prince has never had universal potable water, but now that over a million people are homeless and unemployed, many cannot afford to buy clean […]
Human rights abuses have been making headlines almost daily in the burning hot battles of Mexico’s drug wars. From the horrific massacre of 72 migrants last week, to the gruesome display of four decapitated corpses strung from a bridge along with a warning sign, to human rights investigators gone MIA, the news is dark and […]
I am now writing from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. I arrived here on Sunday and am freelancing for several organizations for the next few months. While I will try to keep a broad lens for the blog, I thought I would kick it off with a post on human rights in Haiti, as the human rights situation […]
The central theme of the International AIDS Conference was supposed to be the war on drugs. As I highlighted in my last post, criminalization has been proven to fuel the epidemic, while engaging directly with people with a higher risk for HIV significantly decreases transmission and death. The conference was in Vienna expressly to “bridge” […]
As India and China battle it out in the Indian Ocean, human rights takes a back seat in South Asia.
Sean Patrick Murphy just posted a good review of The Stoning of Soraya M. over on the Global Films blog. The film is based on the book of the same name by French-Iranian writer Freidoune Sahebjam which tells the true story of one of Iran’s many stoning victims under Sharia law. More than anything, it […]
Repression, certainly. The news coming out of Rwanda doesn’t look good. As the country prepares for elections in August (which current president Kagame is almost certain to win) dissident voices and opposition party leaders are feeling the heat. Last week editor-journalist Jean-Léonard Rugambage was shot dead outside his house. He worked for Umuvugizi, a banned […]
The 2010 Ibrahim Prize for excellence in African leadership goes to…no one. The prize committee of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation announced last week they are not granting the award this year, as they found no suitable candidates. The Ibrahim prize is granted to an African leader who has achieved positive developments in their country, and, […]
Sean Murphy on the Global Film blog recently reviewed Amandla! a documentary about South African music under apartheid. As we turn our gaze to the country for the World Cup, it is good to look back and learn more about the intricacies of apartheid and the mass struggle to overturn the system. South Africa is […]
Angelina Jolie, UNHCR goodwill ambassador, pled in her address for World Refugee Day “Please remember the millions of people around the world forced from their homes whose only hope of return is to not be forgotten.” “Never forget” has become an almost ironic slogan in the humanitarian world, as crises enter and leave public […]
And the winner is: “Report: China, Cuba more peaceful than US.” The Associated Press ran the story of the release of the 2010 Global Peace Index this way with a true journalist’s flair: the headline itself would pique the interest of a broad base of browsers—irritated conservatives and eager self-validating liberals alike, the in-betweens and […]
At this point, it is unlikely that anyone has missed word of Arizona’s new immigration law. SB 1070 was signed by Governor Jan Brewer on April 23 and is the nation’s toughest law on unauthorized immigration. For the month since its passing, the country and the hemisphere have been abuzz debating the controversial nature of […]
The 2010 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty goes to………Akbar Ganji! (Photo taken from Cato Institute) Ganji is a well- known Iranian writer and journalist. He spent 6 years in an Iranian prison for being a vocal supporter of secular democracy in Iran and exposing government involvement in the assassination of individuals opposed to Iran’s theocratic […]
Few links to human rights stories that other people have been following: Rape in the DRC Cassandra Clifford over at the FPB Children Blog has posted story highlighting the seemingly never-ending crisis concerning rape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Although this issue has gained more attention recently, her coverage illustrates how much further […]
by Jessica D’Itri Mu Sochua, 55, the most prominent woman in Cambodia’s Sam Rainsey opposition party is on the campaign trail three years in advance of the scheduled parliamentary elections. Sochua, a human rights and women’s rights activist, faces a tough and at times vicious campaign. The Prime Minister, Hun Sen, of the ruling Cambodian […]