Remembering Tiananmen Square: Defending Memory Amidst Repression  

@ Amnesty International On JUNE 4, 1989, hundreds – possibly thousands – of protesters peacefully calling for economic and social reforms were killed by troops around Tiananmen Square.  Today, in the face of an escalating crackdown on free expression by the Chinese government, the memory of what happened on Tiananmen Square teeters on the brink of… Read More Remembering Tiananmen Square: Defending Memory Amidst Repression  

Leaflet by leaflet, a few aging activists fight India’s tide of bigotry

To respect God and to pretend to do that for votes are two different things: Vipin Kumar Tripathi Sameer Yasir One recent morning, Roop Rekha Verma, an 80-year-old peace activist and former university leader, walked through a north Indian neighborhood prone to sectarian strife and parked herself near a tea shop. From her sling bag,… Read More Leaflet by leaflet, a few aging activists fight India’s tide of bigotry

South Africa: ANC reels from vote collapse

Rachel Savage in Johannesburg South Africa is facing the uncertain possibility of a coalition government after the former president Jacob Zuma’s new party upended the country’s elections, contributing to the African National Congress party’s vote share collapsing well below half, with more than two-thirds of voting stations counted. By late afternoon on Thursday, the ANC, which has governed South Africa with… Read More South Africa: ANC reels from vote collapse

From Guest Workers to Ghost Workers: The Electoral Exclusion of India’s Migrants

NAMRATA RAJU The ghosts of migrant workers haunting the facades of the buildings they once constructed makes for striking imagery. It is also true that the invisibilisation of migrant workers is just that extreme. Whether in literary fiction such as Deepak Unnikrishnan’s Temporary People, or scholarship like anthropologist Andrea Wright’s Between Dreams and Ghosts, it… Read More From Guest Workers to Ghost Workers: The Electoral Exclusion of India’s Migrants

Biden was my boss. As a Jew I cannot endorse the Gaza catastrophe / Phyllis Bennis Calls Out the US for Supporting Israel

GAZA casualties, live statistics There are lessons to be learned from our faith and history, as we watch the same dehumanization that fell upon my community now land upon another. Each day, I see photos of those displaced in Gaza, and I am reminded of my own family’s memory of loved ones killed in the… Read More Biden was my boss. As a Jew I cannot endorse the Gaza catastrophe / Phyllis Bennis Calls Out the US for Supporting Israel

‘We didn’t fight for this’: ANC’s grip on power in peril in South Africa election

Thirty years after the end of apartheid, corruption is rife, crime is high and the economy is a mess. The party of Mandela admits it ‘made mistakes’. But will the people forgive them? Steve Bloomfield in Johannesburg In the heart of Soweto, the birthplace of South African democracy has been burned, looted and stripped for parts.… Read More ‘We didn’t fight for this’: ANC’s grip on power in peril in South Africa election

Civil Society Hearing into the 1988 Massacre in Iran / Open Letter to the UN Human Rights Council

The UN Special Rapporteur on Iran and the Chair-Rapporteur of the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances join JVMI and survivors of the 1988 massacre in Geneva on 15 February 2024 in an appeal for justice London, 2 April 2024 – A group of 77 current and former United Nations special procedure mandate-holders and commissioners… Read More Civil Society Hearing into the 1988 Massacre in Iran / Open Letter to the UN Human Rights Council

Pakistani poet was abducted because of human rights activism, says wife

Ahmad Farhad was pushed into vehicle hours after posting about threats from country’s spy agency, says Syeda Urooj Zainab Shah Meer Baloch in Islamabad The wife of a Pakistani poet and journalist who was abducted from outside his house last week has accused the country’s spy agency of responsibility, saying it acted because of his activism.… Read More Pakistani poet was abducted because of human rights activism, says wife

How Billionaires Silenced US Campus Protests

Thousands of students face severe consequences for protesting Gaza violence. Alan Macleod investigates the powerful financial and ideological ties to Israel driving the harsh responses from America’s top universities. By Alan MacLeod / MintPress News America’s universities are on fire. A protest movement against the violence in Gaza and U.S. colleges’ complicity in them has swept… Read More How Billionaires Silenced US Campus Protests

More than half the world cannot speak freely, report finds

Sharp rise in number of people facing a crisis in freedom of speech, while authors particularly alarmed by deterioration in India under Narendra Modi Half the world’s population cannot freely speak their mind according to a new report on freedom of expression. In its annual report, the advocate group Article 19 found the number of people… Read More More than half the world cannot speak freely, report finds