Tag: human rights

Famed Iranian director sentenced to prison over Cannes Film Festival screening

Famed Iranian director Saeed Roustaee has been sentenced to six months in prison, according to local reports, after presenting his most-recent film at the Cannes International Film Festival last year. Roustaee screened the film “Leila’s Brothers,” a movie about a family in Tehran trying to make ends meet, in competition for the Palme d’Or, the… Read More Famed Iranian director sentenced to prison over Cannes Film Festival screening

Dilip

Jadavpur University ragging row: A failure to safeguard higher education institutions

Despite official campaigns against the practice, ragging has never been an issue in campus politics. Far less does it figure in the larger political arena, where ideological debates are similarly oblivious to gender discrimination, hate crimes, all generated by the same psychopathology of violence linked to the exercise of power Supriya Chaudhuri On the night… Read More Jadavpur University ragging row: A failure to safeguard higher education institutions

Dilip

Manipur to Mewat: Empowering the mob, disempowering the State

The shift in nomenclature from Amrit Kaal to Kartavya Kaal has been marked by a complete dereliction of duty by the country’s top political leadership Sushant Singh From Manipur to Mewat, Narendra Modi’s new India doesn’t portray a pretty picture. It is a holy mess. The shift in nomenclature from Amrit Kaal (auspicious period) to… Read More Manipur to Mewat: Empowering the mob, disempowering the State

Dilip

‘Gangster tactic’: the true aim behind Hong Kong’s pursuit of overseas dissidents

Police targeting pro-democracy activists abroad have questioned their family and put out bounties, but there is a broader, more chilling, objective behind the operation Helen Davidson in Taipei In recent weeks, Hong Kong national security police have embarked on a tactic more commonly associated with their counterparts in mainland China. In early July, Hong Kong police announced arrest… Read More ‘Gangster tactic’: the true aim behind Hong Kong’s pursuit of overseas dissidents

Dilip

David Bergman: As Bangladesh court reaffirms Islam as state religion, secularism hangs on to a contradiction

First posted April 01, 2016 NB: This issue relates to the centuries-old debate about civil religion, a matter dealt with extensively by Ronald Beiner in his excellent book Civil Religion: a Dialogue in the History of Political Philosophy. After 1789, nationalism emerged as an alternative civic religion and patriotism became a political form of prayer. So zealotry… Read More David Bergman: As Bangladesh court reaffirms Islam as state religion, secularism hangs on to a contradiction

Dilip

Afghan women are being ‘erased from everything’

Tuesday marks the two-year anniversary of Kabul falling to the Taliban, which seized control of Afghanistan amid the United States’ chaotic, controversial withdrawal from the country after nearly 20 years of fighting…. But celebrating is the last thing many Afghan women want to do… as life under Taliban rule becomes increasingly repressive and brutal. When Zahra thinks back to her life before the… Read More Afghan women are being ‘erased from everything’

Dilip

Vilification of Assam Rifles is a calculated move for revenge

The connivance of the state and Union government in letting the violence spiral out of control and not adequately utilising the available instruments of the central government, especially the Army and the Assam Rifles, seems deliberate, irresponsible and extremely dangerous in terms of national security.  LT GENERAL PRAKASH MENON The Assam Rifles is a central paramilitary force… Read More Vilification of Assam Rifles is a calculated move for revenge

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Russia’s military wives and mothers are challenging Putin’s war on Ukraine

Russia’s anti-war movement should learn from the ‘patriotic dissent’ used by women involved in the war Natasha Danilova / Jennifer Mathers The women in Russia’s military families are posing a subtle but significant challenge to Vladimir Putin’s handling of the war in Ukraine by engaging in a form of political activism best described as ‘patriotic… Read More Russia’s military wives and mothers are challenging Putin’s war on Ukraine

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