Geography Archives: Middle East

  • International Peace Delegation to Syria, May 2-10, 2013

    Former U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire from Northern Ireland are two of twenty participants from seven countries that will participate in an international delegation to Syria, May 2-10, 2013.  The purpose of the delegation is to meet with communities affected by the fighting, with a view towards facilitating peace and […]

  • Free Hassan — Defend Iraqi Workers

    Hassan Juma’a Awad, president of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, faces three years in jail and heavy fines for organizing workers in the Iraqi oil fields.  They oppose privatization of Iraqi oil and demand fair treatment and respect at work.  Meet Hassan in this short video and act in international solidarity as requested in […]

  • Drones, Sanctions, and the Prison Industrial Complex

    In the final weeks of a six-month prison sentence for protesting remote-control murder by drones, specifically from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, I can only reflect on my time of captivity in light of the crimes that brought me here.  In these ominous times, it is America’s officials and judges and not the anarchists […]

  • Homonationalism & Pinkwashing: LGBT Rescue Narratives

    This video shows a panel discussion, moderated by Gayatri Gopinath, featuring the following scholars and papers: Katherine Fobear, “Queer Settlers: Exploring the Intersections of Colonial Violence and Settler Homonationalism With LGBTQ Refugees in Canada”; Colleen Jankovic, “Paranoia, the ‘Untold Story’ of Queer Palestine, and Non-Aligned Queer Solidarity”; Emrah Yıldız, “Alignments of International Refugee Law, Liberalism […]

  • Confronting the Amnesty Scare

    The anti-immigrant right has been mounting a scare campaign since late January about the supposed dangers of legalizing the country’s estimated 11.5 million undocumented immigrants. — “When you legalize those who are in the country illegally,” Rep. Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas, announced on January 28, “it costs taxpayers millions of dollars, costs American workers […]

  • Just Another Shin Bet Interrogation

      I was fortunate this week.  I had a quick and easy crossing from Jordan back into Israel.  No delays, no questions, no invasive body searches and no lengthy rummaging through my luggage.  The border guard sitting next to the computer took my passport, opened it and looked at the screen, presumably to check for […]

  • The Story of Ordu Is the Story of Every University in Turkey

      In a society where employees are only expected to perform well according to predetermined criteria, where loyalty to superiors and management is permanently tested through the nightmare of contract non-renewal, where there is a desire to transform universities into subsidiaries of monopoly capital, those who say “a university should not be like that” will […]

  • World Social Forum Opens in Tunisia

    Tunis, Tunisia Tens of thousands of people marched through downtown Tunis on Tuesday in a spirited march celebrating the beginning the 13th World Social Forum — the first to be held in an Arab country.  The majority of marchers were from Tunisia and neighboring nations, but there was substantial representation from Europe, as well as […]

  • The Resistible Rise of a New One-Party System

    Conversation in Germany these days, when not about soccer, dealt often with beef which was part horsemeat, high-priced organic “bio” eggs which weren’t all they claimed to be, or, in thrilling, moving detail, the last weeks, days, and hours of the one and only German Pope (since 1058 A.D.). Also under often heated debate was […]

  • The Uncommon Courage of Bradley Manning

    Bradley Manning has pleaded guilty to 10 charges including possessing and willfully communicating to an unauthorized person — all the main elements of the WikiLeaks disclosure.  The charges carry a total of 20 years in prison.  For the first time, Bradley spoke publicly about what he did and why.  His actions, now confirmed by his […]

  • Strategizing to Defeat Control Unit Prisons and Solitary Confinement: An Interview with Author/Activist Nancy Kurshan

    Author and longtime activist Nancy Kurshan’s new book, entitled Out of Control: A Fifteen Year Battle Against Control Unit Prisons, has just been released by the Freedom Archives.  Kurshan’s book documents the work of The Committee to End the Marion Lockdown (CEML), which she co-founded in 1985 as a response to the lockdown at the […]

  • I, Samer al-Issawi, Son of Jerusalem, Send You My Last Will: Carry My Soul as a Cry for All the Prisoners

      Message from Samer al-Issawi, day 209 of his hunger strike, via Rona Merrill and Neta Golan I turn with admiration to the masses of our heroic Palestinian people, to our Palestinian leadership, to all forces, parties, and national institutions.  I salute them for standing by our fight to defend our right to freedom and […]

  • The Unusual Uprising in Iraqi Kurdistan, Two Years On

    “Under Fire in Iraqi Kurdistan,” Extract from The Fourth Estate in Iraqi Kurdistan, a film by Rozh Ahmad On February 16th, 2011, in solidarity with the mass uprisings sweeping the Middle East, Kurds took to the streets of Sulaymaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan and the following day demanded an end to their one and only official […]

  • “Whose Streets? Our Streets!”: Reflections on the World’s Largest Demonstration, Ten Years Later

      February 15, 2003 Sarah, New York: The wind that whips down the avenues is bitterly cold, but that doesn’t stop us from protesting the drive to war in Iraq.  People from all over the city and the Northeast — young and old, hardened activists and first-time protestors — have converged on Manhattan, where the […]

  • Golden Dawn: The Development of Greek Fascism

    As was the case in 1930s Germany, Greek liberalism has revealed itself to be politically spent.  In dealing with the austerity measures imposed upon the country from outside by an international troika consisting of the IMF, European Commission, and European Central Bank, the government has failed comprehensively in the eyes of its electorate. When the […]

  • Expanding Executive Power for Extrajudicial Executions: An Interview with Marjorie Cohn About DOJ Drone Memo

      DB: We continue our discussion of the revelations around a memo coming out of the Justice Department that the administration plans to keep up these assassinations and expand the program.  Joining us to take a legal look at this is Marjorie Cohn, Professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and former President of the […]

  • The Talented Mr. Takeyh: Why Doesn’t the Council on Foreign Relations Fellow Like Flynt & Hillary Mann Leverett?

    If there’s one thing mainstream “Iran experts” hate, it’s well-credentialed, experienced analysts who dare challenge Beltway orthodoxies, buck conventional wisdom, and demythologize the banal, bromidic, and Manichean foreign policy narrative of the United States government and its obedient media.  Such perspectives are shunned by “serious” scholars who play by the rules they and their former […]

  • “Iranian Mothers for Peace” Alert the World on Sanctions and Shortage of Medicines

    “Iranian Mothers for Peace,” in an open letter of January 2013 to Mr. Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, and Dr. Margaret Chan, the Director General of the World Heath Organization, have alerted the responsible world bodies and human rights organizations to the critical shortage of vital medication due to the US/EU-led sanctions on Iran […]

  • SNC’s Khatib Now Ready for Dialogue With Syria’s Assad — Why?

    Note: Moaz al-Khatib is the President of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (commonly known as the Syrian National Coalition, SNC, the successor to the Syrian National Council, also known as SNC). | Print

  • Zero Dark Thirty: The Woman’s Guide to Success Thru Torture

    I. The Globe See the Globe.  More than half the 7 billion people on the Globe are women.  Women are different from men.  Why are women different from men?  Because, according to international humanitarian agencies, women have special percentages that stick out.  See women’s percentages: Women make up 70% of the world’s poor. Women do […]