If your own suffering does not serve to unite you with the suffering of others, if your own imprisonment does not join you with others in prison, if you in your smallness remain alone, then your pain will have been for naught. On the evening of August 1st in Tel Aviv, someone entered a youth […]
Geography Archives: Middle East
Elections in Afghanistan
“Light! Camera! Action!“ Gervasio Umpiérrez is a cartoonist based in Montevideo, Uruguay. This cartoon was featured on the home page of Rebelión on 22 August 2009. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).
Night
شب / Night Majid Naficy was born in Esfahan, Iran in 1952. His first wife Ezzat Tabaian and his brother Sa’id were executed after the revolution. He fled Iran in 1983, eventually settling in Los Angeles with his son Azad. This video was brought online by the Translation Project on 17 July 2007. This poem — […]
A Crucial Factor in Colonial Conflicts: Opposition from Within
In a colonial conflict, the main protagonists are, on the one hand, the colonial power and, on the other, the colonized population, and, when it exists, the liberation movement of the latter. This was the case in the Algerian liberation war, the struggle of the Vietnamese people, in Angola and in Mozambique. The ability of […]
Rights of Detainees and Accused in the Legal System of Islamic Republic of Iran
This memorandum is intended only as a general discussion of these issues. It should not be regarded as legal advice. “Democracy is just a word. You have to give it meaning.”— Ramsey Clark Background: The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran was adopted by referendum on October 24, 1979 and was amended on July […]
Choosing the Path of Critical Debate on Iran
Tariq Ramadan just got purged from not only his position as “integration advisor” to the city of Rotterdam but also his visiting professorship at Erasmus University. — Ed. An Open Letter to My Detractors in the Netherlands Tuesday 18 August 2009 Once again I have come under attack in the Netherlands. Last May and June, […]
Will Iran Get to Have Three Women Ministers?
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s landmark decision to nominate three women for cabinet posts in his second administration bodes well for his post-election promise to usher in a “new era” in Iran. The choice of three females for top ministerial positions will be interpreted by critics as a ploy by Ahmadinejad to compensate for any perceived legitimacy […]
The Great Tehran Expo Privatization Scandal You’ve Never Heard Of
Most Iranian politicians, no matter what faction they belong to, place an inordinate amount of faith in the concept of privatization. Whatever woes the Iranian economy may suffer from, privatization seems to be the solution. All four candidates in the June election spoke about the need for privatization of state-owned enterprises, with little difference in […]
A Simple Question about Israel
On 2 August 2009, after cordoning off part of the Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in east Jerusalem, Israeli police evicted two Palestinian families (more than 50 people) from their homes; Jewish settlers immediately moved into the emptied houses. Although Israeli police cited a ruling by the country’s supreme court, the evicted Arab families […]
Legendary Lawyer Doris Brin Walker Dies; Represented Angela Davis, Smith Act Defendants
Doris “Dobby” Brin Walker, the first woman president of the National Lawyers Guild, died on August 13 at the age of 90. Doris was a brilliant lawyer and a tenacious defender of human rights. The only woman in her University of California Berkeley law school class, Doris defied the odds throughout her life, achieving significant […]
Beyond “Islam and Human Rights”?
Shahram Akbarzadeh, Benjamin MacQueen, eds. Islam and Human Rights in Practice: Perspectives across the Ummah. London: Routledge, 2008. x + 176 pp. $140.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-415-44959-5. Islam and Human Rights in Practice: Perspectives across the Ummah addresses a vexing theoretical issue: can contemporary human rights practically inform normative and political structures in the Muslim […]
No American Money for Israeli Settlements
For many years, various American governments have called on Israel to stop the expansion of settlements, but Israel has consistently ignored this demand. The Obama administration has been the most vocal administration so far in articulation of this demand. Yet unfortunately a number of American individuals and institutions have provided large quantities of material […]
I Did What My Heart Told Me to Do
This is not the first time that I stand trial for my beliefs. But it is the first time that they will probably be able to stop me. I always knew that many people silently supported me, and that if I ever got into trouble they would stand behind me. This moment has come. […]
Mahmoud & Esfandiar’s Excellent Adventure
Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, whose daughter is married to a son of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is the President’s Chief of Staff. Mr. Mashaei is known for actions that have appalled certain conservative quarters of the Iranian political establishment, such as attending a ceremony in Turkey where women danced and hosting a ceremony in Tehran where women drumming […]
Open Letter to Iranian Authorities and World Community
As members of the Board of Iranians For Peace (IFP), we are deeply concerned about the events following June 12 election in Iran particularly the street violence, loss of life, and widespread arrests. One of the detainees, Dr Bijan Khajehpour Khoei, is a supporter of the IFP. We appeal to the Iranian authorities to […]
Ecological Revolution for Our Time
John Bellamy Foster. The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2009. 328 pp. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels famously urged the world’s workers to unite because they had a world to win, and nothing to lose but their chains. Today, the reality of climate change and worsening environmental breakdowns […]
After the Orange Revolution: “Worldwide Low 4% of Ukrainians Approve of Their Country’s Leadership”
The Orange Revolution in Ukraine, which began with a dispute over the 21 November 2004 run-off vote between the leading presidential candidates, ended by installing Viktor Yushchenko, the Western favorite who cried fraud, into presidency on 23 January 2005. Ian Traynor of the Guardian put the price tag of the Orange Revolution at about $14 […]
U.S. Considers Cutting Off Iran’s Gasoline Supplies
Martin Savidge: What do you think will happen if the United States were to try to impose gasoline sanctions on Iran? Trita Parsi: I think, first of all, it’s going be very difficult to impose effective gasoline sanctions on Iran because you would have to get the cooperation of all the countries in the […]
The Politics of the UNDP Arab Human Development Report
On Tuesday, July 21st, the United Nations Development Program launched its 5th Arab Human Development Report (AHDR). The independently prepared report was not presented to the public prior to its publication, but criticism began to surface even before it was released, both from researchers involved in the report and from observers. Wujohat Nazar (Perspectives) […]
Higher Education Today: Theory and Practice
In the Beginning I am a child of the cold war. I was born in 1940, was an adolescent in the 1950s, and devoid of political consciousness when President Eisenhower warned of the “unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex” in 1960. I was modestly inspired by the young President Kennedy’s […]
