Subjects Archives: Human Rights

Five years after it was confirmed that the water supply of Flint, Michigan, was a danger to human health, charges have been–at least temporarily–dropped against eight former and present officials who had been facing up to 20 years in prison for a host of felonies. These included charges of voluntary manslaughter in the deaths of 12 people from a 2014 outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease attributed to Flint’s water, which was tainted by pollutants from the Flint River and by lead water pipes. 

“For humanity, comrades,” writes Frantz Fanon at the close of his monumental The Wretched of the Earth, “we must turn over a new leaf, we must work out new concepts, and try to set afoot a new man’. Terrible inequalities in our world keep humanity divided.

Scott Warren was arrested in 2018 for allegedly having “harbored” two fatally weakened undocumented migrants in a facility run by No More Deaths

Yesterday the U.S. Treasury Department added to sanctions announced April 17, and the activation of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, the prohibition of “people to people” cultural and educational trips, plus others related to travel and transportation services, remittances, banking, commerce, and telecommunications

WOLA’s hawkish stance on Venezuela may seem surprising for a “human rights” organization, but it is less of a surprise for those familiar with WOLA’s history.

Cubans are truly committed to the principle of sovereignty, we are protective of our independence, and we would never do to others what we would not allow to be done to ourselves.

Andrea Gibbons’ history of the battle for equal housing in LA uncovers the intensity and injustice of segregation, which remains a highly visible aspect of US cities, finds Adam Tomes

After two months, the images are clear: Chavismo has maintained its capacity for mobilization, while the right wing is in the process of losing what it had managed to regain on January 23.

The solution of the Venezuelan “crisis” lies in good faith negotiations between the government and the opposition, an end to the economic war, and the lifting of sanctions.

The real forces responsible for the destruction of many Muslim-majority countries and the current chaos present in many Western countries are not generated by civilian populations or religions but instead by the global oligarchy that engineers and profits from this chaos.

Under the guise of ‘humanitarian aid’ and the struggle for ‘democracy’, the United States has justified dozens of military and political interventions in the world during the 20th and 21st centuries.

The practice of citing conservative agitators is often characterized as “bothsidesism,” but here the news outlets only presented one side—the one on the far right—without even a hint that the claims might not have a factual basis.

Inequality is sexist. It is also transphobic and racist. This is a reality demonstrated by Oxfam’s recent report on wealth and inequality, and a reality well understood by the people who live it.

Dr Martin Luther King’s writings and speeches “should be a part of the curriculum of public schools,” said Larry Hamm, chairman of the People’s Organization for Progress, based in Newark, New Jersey.

On 8 and 9 January, over 160 million workers went on strike in India from a broad range of sectors, from industrial workers to health care workers. This has been one of the largest general strikes in the world.

Venezuelan grassroots organization Venezuela Libre de Transgenicos / Semillas del Pueblo (Venezuela Free from GMO / Seeds of the People) reports on the third anniversary of the passing of the Seed Law and the efforts driven from below to implement it.

In this article we discuss the (non-) implementation of the Colombian peace accords, based on a conference given by Victoria Sandino, a leading FARC figure. We also examine an initiative, Ecomun, to build peace through the construction of alternative economies in the Colombian countryside.

One in eight people across the world live in informal settlements. This, despite the “right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family” as declared by the International Declaration of Human Rights. Reality, however, is very far from this.

In the new introduction to Lise Vogel’s Marxism and the Oppression of Women: Toward a Unitary Theory, Susan Ferguson and David McNally comment on the book’s “curious life-history.” They describe it, quite correctly, as a book that has lived largely in obscurity in spite of its innovative approach to the question of Marxism and women’s liberation and its enormous, though largely neglected, contribution to this important topic.

Even if the truth is unsavory, the dead deserve our condolences and respect. We must be civil. Especially if they are white.