Subjects Archives: Race

  • How Credible Is Human Rights Watch on Cuba?

      In late 2009 the New York-based group Human Rights Watch published a report titled New Castro, Same Cuba.  Based on the testimony of former prisoners, the report systematically condemns the Cuban government as an “abusive” regime that uses its “repressive machinery . . . draconian laws and sham trials to incarcerate scores more who […]

  • Seema Is a Human Rights Worker, Not a “Naxali”: Letter to the National Human Rights Commission, New Delhi

      Seema Azad, editor of the left-wing journal DASTAK published from Allahabad, was taken into custody by the police Saturday, 6th February, soon after she alighted from the train on her return from the Book Fair at Delhi.  She, along with her husband and left-wing activist Vishwa Vijaya Azad, has been detained at the Khuldabad […]

  • Humanitarian Crusade

    “My basic equipment for Haiti is an M16 assault rifle with a laser sight, phosphorus grenades, a Kevlar bulletproof vest, a Glock pistol with a silencer, and a portable GPS. . . .” “We are following the US humanitarian crusade in Haiti, step by step.” Sergio Langer is an Argentinean cartoonist.  This cartoon was first […]

  • The Ugly Face of the Beautiful Game

      Christos Kassimeris.  European Football in Black and White: Tackling Racism in Football.  Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008.  viii + 267 pp.  $75.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7391-1959-4; $29.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-7391-1960-0. Soccer fans held in thrall by the European Championships have no doubt observed the significant display of anti-racist statements and activities before, during, and after the […]

  • Humanitarian Aid

    Open the Door!  “Humanitarian Aid!” Sergio Langer is an Argentinean cartoonist.  This cartoon was first published by Argenpress.info on 18 January 2010.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | | Print

  • Defamation

      Director’s Statement I first had the idea to make a film about anti-Semitism when my earlier work Checkpoint was released.  In one of that film’s many reviews, I was called “the Israeli Mel Gibson,” not because of my good looks, but because the views I had expressed, critical of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians, […]

  • Honduras’ Most Prominent Human Rights Expert Calls on Obama Administration to Denounce “Grave Human Rights Violations”

    Too Late to Have Free Elections This Month, She Says from Washington Washington, D.C. — Bertha Oliva, the head of Honduras’ most well-known and respected human rights organization, called on the Obama administration to denounce the “grave human right violations” in Honduras. “How can it be that the United States government is silent while Hondurans […]

  • Racism and the Censorship of “Gay Imperialism”

      Dear friends, Over the last few years a number of timely publications have illuminated the connections between gender and sexuality, the War on Terror and racialisation.  One of these is Out of Place: Interrogating Silences in Queerness/Raciality, edited by Adi Kuntsman and Esperanza Miyake and published by Raw Nerve Books in 2008.  An edited […]

  • You Need to Watch Lou Dobbs: Or the Dobbsian Economy of Racism

    I can barely watch Lou Dobbs.  His attacks on Latino immigrants continue to escalate, and there is increasing evidence that there is a correlation between anti-Latino media like that of Dobbs and hate crimes against the Latino population. But we need to watch him, and in this instance I am using “watch” in the sense […]

  • Naxalites for Dummies

      Dear Indian Reader, Not that I would ever, ever consider you to be a dummy — heaven forbid!  After all, you are no US citizen of the (George Dubya) Bush years now, are you?  🙂  You are no placid ignoramus, incapable of pointing to ‘Eye-rack’ on a map, utterly untouched by any knowledge of […]

  • Palestinian-Arabs in Israel to Strike against Wave of Racism

    The Higher Arab Monitoring Committee in Israel announced yesterday (Wednesday, September 2) that it will hold a general strike next month (Thursday, October 1) in protest of the racist government’s policies. In the meeting, held in Nazareth, it was decided that the strike will take place on the same day that the events of October […]

  • The “Cosmopolitan Century”: European Re-Membering

      Natan Sznaider.  Gedächtnisraum Europa: Die Visionen des europäischen Kosmopolitismus; eine jüdische Perspektive.   Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2008.  153 pp.  EUR 16.90 (paper), ISBN 978-3-89942-692-2. As Europe moves into the twenty-first century, its search for a shared identity continues to occupy academic journals, the feuilleton pages, and Eurocrats eager to underwrite a by-and-large successful administrative […]

  • The Responsibility to Protect, the International Criminal Court, and Foreign Policy in Focus: Subverting the UN Charter in the Name of Human Rights

    It was just a matter of time before members of the collapsing left enlisted in the imperial attack on the most fundamental principles of the UN Charter, and added their voices to the growing chorus of support for Western power-projection under the Responsibility to Protect doctrine (R2P) and the International Criminal Court (ICC).  But this […]

  • Human Rights Watch, Speak Up on Honduras Coup!

    On Friday nearly 100 Latin America scholars and experts sent an open letter to Human Rights Watch urging HRW to speak up about human rights violations in Honduras under the coup regime and to conduct its own investigation of these abuses.  The letters’ signers include Honduras experts Dana Frank and Adrienne Pine, Latin America experts […]

  • 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 […]

  • 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. […]

  • Iran: For Human Rights, Against Intervention

      “No matter where we come from, there should never be any support for the US or any outside forces intervening in any country, particularly in Iran.  There should be no sanctions.  Not only sanctions are not humane but are not effective even, for the purpose of people who are doing them. . . . […]

  • 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) […]

  • “Human Beings Are Members of a Whole”: Protecting the Iranian Civil Society

      Human beings are members of a whole, In creation of one essence and soul. If one member is afflicted with pain, Other members uneasy will remain. If you have no sympathy for human pain, The name of human you cannot retain. — A poem by the Persian poet Sa’adi (1210-1290) gracing the entrance of […]

  • July Delegation to Venezuela: Human Rights, Food Sovereignty, and Social Change

    A food sovereignty delegation from the Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle of New York visits La Vela de Coro, Falcón, Venezuela.  Video by Diego Gerena-Quiñones. The Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle of New York invites you to join us in July for a 10-day trip to Venezuela examining advances in food sovereignty and other initiatives for social […]