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Category: Human rights

Trump has made ‘a huge gift to America’s enemies’ by silencing pro-democracy media

Trump has made ‘a huge gift to America’s enemies’ by silencing pro-democracy media

Politico reports: U.S. President Donald Trump’s move to stop financing U.S.-funded media including Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is stirring anger and indignation. On Saturday, journalists from VOA, RFE/RL and other U.S.-funded media outlets were put on leave or otherwise told to stop work after Trump moved to effectively freeze funding to media that have correspondents all over the world and provide coverage of regions including Eastern Europe and Central Asia. “These media outlets have…

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Starvation is not a negotiating tactic

Starvation is not a negotiating tactic

Megan Stack writes: “You do whatever you want,” President Trump said he told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. Mr. Netanyahu, it seems, took Mr. Trump at his word. Israel has clamped Gaza back under near-total siege, barring desperately needed humanitarian aid and other goods from entering the hungry and bomb-decimated enclave. Food, medicine, tents, fuel — for the past week and a half, supplies have not been permitted into Gaza, where some two million Palestinians are trying to survive in the wreckage….

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White House oversaw arrest of Mahmoud Khalil. Now another Palestinian has been arrested

White House oversaw arrest of Mahmoud Khalil. Now another Palestinian has been arrested

The Associated Press reports: On Thursday, Khalil’s lawyers filed new court documents describing how he was rushed from New York to Louisiana last weekend in a manner that left the outspoken Columbia University graduate student feeling like he was being kidnapped. The experience reminded Khalil of when he left Syria shortly after the forced disappearance of his friends there during a period of arbitrary detention in 2013, the lawyers wrote. According to the lawsuit, Khalil repeatedly asked to speak to…

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Ukrainian journalist, Victoria Roshchyna, died exposing Russia’s hidden crimes

Ukrainian journalist, Victoria Roshchyna, died exposing Russia’s hidden crimes

Slidstvo.Info reports: Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna, who was captured by Russian forces in the summer of 2023, endured brutal torture in captivity, according to an investigation by Slidstvo.Info. Investigators found she suffered knife wounds, electric shocks, and became so emaciated her weight dropped to just 30 kilograms. Russian prison staff reportedly hid her from inspections to conceal her deteriorating condition. Roshchyna was taken prisoner in August 2023 while reporting from Russian-occupied territories. For months, her whereabouts were unknown. It wasn’t…

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U.S. added to international watchlist for rapid decline in civic freedoms

U.S. added to international watchlist for rapid decline in civic freedoms

The Guardian reports: The United States has been added to the Civicus Monitor Watchlist, which identifies countries that the global civil rights watchdog believes are currently experiencing a rapid decline in civic freedoms. Civicus, an international non-profit organization dedicated to “strengthening citizen action and civil society around the world”, announced the inclusion of the US on the non-profit’s first watchlist of 2025 on Monday, alongside the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Italy, Pakistan and Serbia. The watchlist is part of…

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Facing Trump’s threats, Columbia inquisition targets students critical of Israel

Facing Trump’s threats, Columbia inquisition targets students critical of Israel

The Associated Press reports: Columbia University senior Maryam Alwan was visiting family in Jordan over winter break when she received an email from the school accusing her of harassment. Her supposed top offense: writing an op-ed in the student newspaper calling for divestment from Israel. The probe is part of a flurry of recent cases brought by a new university disciplinary committee — the Office of Institutional Equity — against Columbia students who have expressed criticism of Israel, according to…

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DOGE’s foreign aid cuts spark ‘total chaos’ around the world

DOGE’s foreign aid cuts spark ‘total chaos’ around the world

Wired reports: Representatives from dozens of nonprofit organizations attending a major human rights conference in Taipei, Taiwan, last week woke up Thursday to devastating news. Over the previous night in Asia, the Donald Trump administration had abruptly announced it would end nearly 10,000 contracts and grants from the US State Department, including the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) as well as the US Agency for International Development, representing about 90 percent of USAID’s contracts overall. The announcement…

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USAID cuts to foreign aid will bring disease and death to millions

USAID cuts to foreign aid will bring disease and death to millions

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw foreign aid and dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development is likely to cause enormous human suffering, according to estimates by the agency itself. Among them: up to 18 million additional cases of malaria per year, and as many as 166,000 additional deaths; 200,000 children paralyzed with polio annually, and hundreds of millions of infections; one million children not treated for severe acute malnutrition, which is often fatal, each…

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Israel cuts off humanitarian supplies to Gaza as it tries to upend ceasefire deal

Israel cuts off humanitarian supplies to Gaza as it tries to upend ceasefire deal

The Guardian reports: Israel has cut off humanitarian supplies to Gaza in an effort to pressure Hamas into accepting a change in the ceasefire agreement to allow for the release of hostages without an Israeli troop withdrawal. The office of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Sunday it was imposing a blockade on Gaza because Hamas would not accept a plan which it claimed had been put forward by the US special envoy, Steve Witkoff, to extend phase one…

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The Trump administration said these aid programs saved lives. It canceled them anyway

The Trump administration said these aid programs saved lives. It canceled them anyway

By Anna Maria Barry-Jester and Brett Murphy This story was originally published by ProPublica After the Trump administration moved to freeze nearly $60 billion in foreign aid in January, officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeatedly assured Americans that lifesaving operations would continue. “We don’t want to see anybody die,” he told reporters in early February. Aid organizations the world over scrambled to prove their work saved lives, seeking permission from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for…

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Musk’s Starlink is keeping modern slavery compounds in operation

Musk’s Starlink is keeping modern slavery compounds in operation

Wired reports: The plea for help arrived last summer. “I am in Myanmar and work for a fraud company,” a Chinese human-trafficking victim wrote in a short email sent from within the Tai Chang scam compound. Like thousands of others in the region, they were promised legitimate work only to find themselves tricked into modern slavery and forced to scam people online for hours every day. Tai Chang, which backs on to the Myanmar-Thailand border, has been linked to incidents…

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‘Worse than the Second Intifada’: West Bank refugees reel from Israeli offensive

‘Worse than the Second Intifada’: West Bank refugees reel from Israeli offensive

Hanno Hauenstein reports: Sameera Abu Rmeleh steps over mountains of rubble and debris to reach what’s left of her home in Jenin refugee camp. It’s a cold, rainy day in the northern West Bank, and the camp is almost unrecognizable. Smashed concrete, burned-out cars, bullet casings, and the lifeless bodies of stray dogs line the streets as far as the eye can see. About 100 meters away, Israeli bulldozers and armored vehicles move around with purpose. “What is happening now…

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Christian asylum seekers and other migrants deported to Panama forced into ‘fenced cages’ in jungle

Christian asylum seekers and other migrants deported to Panama forced into ‘fenced cages’ in jungle

The New York Times reports: Nearly 100 migrants, recently deported by the United States to Panama where they had been locked in a hotel, were loaded onto buses Tuesday night and moved to a detention camp on the outskirts of the jungle, several of the migrants said. It is unclear how long the group, which was deported under the Trump administration’s sweeping effort to expel unauthorized migrants, will be detained at the jungle camp. Conditions at the site are primitive,…

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Gaza transfer plan: The banality of ethnic cleansing

Gaza transfer plan: The banality of ethnic cleansing

Member of the Knesset, Ahmad Tibi, writes: Widespread support for the idea of transferring the population of Gaza to other countries, alongside the notion that “there are no innocent people” in the Palestinian enclave, constitute a betrayal of every moral principle that should guide a people who endured the Holocaust. All those who support the “voluntary migration” proposal should understand: the Palestinian people are not going anywhere. The fact that polls show overwhelming support among Jewish Israelis for the idea…

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Naomi Klein on Trump, Gaza and the end of the ‘liberal order’

Naomi Klein on Trump, Gaza and the end of the ‘liberal order’

Democracy in Exile reports: “The end of the bombs does not mean the end of the genocide, unfortunately,” award-winning author and journalist Naomi Klein says of the cease-fire struck on January 15 between Israel and Hamas. “Gaza is a crime scene. I think that there’s still going to be a great deal of effort to suppress an honest examination of what has happened in Gaza and what is ongoing.” In a wide-ranging interview with Democracy in Exile, Klein discusses Donald…

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Trump wants to force Palestinians out of Gaza permanently

Trump wants to force Palestinians out of Gaza permanently

The New York Times reports: President Trump said the nearly two million Palestinians that he wants to displace from the Gaza Strip would not be allowed to return to the territory under his hypothetical plan to rebuild it. In a clip from a Fox News interview scheduled to air on Monday, Mr. Trump elaborated on his recent proposal for an American-led takeover of Gaza. Asked if Palestinians who would be removed from the territory while it is cleared would have…

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