Browsed by
Category: Human rights/civil liberties

Inside an ICE women’s prison: ‘Even God cannot hear us here’

Inside an ICE women’s prison: ‘Even God cannot hear us here’

Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk was held as a political prisoner for 45 days in a South Louisiana processing facility. She writes: As a developmental scientist in training, I secretly feel a sense of gratitude for not having a child of my own, knowing how costly adverse early childhood experiences and family separation can be on children’s development. All children should have the opportunity to live, grow, and flourish in nurturing environments, surrounded by the love, peace, and support…

Read More Read More

Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov: Yes, Israel is engaged in a genocide in Gaza

Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov: Yes, Israel is engaged in a genocide in Gaza

  We speak with leading Israeli American historian Omer Bartov about his latest essay for The New York Times, headlined “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.” Bartov cites the United Nations definition of “genocide,” which includes an intent to destroy a group of people that makes it impossible for the group to reconstitute itself. “This is precisely what Israel is trying to do,” he says. “Israel is trying to concentrate the population of Gaza in…

Read More Read More

Israel and the U.S. are no longer pretending they support a two-state solution

Israel and the U.S. are no longer pretending they support a two-state solution

  For decades, the U.S. has officially held the position that it has supported a “two-state solution” that would create a Palestinian state alongside Israel. But after the Oslo Accords, little to no progress was made towards that goal, and the U.S. constantly condoned Israel’s actions that made that goal a more distant possibility – supporting it with military and financial aid. Today, under Trump, the U.S. is supporting Israel during its plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza and annex the…

Read More Read More

ICE campaign of violence and intimidation will lead to more deaths and disappearances

ICE campaign of violence and intimidation will lead to more deaths and disappearances

Natasha Lennard writes: After weeks of brazen rights violations and outright impunity from America’s secret police force, a federal judge in Los Angeles on Friday issued a sharp rebuke of the racist tactics of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong blocked ICE’s “roving” patrols in Southern California, halting agents from carrying out unconstitutional arrests based on racial profiling alone. Going forward, they’ll need to have specific grounds for believing someone to be undocumented before they can…

Read More Read More

The Trump regime’s contempt for the rule of law has roots in America’s pre-civil rights era

The Trump regime’s contempt for the rule of law has roots in America’s pre-civil rights era

Steve Chapman writes: America is supposed to be the land of the brave, but under the second administration of Donald Trump, it’s fallen under a climate of fear. Universities and law firms have been punished for their perceived disloyalty. Foreigners have been abducted by masked agents and shipped to foreign gulags without due process. News organizations have been bullied for performing honest journalism. Federal employees have been cashiered by the thousands. Corporations harmed by his trade policies have been vilified for telling the truth…

Read More Read More

No life without water: How Israel’s actions in Gaza echo other genocides

No life without water: How Israel’s actions in Gaza echo other genocides

Mark Zeitoun, Laurence Boisson de Chazournes, Ghassan Abu-Sittah, Danilo Türk, and Reem Abu Shomar write: Of all the many forms of deprivation imposed on Palestinians, Israel’s strategic control and denial of water stand out as particularly insidious. Taken alongside the denial of entry of life-saving aid, dismantlement of medical services, and imposed hunger, Israel’s long-term disruption of water services in Gaza redefines the limits of acceptable suffering of civilians. This weaponization of water echoes historical genocides and threatens to normalize violations of humanitarian standards. Depriving…

Read More Read More

‘People are going to die’: A malnutrition crisis looms in the wake of USAID cuts

‘People are going to die’: A malnutrition crisis looms in the wake of USAID cuts

Wired reports: Few lifesaving tools are as effective as ready-to-use therapeutic foods, known as RUTFs, which are specially designed to treat severe malnutrition and often resemble fortified peanut butter. Despite announcing a $50 million pledged to fund RUTFs earlier this summer, the Trump administration’s deep cuts to foreign assistance have wreaked havoc on RUTF distribution globally, and the State Department hasn’t placed orders with leading suppliers this year. Experts say the disruptions will result in more children dying from hunger….

Read More Read More

California’s cruelly demonized immigrant farmworkers share their stories

California’s cruelly demonized immigrant farmworkers share their stories

  Aeon: In the United States, a large share of fruit and vegetable production comes from California, where the agricultural industry relies heavily on immigrant labour. Many of these workers arrive from Mexico and Central America, and a significant number are undocumented. Directed by the Mexican American filmmaker Andrés Lira, who has Indigenous Purépecha roots and a family history of farm work, Primero, Sueño (‘First, I dream’) is a stirring portrait of a group often rendered invisible – or worse,…

Read More Read More

‘Blood for food’: The American soldier-spies sidelining UN aid work in Gaza

‘Blood for food’: The American soldier-spies sidelining UN aid work in Gaza

Anas Baba reports: What does it take to get food today in Gaza? It involves a perilous journey that I took myself. I faced Israeli military fire, private U.S. contractors pointing laser beams at my forehead, crowds with knives fighting for rations, and masked thieves — to get food from a group supported by the U.S. and Israel called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF. Every day since the group began offering food on May 26, thousands of hungry Palestinians…

Read More Read More

From Bush’s war on terror to Trump’s war on immigrants

From Bush’s war on terror to Trump’s war on immigrants

Axios reports: Mass surveillance. Pre-emptive military strikes in the Middle East. Shipping people to domestic and foreign prisons. Citing national security to hide information from the courts. Labeling people as “terrorists” as a political and legal strategy. Why it matters: Donald Trump became president in part by running against the legacy of George W. Bush, the last Republican in the White House before him. But now Trump is supercharging many of the post-9/11 legal, tactical and political strategies Bush used. Driving the news: Trump’s push to…

Read More Read More

Trump’s war against immigrants threatens the freedom of all Americans

Trump’s war against immigrants threatens the freedom of all Americans

Chandran Kukathas writes: The tactics of the Trump administration’s immigration agenda have shifted from time to time, but the broader objective has remained consistent: to deport as many people as possible and, more broadly, to transform the restrictions and reach of America’s immigration system. President Trump and members of his administration believe they have a democratic mandate to do this. Their ultimate fear is that outsiders pose a danger to American values — the threat of not just taking our…

Read More Read More

ICEBlock developer on why Trump admin is targeting his app to report ICE sightings

ICEBlock developer on why Trump admin is targeting his app to report ICE sightings

  “ICEBlock”, an app that allows users to report sightings of ICE activity, has hit the top of the App Store charts for downloads. The app’s developer, Joshua Aaron, defends his reasons for making the mobile application and explains why the Trump administration isn’t happy with its rising popularity. Wired reports: US attorney general Pam Bondi was on Fox News Monday talking about ICEBlock, when she spoke directly about Aaron, the app’s sole developer. “We are looking at him,” she…

Read More Read More

Sweeping arrests across Iran in wake of war with Israel

Sweeping arrests across Iran in wake of war with Israel

The Washington Post reports: Iranian authorities have arrested hundreds of people and executed half a dozen in a sweeping security crackdown that analysts say is aimed at exerting control after a brief but punishing war with Israel exposed Iran’s deep infiltration by Israeli intelligence. In the week since a ceasefire was declared, security forces have erected checkpoints in Tehran and other cities and urged citizens to report anything suspicious. The Iranian parliament also announced an emergency bill that includes harsher…

Read More Read More

America’s new era of secret police and disappearance

America’s new era of secret police and disappearance

Hamilton Nolan writes: In the HBO drama “The Leftovers,” two percent of the world’s population suddenly disappears. This is cast as a fantastical and mysterious occurrence, setting the stage for a surreal tale of science fiction. You should never underestimate American ingenuity, though. We are on the verge of our own age of mass disappearance. It will be all too real. And it will not be fun. Trump’s big budget bill passed the Senate yesterday. It will now go back…

Read More Read More

USAID cuts may cause over 14 million additional deaths by 2030, leading medical journal reports

USAID cuts may cause over 14 million additional deaths by 2030, leading medical journal reports

Reuters reports: Deep funding cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development and its potential dismantling could result in more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, according to research published in The Lancet medical journal on Monday. President Donald Trump’s administration, since taking office in January, has made funding cuts to USAID and its aid programs worldwide in what the U.S. government says is part of its broader plan to remove wasteful spending. Human rights experts and advocates have…

Read More Read More

ICEBlock: This iPhone app alerts users to nearby ICE sightings

ICEBlock: This iPhone app alerts users to nearby ICE sightings

CNN reports: Joshua Aaron has worked in and around the tech industry for around two decades. He built his first app — a blackjack game — at computer camp when he was 13. His newest app is designed for a very different purpose: to let users alert people nearby to sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in their area. Aaron launched the platform, called ICEBlock, in early April after watching President Donald Trump’s administration begin its immigration crackdown. The…

Read More Read More