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Category: Human rights/civil liberties

‘They’ll kill us all’: Gazans plead for intervention as Israeli attacks intensify

‘They’ll kill us all’: Gazans plead for intervention as Israeli attacks intensify

Ruwaida Amer and Ahmed Ahmed report: Since Israel shattered the ceasefire in Gaza last month, Palestinians have been facing horrors reminiscent of the first days of Israel’s genocidal onslaught. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, the Israeli military has killed over 1,300 people and wounded more than 3,000 in the past three weeks, in which time the overall death toll in the enclave has surpassed 50,000. Over 280,000 people have been displaced as Israel corrals Gaza’s population into ever-shrinking “humanitarian zones” which it continues to bomb. Nearly two-thirds of the…

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The prisoners: What records show about the migrants sent to Salvadoran mega-prison

The prisoners: What records show about the migrants sent to Salvadoran mega-prison

  60 Minutes reports: Three weeks ago, 238 Venezuelan migrants were flown from Texas to a maximum security prison in El Salvador. That country’s president offered to take them and the Trump administration used a law not invoked since World War II to send them — claiming they are all terrorists and violent gang members. The government has released very little information about the men. But through internal government documents, we have obtained a list of their identities and found…

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Why this U.S. historian is leaving Trump’s America

Why this U.S. historian is leaving Trump’s America

  Amid the drama and turmoil created by Donald Trump’s second presidency, U.S. historian and author Marci Shore last week announced that she — along with her husband, historian Timothy Snyder, and colleague Jason Stanley — would be leaving their posts at Yale University and moving to Canada to teach at the University of Toronto. Shore, Snyder, and Stanley have all been vocal pro-Ukraine advocates, particularly throughout Russia’s full-scale invasion, visiting the country multiple times between them and educating audiences…

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Judge says deportation of Maryland man to an El Salvador prison was ‘wholly lawless’

Judge says deportation of Maryland man to an El Salvador prison was ‘wholly lawless’

The Associated Press reports: The U.S. government’s decision to arrest a Maryland man and send him to a notorious prison in El Salvador appears to be “wholly lawless,” a federal judge wrote Sunday in a legal opinion explaining why she had ordered the Trump administration to bring him back to the United States. There is little to no evidence to support a “vague, uncorroborated” allegation that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was once in the MS-13 street gang, U.S. District Judge Paula…

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Detained Tufts student suffering serious health issues and denied medication while in DHS custody

Detained Tufts student suffering serious health issues and denied medication while in DHS custody

The New Republic reports: Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University student brazenly abducted by masked immigration agents on a public street in Massachusetts, is suffering serious health issues in Homeland Security custody. Representative Ayanna Pressley, whose district includes the university, posted on Bluesky Thursday night that Öztürk has had three separate asthma attacks in custody while being denied access to her required medications, “a violation of her fundamental right to medical care.” “This is cruelty, it is neglect, and it is…

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In Israel, calls for genocide have migrated from the margins to the mainstream

In Israel, calls for genocide have migrated from the margins to the mainstream

A Palestinian woman cries while sitting on the rubble of her home, which was destroyed in an Israeli strike on March 18, 2025. Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images By Tamir Sorek, Penn State Thirty years ago in Israel, advocating for genocide could land you in prison. In April 1994, an Israeli rabbi named Ido Alba published an article that read, in part, “In war, as long as the war has not been decided, it is a commandment to kill every…

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Trump administration accidentally tells Ukrainian refugees they must leave U.S. immediately

Trump administration accidentally tells Ukrainian refugees they must leave U.S. immediately

CBS News reports: The Trump administration on Friday said it accidentally told some Ukrainian refugees they needed to leave the U.S. immediately because their legal status was being revoked, telling CBS News the message was sent by mistake. Some Ukrainians who had entered the U.S. under the Biden administration following Russia’s invasion of their homeland received emails this week telling them that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security would be terminating their legal protections, according to advocates and a notice…

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Our aid workers were brutally killed and thrown into a mass grave in Gaza. This must never happen again

Our aid workers were brutally killed and thrown into a mass grave in Gaza. This must never happen again

Jagan Chapagain writes: Which was most horrific? The agonising week-long wait – silence after our colleagues went missing, as we suspected the worst but hoped for something different? Or the confirmation, seven days later, that bodies had been found? Or, since, the ghastly details of how they were found, and killed? Their ambulances were crushed and partly buried. Nearby were their bodies – also buried, en masse, in the sand. Our dead colleagues were still wearing their Red Crescent vests….

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This is what a police state looks like

This is what a police state looks like

Masha Gessen writes: “It’s the unmarked cars,” a friend who grew up under an Argentine dictatorship said. He had watched the video of the Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil’s abduction. In the video, which Khalil’s wife recorded, she asks for the names of the men in plainclothes who handcuffed her husband. “We don’t give our name,” one responds. “Can you please specify what agency is taking him?” she pleads. No response. We know now that Khalil was detained by Immigration…

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Trump’s Salvadoran Gulag

Trump’s Salvadoran Gulag

Adam Serwer writes: One thing that could be said about many—and possibly all—of the more than 100 men removed from the United States by the Trump administration under the archaic Alien Enemies Act of 1798 is that Donald Trump has been convicted of more crimes than they have. Trump, after all, was convicted of 34 felony counts by a jury of his peers in New York City for faking business records in order to cover up his hush-money payment to…

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Israel’s latest vision for Gaza has a name: Concentration camp

Israel’s latest vision for Gaza has a name: Concentration camp

Meron Rapoport reports: Two weeks ago, the right-wing Israeli journalist Yinon Magal posted the following on X: “This time, the IDF intends to evacuate all residents of the Gaza Strip to a new humanitarian zone that will be arranged for long-term stay, will be enclosed, and anyone entering it will first be checked to ensure they are not a terrorist. The IDF will not allow a rogue population to refuse evacuation this time. Anyone remaining outside the humanitarian zone will…

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Trump wants the Supreme Court to let him have black sites where migrants have no constitutional rights

Trump wants the Supreme Court to let him have black sites where migrants have no constitutional rights

Mark Joseph Stern writes: The Trump administration inadvertently revealed on Monday that it is attempting to trap Venezuelan migrants in a catch-22 that would effectively block them from challenging their deportation and detention in an El Salvador prison. In a court filing, the government acknowledged that it had deported at least one migrant to El Salvador due to an “administrative error”—but argued that the individual had no right to contest his imprisonment because he is in the custody of a “foreign sovereign.” This…

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All Americans should defend campus protesters

All Americans should defend campus protesters

Xochitl Gonzalez writes: One day this fall, while on campus at Brown University, I was met by two students—cellphones raised, cameras recording. They had spun off from a larger group protesting Brown’s decision not to divest from Israel. They recognized me as a trustee of the university and saw an opportunity to take me to task. They followed me for perhaps a block or two, calling me a hypocrite. For at least one of the students, the war in Gaza…

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Venezuelans sent to El Salvador’s most infamous prison: ‘You’re here because of your tattoos’

Venezuelans sent to El Salvador’s most infamous prison: ‘You’re here because of your tattoos’

Mother Jones reports: On Friday, March 14, Arturo Suárez Trejo called his wife, Nathali Sánchez, from an immigration detention center in Texas. Suárez, a 33-year-old native of Caracas, Venezuela, explained that his deportation flight had been delayed. He told his wife he would be home soon. Suárez did not want to go back to Venezuela. Still, there was at least a silver lining: In December, Sánchez had given birth to their daughter, Nahiara. Suárez would finally have a chance to…

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How American colleges are suppressing political dissent

How American colleges are suppressing political dissent

The New York Times reports: At the University of Pennsylvania last fall, someone splattered red paint on a statue honoring Benjamin Franklin, the school’s founder. Within hours, campus workers washed it off. But the university was eager to find the culprit. A pro-Palestinian group had claimed responsibility on social media. The university examined footage and identified a student’s cellphone number using data from the campus Wi-Fi near the statue at the time it was vandalized. Campus police obtained a search…

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British Quakers condemn police raid on Westminster Meeting House

British Quakers condemn police raid on Westminster Meeting House

Quakers in Britain: Quakers in Britain strongly condemned the violation of their place of worship which they say is a direct result of stricter protest laws removing virtually all routes to challenge the status quo. Just before 7.15pm more than 20 uniformed police, some equipped with tasers, forced their way into Westminster Meeting House. They broke open the front door without warning or ringing the bell first, searching the whole building and arresting six women attending the meeting in a…

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