Tag: Human Rights

Posted inMedia & Culture

Book Review: “Fifty Million Rising” explains how women are changing the Muslim world

by David A Johnson

Saa­dia Zahidi’s look at the cohort of “The Gen­er­a­tion of Work­ing Women Trans­form­ing the Mus­lim World” does­n’t con­tra­dict itself, but it is large and con­tain­ing mul­ti­tudes. It could­n’t be any­thing less and still true, span­ning as it does thir­ty Mus­lim-major­i­ty coun­tries from North Africa all the way to South­east Asia.

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

VICTORY! Delaware Supreme Court declares state’s death penalty law unconstitutional

by Andrew Villeneuve

A sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ry for human rights has been won today: The Delaware Supreme Court has ruled the state’s death penal­ty law is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al – and the only chance at fix­ing it is to punt the issue to the already-divid­ed Gen­er­al Assem­bly. The top court released its rul­ing Tues­day that said Delaware’s cur­rent cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment statute vio­lates the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion by […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

Connecticut’s Supreme Court puts an end to all executions in the Nutmeg State

by Andrew Villeneuve

This is a great vic­to­ry for human rights that deserves to be cel­e­brat­ed: After a sweep­ing two-year review, the state Supreme Court out­lawed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Con­necti­cut, say­ing the state’s death penal­ty no longer com­ports with evolved soci­etal val­ues and serves no valid pur­pose as pun­ish­ment. The 4–3 deci­sion would remove 11 con­victs from Con­necti­cut’s […]

Posted inBreaking News, Civil Liberties, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

Nebraska lawmakers abolish executions, overriding Republican governor’s veto

by Andrew Villeneuve

Joy­ous news to report on today. Law­mak­ers in the reli­ably con­ser­v­a­tive state of Nebras­ka today took a coura­geous stand for human rights and dig­ni­ty by over­rid­ing Repub­li­can Gov­er­nor Pete Rick­etts’ veto of leg­is­la­tion that would per­ma­nent­ly abol­ish exe­cu­tions. With no votes to spare, the uni­cam­er­al Nebras­ka Leg­is­la­ture vot­ed to make the Corn­husker State the nine­teenth state […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, World Commmunity

Iran frees Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal — two U.S. hikers it has imprisoned since 2009

by Andrew Villeneuve

Iran’s auto­crat­ic regime today freed two Amer­i­can hik­ers that it has held in prison for more than two years in a move it called a “human­i­tar­i­an ges­ture”. Shane Bauer and Josh Fat­tal, both twen­­ty-nine, were allowed to leave Iran’s infa­mous Evin prison and tak­en by a diplo­mat­ic car­a­van to an Iran­ian air­port. They were then […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, World Commmunity

Meet the Hypocrites: U.S. foreign policy

by Ken

Ear­li­er tonight, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma laid out his case jus­ti­fy­ing the need for U.S. mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion in Libya, where coali­tion forces under the  aus­pices of a Unit­ed Nations res­o­lu­tion have been knock­ing out the air defens­es of its bru­tal dic­ta­tor. The Unit­ed States and its allies are work­ing to pre­vent Muam­mar al-Gaddafi from con­tin­u­ing to kill […]