Heirs to a rich civilization: Speech by Payam Akhavan, Iranian Studies Biannual Conference By: Payam Akhavan, Gozaar, January 27, 2009 The following is a speech given by Payam Akhavan on October 3rd, 2008 at the University of Toronto. The event, hosted by the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, focused on three decades of oppression and tyranny by the Iranian regime. I would like to thank Professor Mojab[1] and the Iranian Studies Association for their kind invitation and this opportunity to share some thoughts on the struggle for human rights in Iran. Read full article...
Interview with Mohsen Sazegara: Freedom was only a slogan of the revolution and it remained merely a slogan By: Mohammad Tahavori, Gozaar, January 23, 2009 Only a short time had passed since the seizure of power by the revolutionaries who claimed to defend freedom when, in the wake of Ayatollah Khomeini's command, the wave of arrests of political activists, ban on the independent press and the banishment of intellectuals and other-thinking individuals began. Read full article...
Changing their world: Concepts and practices of women's movements By: Srilatha Batliwala, AWID, January 1, 2009 This 70-page report provides an umbrella of context and analysis for the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID)'s Building Feminist Movements and Organisations (BFEMO) initiative. Launched by AWID as part of its 2006 strategic plan, BFEMO is an effort to advance the understanding of feminist movements in the current global context, and to apply that understanding to strengthening the capacity of women's organisations to better catalyse, support, and sustain movement building. Read full article...
By: Rebecca MacKinnon, Guatemala News, February 24, 2009 Even the most cold-hearted realists would agree that the failure of Communist censorship played a role in the collapse of the Iron Curtain: Voice of America, the fax machine, rock'n roll, and the lure of Western capitalism helped to win over the people of the Soviet Bloc. Today, similar hopes are often vested in the Internet, with high expectations that the wealth of online information might trigger the same kind of censorship failure in contemporary authoritarian states that we saw in Eastern Europe - and with the same results.
The intensifying battle over Internet freedom By: Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, CSM, February 24, 2009 Eleanor Roosevelt never imagined the Internet. Neither did the other framers of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 60 years ago when they enshrined the right to freedom of expression. Yet they wisely left room for just such a development by declaring in Article 19: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." Read full article...
"Slumdog Millionaire": A hollow message of social justice By: Mitu Sengupta, AlterNet, February 23, 2009 Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire", perhaps one of the most celebrated films in recent times, tells the rags-to-rajah story of a love-struck Indian boy, Jamal, who, with a little help from "destiny," triumphs over his wretched beginnings in Mumbai's squalid slums. Riding on a wave of rave reviews, "Slumdog" has now won Hollywood's highest tribute, the Academy Award for Best Picture, along with seven more Oscars, including one for Best Director. Read full article...
Mideast: Human Rights defenders under siege By: William Fisher, IPS, February 20, 2009 The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama must take a leadership position in championing human rights in the Middle East and North Africa by using U.S. economic and trade leverage and confronting the growing global threat of authoritarianism being promoted by Arab regimes, advocates say. This is the view of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), whose recent annual report concludes that the region has witnessed a "grave deterioration of human rights while reform faces a dead end," fuelled by increasingly repressive actions by many Arab countries acting in concert with the Arab League. Read full article...
Digital resistance and the Orange Revolution By: Patrick Meier, iRevolution, February 18, 2009 My colleague Joshua Goldstein recently researched the role of digital networked technologies in the Ukranian Orange Revolution (PDF). There are few case studies out there that address both digital activism and civilian resistance, i.e., digital resistance, so what follows is a detailed summary of Josh's report for the Berkman Center along with some of my own research. Read full article...
Art versus dictatorship exhibition opens in Washington, D.C. By: Third Way, February 17, 2009 On February 12, Art versus Dictatorship exhibition of Belarusian artists' creative works opened in German Marshall Fund of the United States. There was also a discussion on current situation in Belarus with Belarusian Diaspora members, people of art, and representatives of diplomatic missions accredited in Washington, D.C., U.S. governmental structures and NGOs. Read full article...
ISA 2009: Panel on ICTs, human rights, activism and resistance By: Patrick Meier, iRevolution,February 17, 2009 I just chaired a very productive panel at the International Studies Association (ISA) on the impact of ICTs on human rights, political activism and resistance. The panel featured the following presentations: Lucía Liste Muñoz and Indra de Soysa on "The Blog vs Big Brother: Information and Communication Technologies and Human Rights, 1980-2005." Read full article...
Democracy promotion in the Middle East and the Obama administration By: Brian Katulis, The Century Foundation, February 17, 2009 The Bush administration's promotion of democracy in the Middle East, which the former president aggressively touted till Arab publics voted for officials who opposed his policies, "was a failure of both conceptualization and implementation," policy expert Brian Katulis writes in a new paper published by The Century Foundation, but far from abandoning the cause, President Obama should "launch a pragmatic reform effort that discards the label" but supports "Arab publics' own well documented aspirations for democracy and human rights." Read full article...
Women's rights in the Middle East and North Africa By: Freedom House, February 2009 As the societies in the Middle East and North Africa undertake the difficult process of enacting social and political change, the unequal status of women stands out as a particularly formidable obstacle. Read full report...
Corruption and human rights: Making the connection By: Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona, ICHRP, February 2009 The aim of this report is to encourage and assist individuals and institutions which work to promote and protect human rights to engage with corruption issues and collaborate more closely with anti-corruption organisations. It may also assist those who combat corruption to recognise the value of human rights to their work and the advantages of closer collaboration with human rights organisations Read full report...
Bloggingheads: African Criminal Court By: Bloggingheads, NY Times, February, 2009 Mark Leon Goldberg, left, of UN Dispatch and Kevin Jon Heller of the University of Melbourne Law School debate the International Criminal Court's focus on Africa. View video blog...
Human trafficking: Addressing modern day slavery- Join us! By: New Tactics, February 25 to March 3 New Tactics will feature a dialogue on "Human trafficking: Addressing modern day slavery" beginning February 25 to March 3, 2009. This is an opportunity to share tactics and methods that are having some impact and success on the issue of human trafficking as well as discuss alternative and creative strategies that could be applied locally and globally. Join us to share your challenges, critiques and explore together practices and methodologies regarding efforts to combat trafficking and deal with the individual, family and community aftermath of such trauma. For more information...
UC Berkeley Human Rights Center Mobile Challenge By: NetSquared, February 2009 The Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley is pleased to announce the Human Rights Center Mobile Challenge. Recent innovations in science and technology, especially mobile technologies, have provided human rights advocates, journalists, and scientists with new tools to expose war crimes and other serious violations of human rights and disseminate this information in real time throughout the world. Cell phones, combined with GPS, cameras, video, audio, and SMS are transforming the way the world understands and responds to emerging crises. For more information...
Nominate a human rights advocate for the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award By: RFK Center for Human Rights and Justice, February 6, 2009 Robert F. Kennedy believed that each individual holds the power to invoke change, that a single voice has the ability to declare an iniquity, and that each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. In the spirit of Robert Kennedy's ideals, The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award was established in 1984 by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend to honor these courageous and innovative individuals striving for social justice throughout the world. For more information...
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