June 22, 2007
Posted by yaman
“You can lecture me about B’tselem the day you can show there is a B’tselem on your side prepared to do something about human rights violations in the Arab world,” I was once told after citing reports by the Israeli human rights organization B’tselem to mock a claim that the occupation of Palestine was ‘humanitarian.’ [...]
March 29, 2007
Posted by yaman
This post was prepared for a new blog tracking the right of migrants in the Middle East, Migrant-Rights.org. Migrant-Rights.org is an initiative spearheaded by Esra’a al-Shafei, a Bahraini activist who also founded MidEastYouth.com and FreeKareem.org. Sushar Rosky, born 1987, hangs from the balcony of the apartment in which she worked as a maid for only [...]
March 13, 2007
Posted by yaman
The right in America is not Islamophobic. In fact, it often goes to special lengths to emphasize its impartiality towards the Muslim faith. In the March 2007 edition of the California Patriot, for example, Aditya Kashap confirms suspicions that there are good Muslims somewhere in the world: “it is quite obvious to me that most [...]
March 3, 2007
Posted by yaman
A look at the case of Abdelkarim Soliman, the disingenuous media attention surrounding it, and the implications this has for human rights activists in the Middle East. Abdelkarim Soliman, also known as the blogger Kareem Amer, is just one of the many hundreds of innocent people who have suffered at the hands of Western ally [...]
January 11, 2007
Posted by yaman
Background: On the evening of November 16, 2006, UCLA student Mostafa Tabatabainejad was repeatedly tasered by UCPD officers in the library despite the fact that he posed no threat to the officers or to the surrounding students. Later that week, an estimated 400 UCLA students protested the incident. A similar but less populated demonstration followed [...]
December 24, 2006
Posted by yaman
In the fall of 2006, conspicuous posters printed by a marketing firm called BlueStarPR began to appear on the University of California, Berkeley campus. Others reported seeing them in places around the Bay Area. The stated goal of BlueStarPR is to “shape public opinion through knowledge and understanding” by producing “positive and educational posters, advertisements, [...]
I almost entered this essay contest on civil rights in the Middle East last year sponsored by the Hands Across the Mideast Support Alliance. Looking over the first place essay, I’m glad I didn’t, and I’m almost certain I will not participate this year either. Responding to the question “Why should Americans like you help [...]
November 21, 2006
Posted by yaman
I value the idea of protest, but I have always had an anxious relationship with protests. Attending one for me is always an exercise in the suspension of any sense of self-consciousness–participating does in a sense require being melded into the crowd. Otherwise you can’t help but feel like a moron with all the chants [...]
Up to 52 civilians killed in Nato attack in Helmand, Afghan president’s office says.
How regrettable. How unfortunate. Bombs away!
(Discussion)While anti-Semitism means, rightly, social death, Islamophobia might get you a television spot, a column in a newspaper, or academic tenure.
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com
(Discussion)
The 400 richest families in America, who saw their wealth increase by some $400 billion during the Bush years, have now accumulated $1.27 trillion in wealth. Four hundred families! During the last fifteen years, while these enormously rich people became much richer their effective tax rates were sla…
(Discussion)
A six-year archive of classified military documents to be made public on Sunday offers an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in Afghanistan that is in many respects more grim than the official portrayal.
Shoot, you don’t need secret documents to tell you that… but viva WikiLeaks either way.
(Discussion)Israeli parliament passes first of three readings illegalizing boycott activism or advocacy
(Discussion)
But what we’re seeing today is just the unleashing of a long-incubated racism, both institutional and incidental. It doesn’t emanate from the Jewish component of Israeli nationhood. It is informed by the Eurocentric cornerstones of the country: the belief, expressed by Israel’s founding fathers and …
(Discussion)More then twice as many Oscar Grant protestors came out to the Walnut Creek Courthouse to show that nowhere in the bay area will attempts to justify the murder of Oscar Grant go unquestioned. While about a hundred supporters of Johannes Mehserle and law enforcement attended the rally, their numbe…
Racists for Mehserle
(Discussion)
In the US, anti-miscegenation laws were on the books until 1967, when the Supreme Court declared them unconstitutional. That was the same year that Israel began its occupation of Sabbar Kashur’s home in East Jerusalem. Since then, Israelis have fine-tuned their own obsession with racial purity. Only…
Source: madreblogs.typepad.com
(Discussion)
