Bangladesh: Crackdown on Critics, Activists by Human Rights Watch Report
Dangerous Clampdown on Freedoms in Rohingya Refugee Camps After winning a third term in elections marked with allegations of fraud and a crackdown on the political opposition, the Awami League-led government in Bangladesh stifled dissent and failed to hold security forces accountable for abuses, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2020. In 2019, Bangladesh participated […]
Bangladesh’s authoritarian shift by Ali Riaz
Bangladesh’s authoritarian shift 18 January 2020 Author: Ali Riaz, Illinois State University In Bangladesh the ruling Awami League has established total control over state machinery and politics since the managed election of December 2018. Simmering popular discontent found expression in agitations against the killing of a student, price hikes and government-appointed university administration corruption in […]
A bang and a whimper by William Milam
I was disconnected, electronically and, to some extent psychologically, from current events during December. I have now reconnected, and being so has its downsides. As I came back online, President Trump had another brain cramp and appeared to be preparing to start a war with Iran. I guess we came about as close to war […]
Bangladesh: The Quagmire Of The CAA And The NRC by Sabria Chowdhury Balland
Those who will not reason are bigots, those who cannot are fools and those who dare not are slaves. ~Lord Byron Recent political developments in India have opened up a Pandora’s box, to say the least. These developments are overtly targeting the country’s largest minority, Muslims. With an increase in hate crimes particularly against Muslims […]
Iran’s Government Should Allow People to Mourn, Protest Without Threat of Violence by Center for human rights in Iran
The Iranian people should be allowed to exercise their constitutional right to peaceful assembly without the threat of violence, said the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) after crowds that had gathered in Tehran following the government’s announcement that it had “unintentionally” shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane were met with armed state forces […]
I Saw Police Stand by as Masked Men Attacked Students at a Top Delhi University. It Was Yet Another Assault on India’s Intellectuals by Rana Ayyub
On Sunday evening, I was sitting with a journalist friend in New Delhi when frantic messages started pouring into our inbox. A mob of men with masks on their faces had stormed the campus and attacked the students at one of India’s most iconic universities, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), named after independent India’s first Prime […]
US: ‘Unalienable Rights’ Commission Risks Rights Protections Print by Human Rights Watch Report
The United States State Department’s Commission on Unalienable Rights risks calling for a dangerous downgrading of international human rights protections. On January 10, 2020, the Human Rights Watch executive director, Kenneth Roth, testified at the commission’s fourth open session. While the fundamental rights set out in the human rights treaties are clear, the Trump administration has taken issue with the […]
Leaving democracy behind by Ali Riaz
January 7th marks the anniversary of the beginning of the third consecutive term of the Awami League government in power in Bangladesh, making Sheikh Hasina its longest serving head of government since independence. On December 30th 2018, the Awami League secured an unprecedented victory in the parliamentary election, giving Hasina a fourth stint in power, […]
A Year Of Paradoxes by Ali Riaz
The most appropriate description of the year 2019, particularly of Bangladeshi politics, is perhaps a dialogue in Act 3, Scene 4, of the Twelfth Night of William Shakespeare: “If this were play’d upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.” But we are aware, they were not improbable fictions. The events […]
China’s Crimes Against Uyghur Muslims Call for Global Boycott by CJ Werleman
The “China Cables,” a trove of 400 pages worth of leaked internal Chinese government documents, have provided the international community the “smoking gun” evidence it needs to pressure or punish Beijing for its systematic efforts to erase and annihilate 12 million ethnic Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. China has used an array of repressive measures that […]
