The United States of America has the highest incarceration rate in the world. With 716 people in prison for every 100,000, according to the International Centre for Prison Studies, that is a higher percentage of total population than any other country. Furthermore, based on a new report by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), A … More American Prisons versus the World Population
As the government of China continues its crackdown on civil society actors, especially those who have publicly endorsed or claimed membership in the New Citizen’s Movement, human rights activists gathered in Hong Kong to do something many like minded Chinese citizens are forbidden from doing within the Chinese mainland under the 1989 Law on Assemblies, … More In Hong Kong, Protests Against New Citizen’s Movement Crackdown
The following list of fundamental human rights is taken from Jack Donnelly‘s book International Human Rights, 2007 p. 7. This compilation of fundamental rights is based on the key articles and substance of the three documents that make up what has become known as the International Bill of Human Rights. Namely, these are the Universal Declaration … More Fundamental Rights
China and the United States met on 30 and 31 July in the capital of Yunnan Province, Kunming, affectionately known as the city of eternal Spring, to hold the 18th US – China Human Rights Dialogue. The US press statement noted, ‘The Human Rights Dialogue provides an important opportunity to elaborate on our concerns about … More The US and China on International Human Rights Instruments
Under House arrest since April 2013, outspoken human rights defender and citizen lawyer Xu Zhiyong was formally detained on 16 July 2013 and arrested on 22 August 2013 under charges of ‘gathering crowds to disrupt public order,’ a patently spurious charge for someone under house arrest. These charges are merely another set in the on-going … More New Citizen’s Movement
This is the final section in a three part essay on violence and the politics of representation. Click here for Part I and Part II. Framing: Violence by Definition It is important to first acknowledge that not all processes of framing are violent. Obviously they are not; most are benign. It is only those which … More Violence: A Discourse Analysis, Part III
Three years on from riots and mass arrests in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Chinese authorities continue to silence those speaking out on abuses during and in the wake of the unrest… New testimony reveals that dozens, if not hundreds, of the Uighur ethnic minority, many of whom were arrested in the wake of the … More Scenes from Urumqi, five days before 5 July 2009
((Disclaimer: After I first wrote this article and posted on the evening of March 7 there were several developments. The Revised Text for the New Criminal Procedure Law was made public. At 10:31am on March 8, 2012 Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch Tweeted: Breaking News: “Disappearance clause” stricken out of revisions to the Criminal … More Ai Weiwei’s Wife Reflects on the Criminal Procedure Law (Redux)
“What are your immediate thoughts on the election?” “I am really angry! That is all,” Myriam explained through a facebook chat. Myriam is a university graduate in her mid twenties who has studied in Europe and recently returned to Tunisia. At a small couchsurfing gathering at a friend’s apartment I started speaking with Mouna about … More A Feminist (trans)election Barometer
This article was inspired by graffiti. On 7 October Barack Obama welcomed Beji Caid el Sebsi, interim Tunisian Prime Minister, in the Oval Office. During the meeting Obama commented, “The United States has enormous stake in seeing success in Tunisia and the creation of greater opportunity and more business investment in Tunisia.” This focused language … More Two Significations of ‘Sebsi’
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