In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent fell victim to a wave of racially and religiously motivated hate crimes in the United States. In one of the most egregious cases, a Sikh man in Mesa, Arizona—who was neither Muslim nor...
The Nobel Committee’s Rebuke to Washington’s Unilateralism
The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), one of the most effective instruments for international arms control, sends an important message to those who have insisted that unilateral military action is the...
Not All the Migration After the Fall of the Berlin Wall Was From East to West
Cross-posted from JohnFeffer.com. When the Berlin Wall fell, a tremendous number of people headed for the West, permanently. Between 1989 and 1990, nearly 4 percent of the population of East Germany moved to West Germany. The outmigration rate dropped considerably...
Berta Cáceres Is Still Alive
Honduran authorities want Berta Cáceres in prison. Even more, they want her dead. Berta, as she is fondly known by her many friends in Honduras and beyond, is a Lenca indigenous woman, and one of the founding directors of the National Council of Popular and Indigenous...
Jury Still Out on Al-Libi Rendition
The rendition of al-Qaeda operative Abu Anas al-Libi by American forces over the weekend in Tripoli raises a host of troubling legal questions. But the answer to one of them—what to do with him now—is clear. He should be transferred to a civilian court in the United...
The Former Yugoslavia: “We Were So Close to Preventing Genocide”
Cross-posted from JohnFeffer.com. John is currently traveling in Eastern Europe and observing its transformations since 1989. In 1990, when I was in Romania, inter-ethnic conflicts broke out in Transylvania. Although the cause of the conflict in March 1990 in Targu...
Amir Hekmati: Moral Courage to Burn
Some background from CNN: [Amir] Hekmati joined the Marines in 2001 out of high school. He finished his service four years later as a decorated combat veteran with tours in Iraq. Afterward, he translated Arabic as a contractor and helped train troops in cultural...
Defending Indigenous Lands in Honduras: A Photo Essay
All photos appear courtesy of the author, as well as another collaborator who cannot be named for safety reasons. For five months, Pedro Diaz and his daughter Iris—together with other members of the 400-family community of Rio Blanco, Honduras—have stood before this...
An African-American Perspective on U.S. Exceptionalism*
Cross-posted from AjamuBaraka.com. In his recent op-ed in the New York Times, Vladimir Putin raised hackles among the talking-heads across the U.S. when he questioned the wisdom of President Obama’s evocation of the narcissistic idea of “American exceptionalism.”...
Southern Inhospitality
In every way, Yu Woo-seong was a model defector. In his early 30s, he was smart, friendly, ambitious, and well liked. Trained as a doctor in North Korea, he eschewed the competitive South Korean medical school system and instead pursued a bachelor’s degree in business...