March 13, 2010

Max Blumenthal on N.Y. 'Lawfare Project' conference

Blumenthal went to this seven-hour conference, held Thursday by the 'Lawfare Project' in New York, and has written a great blog post about it at Mondoweiss. The Lawfare Project has...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:11 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

November 01, 2009

MTV-U's Poet Laureate: Simin Behbahani

MTV (Music Television) "University" has selected Simin Behbahani, "the poet who never sold her soul or her pen," to be its second poet laureate. For a visually challenged 82-years-young Iranian,...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 09:44 AM | Fulltext link (15 comments)

October 16, 2009

UN-HRC endorses Goldstone; Netanyahu's over-reach unraveling?

The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva today endorsed the report of the Goldstone Commission that identified probable war crimes and and crimes against humanity committed by Israel and by...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:08 PM | Fulltext link (44 comments)

September 18, 2009

Gaza police and noncombatant immunity

Phil Weiss, who's read more of the Goldstone report than I have at this point, zeroes in on the paragraphs Goldstone and Co wrote about the IDF's killings of police...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:15 PM | Fulltext link (46 comments)

September 17, 2009

Gaza, the Obama administration, and the present

I was reading this account from Reuters of the way that Obama's ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, today tried to sideline and bury the important report of the Goldstone...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:51 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

September 15, 2009

Garlasco, suspended with full pay

The NYT's John Schwartz reported last night that Human Rights Watch has decided to suspend the controversial military analyst Marc Garlasco with full pay, pending an investigation into his engagement...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:34 PM | Fulltext link (15 comments)

Goldstone Commission reports on Gaza-war war-crimes

The Goldstone Commission, appointed in April by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that were committed during last...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:13 PM | Fulltext link (23 comments)

September 12, 2009

Garlasco, part 3

His own defense of his actions is here. He writes, Now I've achieved some blogosphere fame, not for the hours I've spent sifting through the detritus of war, visiting hospitals,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:52 PM | Fulltext link (32 comments)

September 11, 2009

IPS piece on the rights war over Gaza

... is here, also here. My last word on this important subject for now....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:49 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

Garlasco, part 2

Some friends have made the point, a propos of what I wrote here yesterday, that the Iron Cross is not a specifically Nazi insignia, but a longterm insignia of the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:24 AM | Fulltext link (20 comments)

September 10, 2009

Marc Garlasco's little "hobby"

There is a huge commotion in the blogosphere about the fact that Marc Garlasco, the senior military affairs specialist at Human Rights Watch, has long sustained a hobby of collecting...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:50 PM | Fulltext link (71 comments)

August 12, 2009

Jordan, host of abusive QIZ, on Human Rights Council!

I just figured out that Jordan, site of the mendaciously "peace"-labelled industrial zone where the abusive "Musa Garments" sweatshop operates, is a member of the UN Human Rights Council. Is...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:47 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

July 15, 2009

Netanyahu spokesman uses racist attack against HRW

For many years now, successive governments of Israel-- and their blind-love cheering sections in western countries-- have tried to "shoot the messenger" when human rights groups or international bodies like,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:28 AM | Fulltext link (20 comments)

July 06, 2009

Molavi's question

In a July 4th Washington Post oped, the excellent Iranian-American journalist Afshin Molavi writes of how Iran's fitful struggle for freedom is well in-grained within Iran's history and political culture....
Posted by Scott Harrop at 09:48 AM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

February 23, 2009

Amnesty's great campaign for Israel-Hamas arms embargo

Huge kudos to Amnesty International for having pulled together a well-researched and intelligent report on the international arms suppliers who were complicit in the commission of war crimes and crimes...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:26 PM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

February 03, 2009

ICRC head Kellenberger (and Rabbani) on the Gaza crisis

Our friend Christiane writes from Lausanne, Switzerland, that she has found-- and translated for us-- an important interview about Gaza conducted with Jakob Kellenberger, the head of the International Committee...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:09 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

January 18, 2009

One Virtuous Man

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. In the late 1960's a fellow officer of mine, an African-American, call him Captain Em, was quite upset that Dr. King had come...
Posted by Don Bacon at 12:17 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

December 22, 2008

The Bush administration on the Right to Food: Uncaring, tone-deaf, or both?

So at the end of November, just as most Americans were preparing the gargantuan feasts they have every year on "Thanksgiving", the US representative in the UN's Third Committee was...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:50 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

December 10, 2008

On Rights Day: Yes to Social & Economic Rights!

Happy Human Rights Day, everyone! On this day 60 years ago the UN General Assembly, meeting in Paris, adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That was a signal development....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:19 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

October 28, 2008

On extra-judicial executions

Since when is it okay for a state (or an individual) to set out to kill a person based solely on accusations against him that have never been publicized and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:50 PM | Fulltext link (23 comments)

September 04, 2008

HRW revising its Russian cluster bomb accusations

Yesterday, Human Rights Watch started to step back from the claims it made very loudly last month that during the fighting in Georgia,"Russian aircraft dropped cluster bombs in populated areas...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:40 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

September 02, 2008

HRW's flawed 'Research' on Georgian cluster bombs

On August 15, Human Rights Watch issued a statement-- still published on their website without comment-- saying its researchers "have uncovered evidence that Russian aircraft dropped cluster bombs in populated...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:23 PM | Fulltext link (20 comments)

July 10, 2008

From that same Monticello portico: a sale

Amid writings about Jefferson and Bush, a friend alerted me to a compelling essay in our local "The Hook" weekly paper -- about another irony on the very portico where...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 10:57 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

June 15, 2008

US Diplomats and Boumediene Case

I too am encouraged by the US Supreme Court's Boumediene v. Bush ruling that detainees held at Gunatanamo Bay are entitled to Habeas Corpus protection -- the right to challenge...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 10:03 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

April 14, 2008

Weissglas, son of Earl Butz?

Longtime Israeli National Security Advisor Dov Weissglas, who in February 2006 argued openly for applying the "Weissglas diet" to the entire population of Gaza, certainly wasn't the first bullying imperial...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:12 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

March 31, 2008

Human Rights Watch opposes Egypt's political arrests

Kudos to Human Rights Watch for having issued a strong statement criticizing the Egyptian government’s continuing mass round-up of opposition activists and would-be candidates. This campaign, HRW said, "puts the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:59 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

September 19, 2007

"Rick Warren should be in jail"

"Rick Warren should be in jail." So should Reinhold Niebuhr, Karl Barth, Robert H. Schuller, and perhaps even.... Helena Cobban. :-} I'm referring, if you haven't guessed, to prison libraries...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 01:03 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

September 07, 2007

Cartoon: Iranians as Cockroaches!?

I learned today of a particularly disturbing political cartoon published on September 4th in the Columbus (Ohio) Post-Dispatch. Drawn by Michael Ramirez, the cartoon very much illustrates themes I've written...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 11:14 PM | Fulltext link (17 comments)

August 08, 2007

Mia Farrow: "virtual hostage"

Irony alert Those familiar with Farzaneh Milani's path-breaking literary analysis will recognize the phrase "hostage narrative," a term she has been devloping over many years to apply to that best-selling...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 02:20 PM | Fulltext link (21 comments)

July 07, 2007

Jefferson & the Reign of Witches

Kudos to the Baltimore Sun for its July 4th editorial. Contrary to the keen imagination of another former "Jefferson Fellow" now at Oxford, I (Scott), as far as I know,...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 05:00 PM | Fulltext link (15 comments)

July 04, 2007

Just what did "The Declaration" Declare?

Here in the United States, it's July 4th, a day we commemorate with fireworks, cook-outs, concerts, and speeches. So what exactly is it that we celebrate? Nominally, today marks the...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 07:35 PM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

June 20, 2007

Failed States Index & "Failing the Faithful"

The July-August issue of Foreign Policy magazine features the 3rd installment of the annual "Failed States Index," (FSI) a tool intended to identify the world's "weakest links." A project of...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 07:27 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

March 05, 2007

Human rights, democracy, the US, and Syria

(This post has been cross-posted to The Notion.) I spent a few days in Damascus at the end of February, and was able to get a ground-reality view of the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:23 AM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

November 20, 2006

MESA and blogging in Boston

I'm at the MESA conference here in Boston this weekend. Sunday evening, we went to Juan Cole's presidential address on "Islamophobia and neo-orientalism". He talked mostly about the former, and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:53 AM | Fulltext link (16 comments)

November 08, 2006

The HRW report on Palestinian women, contd.

Amira Hass has a column marked by her usual perspicacity and deeply humanistic vision in HaAretz today, in which she notes that, There could not have been a worse time...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:11 AM | Fulltext link (20 comments)

November 07, 2006

Protecting Palestinian females: HRW misses the mark

I truly do not understand some of the decisions that my colleagues and friends at Human Rights Watch have been making. This week, to much fanfare, they rolled out a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:14 PM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

September 06, 2006

Bush preparing show trials for election run-up?

President Bush made news today by announcing that 14 alleged terrorists (ok, he didn't actually use the word "alleged", though these men have not yet been brought to trial) have...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:08 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

August 22, 2006

Haunting Images from Israel

Maybe I'm still too human. I resist viewing the many available web pictures of death in Lebanon and Israel in the recent carnage - even as my head tells me...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 01:10 AM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

July 10, 2006

A "Global Hunger Strike?"

A “Global Hunger Strike”? Commonly understood, “hunger strikes” are intended as a form of non-violent action, a voluntary fast with an intended political or human rights aim. Yet I confess...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 10:42 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

June 13, 2006

Guantanamo and soul-sickness

I need, as a US citizen, to place on record that I am completely sickened that my government continues to hold detainees in Guantanamo and other locations in complete defiance...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:23 PM | Fulltext link (23 comments)

May 30, 2006

More torture-related info

The New York-based organization Human Rights First has done consistently excellent work of fact-finding, analyzing, and seeking official accountability regarding the US government's use of torture since 9/11. I see...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:21 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

Hunger striking, human progress, and habeas

The number of Guantanamo detainees participating in the hunger strike there has now risen to 75. That report, by AP's Ben Fox, quoted Navy Commander Robert Durand as trying to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:39 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

January 15, 2006

News from Gitmo

The ACLU's Ben Wizner, who's observing the Guantanamo Military Commission sessions that resumed last Wednesday, has been blogging his work there. It looks like good reading. You can comment either...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:42 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

November 02, 2005

U.S. running secret prison in East Europe

Today's WaPo has a very disturbing story by Dana Priest in which she reveals new details about the globe-circling gulag that the CIA has run since September 2001. At least...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:14 AM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

August 10, 2005

What is 'the rule of law'?

The rule of law: In a democracy, does it apply to everyone, including the highest in the land? Lawyers for Maher Arar argue that it should. Arar is the Canadian...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:02 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

July 14, 2005

Faiza's son, Bastille Day

Faiza's son Khalid has been arrested in Baghdad. His brother Raed wrote today, If your child or sibling vanishes for two days then calls from the secret service jail in...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:59 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

June 14, 2005

Lech Walesa on detention issues

The International Committee of the Red Cross's flagship publication, the International Review of the Red Cross has devoted most of its latest issue to the question of detentions. All the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:18 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

One small window into Gitmo

The best definition of torture that I know of is one I heard from a physician at the renowned Danish center for treatment and rehabilitation of torture victims. He said,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:21 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

May 31, 2005

Guantanamo detainees sold into bondage?

How many of the roughly 530 detainees in the US detention center in Guantanamo were actuially sold into bondage by bounty-hunters eager to make a fortune from US rewards programs?...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:46 PM | Fulltext link (22 comments)

April 17, 2005

Detentions / Hostage-taking

There have recently been a bunch of news reports about alleged Sunni extremists in Iraq having taken hostage "up to 100" (though no-one really seems to know the real number)...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:51 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

March 24, 2005

Legacies of torture, South Africa

This week, I have been focusing mainly on reviewing/revising the three South Africa chapters of my book on Violence and its Legacies. I find much of this project (South Africa,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:44 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

December 19, 2004

Forward to-- a new Dark Age?

"Progress" comes slowly in the affairs of humankind, and it's by no means a unidirectional or linear business. One significant series of steps forward occurred in the 1860s, when European...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:59 PM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

December 06, 2004

Meanwhile, in the gulag

Attentive reader Christiane has been following some of the news stories about developments in the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo cases. Since she figured that I was out of touch while...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:12 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

October 12, 2004

Men behaving very badly...

... and what women think of them: First, from Saudi Arabia, the horrific news that the eponymous royals have decided not to let women take part in the (partial) municipal...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:09 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

September 27, 2004

Support a prisoner of conscience

I got the following letter recently from my friend Chuck Fager, of Quaker House in Fayetteville, NC. I hope some JWN readers may be moved to join me in sending...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:02 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

September 17, 2004

Life under occupation

To get a glimpse of how tough life is in a country under foreign military occupation, do read Faiza's blog today. One exciting prospect: her son Khalid posted there that...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:45 AM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

September 09, 2004

"Up to 100" ghost detainees

[Update to the following, added Fri a.m.: Excellent lead editorials on this subject today in both the WaPo and the NYT. The NYT also led with the news story on...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:12 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

August 22, 2004

Health professionals and U.S. torture

My friend Maureen's son is a newly graduated medical doctor who paid for his med school through a U.S. Army-run scheme and as a result is soon going to be...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:09 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

August 03, 2004

U.S. torture revelations: Gitmo & Abu Ghraib

As I've predicted a few times, further revelations about Uncle Sam's terrifying record of detainee abuse have continued to come out throughout the summer. Today, we had the news about...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:03 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

August 01, 2004

Rolling Stone on Abu Ghraib

Rolling Stone has an article by Osha Gray Davidson that describes some of the info in the 160 "annexes" (6,000 pages) to the US Army's internal Taguba report into conditions...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:51 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

July 31, 2004

Al-Libi's coerced 'information' = crud

Douglas Jehl has a piece in today's NYT about the fact that the information "gleaned" from CIA interrogations of high-ranking Qaeda operative Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was subsequently recanted by him--and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:50 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

July 07, 2004

CSM column on Darfur

My column Safeguard Darfur refugees with unarmed UN monitors, which is running in Thursday's CSM, can be found here. Tell me what you think....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:49 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

July 05, 2004

Darfur crisis links

Today, I wrote a column for the CSM about the Darfur crisis. It'll run on Thursday. I did a bunch of research on-line for it, and a little bit off-line....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:45 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

June 01, 2004

Zero tolerance for torture: the column!

Yes!!! The life of a humble scribe like myself has its frustrations and disappointments. But every so often, I feel unbelievably blessed by being able to do what I do....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:29 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

April 04, 2004

Human Rights Watch, on Israel

So many of Israel's blindly ardent defenders in the west make the claim that Amnesty Internatinal and Human Rights Watch criticize Israel "disproportionately". This past week, HRW executive director Ken...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:07 PM | Fulltext link (18 comments)

March 14, 2004

Ignatieff's "mea not-quite-culpa"

Thoughtful human-rights theorist Michael Ignatieff has a one-year-after piece in the NYT mag today. He starts off with an apparently frank and engaging admission: A year ago, I was a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:33 PM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

April 26, 2003

RELIGION AND ATROCITY

RELIGION AND ATROCITY: I know full well that many terrible actions have been undertaken in the past in the name of "religion", and that this tendency continues to this day....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:29 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

February 17, 2003

Iraq Democrats Disappointed

Back last summer, I got into a heartfelt exchange with a friend of mine who's an Iraqi democrat. His name is Siyamend Othman. He's a wise and good person, an...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:48 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)