Human Rights
Israel’s Interventions Among the Druze
The rights of minorities and their relations with majority groups in power give rise to some of the most intractable struggles around the world. In the United States, for example, the affirmative action debate, a legacy of the civil rights struggle, pivots around the principle of “blindness” to collective differences in a society whose history is replete with racist and sexist discrimination. Advocates of affirmative action argue that it compensates for past wrongs against particular “kinds” of people — notably the female and/or black kinds. Opponents argue that it violates the equal protection principle by which rights should be accorded to individual “citizens” rather than groups.
Women’s Court in Beirut
From June 28-30, 1995, under the slogan “See the World Through the Eyes of a Woman,” a women’s court on political and social violence against women was held in Beirut. Inspired by similar courts organized by the Asian Human Rights Council, the Beirut court — the first of its kind in the Arab world — was convened in preparation for the Beijing NGO Women’s Conference and the “International Court on Women: World Public Hearings on Crimes Against Women” held in Beijing in September.
Gender and Citizenship in Middle Eastern States
The debate on citizenship in the Middle East was preceded by and now parallels the debate on civil society. In the West, discussion on these subjects often assumes Middle Eastern countries are incapable of sustaining democratic relations between state and society. [1] The citizenship debate questions the capacities of Middle Eastern governments to allow or enable their members to participate actively in the political process. Despite the burgeoning of these debates, most theorists have neglected or glossed over the issue of gender. [2]
An Open Letter to a Jailed Iranian Writer
Dear Dr. Saidi Sirjani:
For almost 20 years now, I have known and admired you and your writings. Whatever your detractors may say, Ali Akbar Saidi Sirjani cannot justly be accused of partisanship. I have known you as a fierce critic of Mohammad Reza Shah’s insufferable pretensions and intolerance of dissent, and later as an equally sharp thorn in the side of the Islamic government. May the nib of your pen never be blunted!
Clinton, Ankara and Kurdish Human Rights
China makes the headlines, but US policies toward the top three recipients of US aid — Israel, Egypt and Turkey — are perhaps the most egregious examples of the failure of the Clinton administration to make good on its commitment to human rights. While the...Can Military Intervention Be “Humanitarian”?
“Humanitarian intervention,” the violation of a nation-state’s sovereignty for the purpose of protecting human life from government repression or famine or civil breakdown, is an old concept that has been given a new lease on life with the end of the Cold War. It is currently being practiced in Somalia and parts of Iraq, and has been discussed, with varying degrees of seriousness, with regard to Bosnia, Angola, Mozambique, Liberia, Zaire, Sudan and Haiti.
Is the “Fatwa” a Fatwa?
In saluting author Salman Rushdie and expressing solidarity with his plight, I would like to put on the table the question of whether the notorious “fatwa” issued by Ayatollah Khomeini against Rushdie is really a fatwa in the first place. This is neither an academic exercise nor a purely theoretical investigation, but a matter of great practical relevance to any strategy (and tactics) for helping Rushdie the prisoner, writer and human being transcend the debilitating impasse in which he finds himself.
Islam and Human Rights
Kevin Dwyer, Arab Voices: The Human Rights Debate in the Middle East (Routledge, 1991).
Ann Elizabeth Mayer, Islam and Human Rights: Tradition and Politics (Westview, 1991).
Constructing Europe’s New Wall
The fall of the Berlin Wall was joyfully welcomed not only by the German people but by the other peoples of the continent: With the abrupt end to the joke about Real Socialism, Europe seemed to be moving forward toward a period of freedom, directed by principles of greater tolerance, compassion and justice.
Two and a half years later, we know this was an illusion generated by the euphoria of the moment. Exclusivist nationalisms, ethnic conflicts and old religious disputes are unleashing civil wars, blind terrorism, persecution of minorities, militant racism and xenophobia. A new protective wall — without barbed wire, minefields, watchtowers and trenches, but equally effective and much more lethal — is arising around the fortress of the Twelve.
Human Rights Briefing
What has been the performance of human rights organizations during the first two years of the intifada? A fresh look at eight organizations surveyed prior to the uprising (MER 150) shows that overall coverage has increased, as one might expect based on the intensity and duration of the uprising, but coverage remains uneven. Some organizations that had been reporting on the Occupied Territories prior to November 1987 improved their coverage; others did not. Among those organizations that had in the past ignored Palestinian rights abuses, some saw the intifada as an opportunity to take up the issue. A notable few, however, have remained silent.
From the Editors (November/December 1989)
When the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund met in Washington in September, President Husni Mubarak was on hand to speak about the Third World debt crisis. For more than a year, Cairo has been negotiating a new $500 million agreement with the IMF that would allow Egypt to reschedule $10 billion worth of debt payments falling due before December 1990. At one stage Mubarak denounced the IMF as a “quack doctor,” but his government has had to swallow many IMF “reform” prescriptions. (Currency devaluations, for instance, have tripled the Egyptian pound value of dollar-denominated debt contracted in the early 1980s.)
Human Rights Briefing
The bus arrived at Tadmur Prison where the military police awaited us. The warders helped us off the bus, whipping us brutally and mercilessly until we were all out. They removed the handcuffs and blindfolds, and then we were taken into a courtyard overlooked by the prison’s offices, where our names were registered. All the while we were being whipped from all sides. Then we were taken through a metal door into a courtyard, known as the torture courtyard. The military police searched our clothes. One by one we were put into the dullab (tire), and each person was beaten between 200 and 400 times on his feet…. When they had finished beating us, we were lined up in single file.
