Newsroom

Update

Demonstrations in Yemen continued for the third week. But in the last week the peaceful protests and call for political reform turned violent.

February 18, 2011

Update

Due to a global market that increasingly rejects participation in executions, lethal injection drugs have become harder to obtain, turning the death penalty in states like Maryland into even more of a false promise for victims' families. This makes it all the more important for Maryland to repeal capital punishment, and bills to do just that have been filed with record numbers of cosponsors.

February 18, 2011

Update

Violence is spiraling out of control in Bahrain. Tell Bahraini authorities to stop the bloodshed!

February 18, 2011

Update

Protestors in Bahrain have been calling for the right to free expression, the release of political prisoners, a new constitution and an elected government.

February 16, 2011

Update

By a 26-24 vote, the Montana Senate yesterday voted to repeal the death penalty. Twenty-two Democrats and 4 Republicans voted for the measure (SB 185), which now goes to the House.

February 16, 2011

Update

The recent move by Afghanistan’s Ministry of Women Affairs (MoWA) to take control of women’s shelters is deeply worrying. I have spoken to NGO workers who run these shelters, and they have been outraged by the new legislation.

February 15, 2011

Update

After an eighteen-year, multinational court battle, Chevron was found guilty today in an Ecuadorian court and fined $8 billion for pollution that amounted to an ecological disaster and seriously harmed the human rights of the indigenous inhabitants in a small and sensitive part of the rainforest.

February 15, 2011

Update

Earlier today in Bahrain, riot police opened fire and killed a second person in two days of protests seeking political reform in the tiny Gulf state. The violence came without warning as a procession of thousands of mourners chanted slogans criticizing the government and calling for a new constitution and a democratically elected government.

February 15, 2011

Update

I confess-I think Valentines Day is a scam perpetrated by men to buy forgiveness for all the things they mess up the rest of the year by presenting you with bouquet of convenience store flowers. Luckily, the members of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) are far less jaded. Every year they take to the streets on in Zimbabwe on Valentines Day, urging political leaders to remember the power of love is greater than the love of power. This year, celebrating their ninth year of peaceful protest, 1800 members marched in Bulawayo on Friday-their biggest gathering to date. They sang and danced their…

February 14, 2011

Update

The world media is consumed by the events in Egypt and there is little coverage of the protests in Yemen. Inspired by the uprising in Egypt and the stepping down of Hosni Mubarak, Yemeni people continue with their anti-government demonstrations.

February 14, 2011

Update

Describing in words the atmosphere in Tahrir Square on the evening of Hosni Mubarak’s resignation after 30 years in power would never do it justice. It was a bit like Cairo itself – you cannot understand it unless you have lived it, felt it, smelt it and drank chlorine-filled water from its tap.

February 14, 2011

Update

The three-week grassroots protest in Egypt that brought down thirty years of autocracy in the land of the pyramids has authoritarian Azerbaijan, among others, worried.

February 12, 2011