Honor killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, and political violence are just some of the words used to describe the police in Pakistan. These murders were not executed by some enraged mob but by the police—those responsible with enforcing the law and protecting the citizens of their country. The case is part of a broader pattern […]
Tag: Human Rights Violations
How Government Inaction Threatens Migrants’ Lives in a French Refugee Camp
Every year in northern France, between the popular tourist venues of the Opal Coast and the cold Flemish beaches at the border with Belgium, thousands of people hide behind dunes and between bushes waiting for the sun to set. When the sky is dark and the air still, they drag on the shore precarious embarkations—commonly […]
Where Will Universal Jurisdiction Go from Here?
In mid-January, Germany drew headlines when a Koblenz court found Syrian colonel Anwar Raslan guilty of torture, murder, and sexual violence. A few months before the conviction of Raslan, a French court determined that legal action against a member of Syrian state security, Abdulhamid C., could not proceed. A common theme unites the two cases: […]
What About the Women: China’s Human Rights Abuses to Uyghur Muslims Includes Reproductive Rights Violations
Trigger warning: rape/sexual assault/women’s rights violations Beijing has confined 1-2 million Uyghur Muslims in “re-education camps” under the presumption of having “free vocational training” that would make the Uyghur’s lives more “colorful.” In these centers, the Uyghurs undergo immense human rights violations, including but not limited to the stripping of their religious expression, forceful […]
Jamal Khashoggi: A Veiled Political Battle Between Saudi Arabia and Turkey
Middle Eastern politics of late have shaken the rest of the world. On the 2nd of October, journalist Jamal Khashoggi reportedly entered the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, and never exited. Khashoggi, a Saudi national most recently living in Virginia on self-imposed exile, was a well-known critic of the Saudi regime. The Saudi […]
Quit Kashmir: Ending the Brutal Occupation in South Asia
In 1947, the political landscape of South Asia transformed as the fight for independence triumphed. The demands of Indians everywhere who had taken to the streets and implored the British to “Quit India” were finally heard. British colonial rule of India came to a complete halt with the passage of the Indian Independence Act, commonly […]
When Universalism Met Culture
As I read the story of Aasia Bibi, the 17-year-old Pakistani girl who unintentionally poisoned and killed 17 members of her family in her attempt to escape the prospect of an arranged marriage, I wonder how many South Asian women have contemplated the same. As a South Indian woman myself, talk of my marriage is […]
Front Lines: The Weak Defence for ‘Human Shields’
Picture this: a young man, branded with a nondescript sign on his chest, being paraded through villages and neighbourhoods as he only just manages to stay on the jeep that he has been so carelessly tied to. The use of civilians as ‘human shields’ in times of conflict and war is not novel or particular […]
Rohingya with No Rescue
Ambia Khatun rushed her two children out of her burning house on the early morning of November 23. Unable to escape in time, her husband lay with the burning remnants of their villages, killed once the Myanmar army started firing. 37-year-old Khatun is one of the 1.3 Million Rohingya Muslims living in Myanmar’s […]
The Waning Hermit Kingdom (Part I): A Faltering Kim-Regime
When tensions rose along the Korean Peninsula this past August, it was not military provocation, but South Korean speakers blaring anti-North Korean propaganda that spurred Pyongyang to declare a quasi-state of war. The recent clash between the Koreas involved their first major armed encounter in five years. However, unlike previous military aggression from the Hermit […]