Human Rights

When the Taliban ruled, they prevented girls from going to school. Who's stopping them now?

2-28-2011

In recent weeks, Facebook and other social media have clearly demonstrated their capacity to do far more than just allow us to keep in touch with our family and friends. They have proven to be powerful organizing tools, capable of assisting in the creation of broad international movements for social change. Social media has proven to be a particularly powerful tool in countries in which basic democratic rights such as a free press and the right to assembly are severely restricted. At the same time, Facebook and YouTube are increasingly rendering international borders as meaningless. Western media coverage of the recent popular uprising in Egypt consistently emphasized the catalytic role of Facebook in galvanizing youth and young adults to take action against an entrenched regime that had long been viewed as impenetrable. In the days after Mubarak's departure, both the New York Times and The Los Angeles Times published lead stories describing the role of certain Facebook pages in not only serving as a call to action, but as a space in which emerging activists in Tunisia and Egypt were able to share lessons with each other. These young activists had not only managed to evade the reach of both nations' security police, they had also sidelined older opposition parties such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

Eric Stoner 2-23-2011
For the tenth day in a row, protesters in Libya took to the streets today, despite the use of far more violence from the state than what happened during Egypt's recent uprising.

Phil Haslanger 2-23-2011
In the midst of the national uproar over the attempt by Wisconsin Gov.
Hannah Lythe 2-22-2011
[Editors' note: As part of Sojourners campaign to end the war in Afghanistan, we will run a weekly Afghanistan news digest to educate our readers about the latest news and deve
Daoud Kuttab 2-18-2011
Ten years ago, I established AmmanNet, the Arab world's first Internet radio that used technology to create audio and text content freely.
Agree with her politics or not, Lara Logan is charting territory in which we still see very few women as the chief foreign correspondent at CBS News.
Jim Wallis 2-18-2011

In as clear a statement as has been made, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Rep.

Duane Shank 2-18-2011
An estimated 30,000 people converged in Madison, Wisconsin's Capitol Square and inside the Capitol building on Thursday http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-rt-usreport-us-usa-wisctre71h07e-2
Becky Garrison 2-16-2011
Duke Divinity School is hosting an inter-faith conference on torture from March 25 to 26, with the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), the Duke Human Rights Center, and the North C
Cesar Baldelomar 2-16-2011

On May 30, 2009, a terrorist attack in Arizona ended the lives of two U.S. citizens -- a Latino man and his 9-year-old daughter.

Holly Burkhalter 2-15-2011
One of the things that make the work of fighting global slavery so difficult is that people feel defeated by the sheer size and scope of the problem.
There is a Haitian proverb that says after every mountain, there is another mountain.
Lynne Hybels 2-15-2011

Last week, I received this photo of Maggie, an Egyptian Christian friend who is a documentary filmmaker. When I asked her if I could post the photo on my blog, she sent me this email in return:

Jeannie Choi 2-11-2011

Here's a little round up of links from around the Web you may have missed this week:

Duane Shank 2-11-2011
After 18 days of ever-growing protests, Egyptian Vice-President Omar Suleiman went on state television with a terse an
Nathan Schneider 2-11-2011
Throughout the coverage of the uprising in Egypt, we've been repeatedly told that Egyptians trust their military more than any other pa