Habib Siddiqui

Dr Kerron Ó Luain is an historian from Dublin, Ireland. His latest journal article examines Irish republican democracy in Belfast during 1846-48 .   He writes, "In Ireland, in the recent presidential election campaign, a formerly marginal, Trump-like figure and crank named Peter Casey managed to secure 23.1% of the vote based on nothing more than anti-Traveller (Ireland’s only indigenous ethnic minority) and anti-immigrant rhetoric and hearsay." To read the article by Dr.   Kerron Ó Luain , click here .

by Yoav Litvin Zionism is inherently reactionary The origins of Zionism are profoundly misunderstood by many. This is not coincidental and can be seen largely as the result of  propaganda , which opportunistically and erroneously asserts that Zionism is the natural expression of Judaism. In fact, Zionism gained traction among some Jews only in the late 19 th   century in response to antisemitism and romantic European nationalist movements.  Zionists syncretized  many white supremacist, antisemitic, messianic and fascistic racialized dogmas and were thus overwhelmingly unpopular among most Jews, who viewed the ideals of the enlightenment–emancipation, equality and integration – as their target. Zionism first increased its influence in the small Jewish towns in Eastern Europe–the shtetls–at a time when many of their inhabitants became secular but not emancipated. Thus, their view of antisemitism and its accompanying violence and trauma was a modern one, not...

Since Aug. 2017, more than 700,000 Rohingya have fled into neighboring Bangladesh amid gang rape, arson and mass killing. Author Azeem Ibrahim, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Policy, addressed this and the lack of international attention and resources directed to the Rohingya genocide Thursday at the Ford School of Public Policy to an auditorium of more than 100 attendees. Ibrahim began his lecture with a quote from Hermann Goering, the Nazi Luftwaffe commander. “(T)he people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders … All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked,” Ibrahim quoted. Ibrahim explained how the Rohingya, a political and ethnic minority in Myanmar, are easily marginalized. Popular discourse in the country claims that minorities are “not loyal citizens” but “illegal interlopers.” When talking about the dangers faced by other minorities in Myanmar, Ibrahim said inaction in this situation could lead to ethnic cleansing of other mi...

Here is the  link to a documentary on the subject of atrocity committed by savage Buddhists in Myanmar against the Rohingya. ABOUT THIS REPORT In March and April 2018, the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG), undertook an as yet unprecedented large-scale and comprehensive human rights documentation investigation mission in the refugee camps and settlement areas in Eastern Bangladesh. The purpose of this investigation mission was to provide an accurate accounting of the patterns of abuse and atrocity crimes perpetrated against the Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine State and to help inform the policy decisions related to accountability in Myanmar. PILPG’s investigation team ultimately conducted 1,024 interviews with Rohingya refugees, and those interviews are the basis of this Report. PILPG’s investigation collected more than 15,000 pages of documentation collected from the 1,024 interviews conducted by PILPG. PILPG reviewed all of this documentation and identifi...

Reuters, Washington A human rights law group contracted by the State Department to interview refugees as part of an investigation into atrocities against  Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar has found that there is a reasonable basis to conclude that genocide was committed - even though the US government stopped short of saying so. A report due to be released on Monday by the Washington-based Public International Law and Policy Group (PILPG) will also say there was a reasonable basis to conclude that the Myanmar military committed crimes against humanity and war crimes, as well as genocide.  A US State Department report released in September, which relied on PILPG research, found that Myanmar's military waged a "well-planned and coordinated" campaign of mass killings, gang rapes and other atrocities against the Rohingya. But it stopped short of describing the crackdown as genocide or crimes against humanity, an issue that US officials said was the subject of fierc...

Tens of thousands of farmers from across India took to streets of the capital on Friday, demanding relief from debt, higher prices for their produce and a special session of parliament dedicated to their needs. Friday's rally in New Delhi may be the biggest demonstration so far of frustration with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP. The farmers want Modi to intervene and forgive some of their government loans. "Down with Modi!" thousands chanted. India's agriculture sector employs nearly half of India's 1.3 billion people, but it makes up only about 15 percent of the country's economy. Low food prices have depressed rural incomes and farmers are frustrated. They remain a huge voting bloc, and elections are coming in early 2019. The government of India provides some crop subsidies, but farmers say it's not enough. In trains and tractors , as many as 100,000 farmers, according to Indian media estimates , arrived i...

The asylum-seeker community in Israel is in a state of crisis and its women and teenage girls are paying an increasingly heavy price By Vered Lee                 The murder of 12-year-old Silvana Tsegai in south Tel Aviv has shaken up the Eritrean asylum-seeker community in Israel, but it is far from the first case of a woman being murdered in that community. In November 2010, a 30-year-old pregnant woman was murdered by her partner. In July 2012, 18-year-old Natznet Michael was murdered by her Eritrean partner and in September 2015, a 29-year-old woman was murdered by her 33-year-old partner, Dasbella Havos. The asylum-seeker community in Israel is in a state of crisis and its women and teenage girls are paying an increasingly heavy price. Women are a minority among the refugees – there are only 7,000 female asylum seekers in Israel. Thirty percent of these were victims of abuse and torture in the Sinai deser...

By By Rowaida Abdelaziz October 2002 was the last time Gul Rahman’s family ever saw their father, dead or alive. Little did they realize that the Afghan citizen, who was residing in a refugee camp in Peshwar, Pakistan, at the time with his family, was taken by Central Intelligence officers to a secret prison over 40 miles away near the Afghanistan capital.   It was inside this clandestine facility, also known as the Salt Pit, where Rahman was chained up, interrogated and tortured for three weeks. He was also deprived of food and sleep, made to stand for days and was drenched with freezing water until he showed signs of hypothermia. For the almost the entire time he was held , Rahman was either fully naked, naked below the waist, or naked except for a diaper he wore. Rahman remained in those conditions until he died of hypothermia on Nov. 20, 2002. His body was found early that morning, still shackled , nude from the waist down on the concrete prison floor where temperatures...

By Chauncey DeVega If Donald Trump's reign were a bad novel, what chapter would we be in? Still near the beginning? Somewhere around the middle? Drawing close to the end? Wherever the American people and the world may be in this story, it is the stuff of hack writing. It's a genre remix and mashup, a story so simultaneously obvious, yet bizarre and full of intrigue, that it cannot be believed. But it is all so very real. The Trump-Russia scandal is the driving force in the narrative. Here are some recent developments. There is international intrigue, corruption and greed. Donald Trump's personal fixer Michael Cohen has pleaded guilty to lying to Congress, admitting that he was a go-between for the president and Russian elites -- conceivably including Vladimir Putin, Russian spies, the Russian mafia and other oligarchs. Cohen did this work while Trump was running for president and even as he became the presumptive Republican nominee. This is th...

By Maureen Clare Murphy Amnesty International is demanding that Israel’s defense ministry revoke the export license from a company whose spyware has been used in “a series of egregious human rights violations.” Amnesty said that it intends to pursue legal action over NSO Group Technologies, an Israeli firm whose technology was revealed earlier this year to have been used to hack a phone belonging to one of the rights group’s staffers. The staff member received a WhatsApp message “with Saudi Arabia-related bait content and carrying links Amnesty International believes are used to distribute and deploy sophisticated mobile spyware,” the rights group stated in August. More recently, the exiled US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden said that NSO Group’s software was used to track Jamal Khashoggi , the Saudi writer who was killed and dismembered by a hit team at the country’s consulate in Istanbul last month. The company’s spyware was also installed on the phone of a Saudi dissid...