Across the world, numerous countries are in the grips of raging protests that have taken to the streets. From Lebanon to Chile, citizens are fighting against economic disparity.
Across Nigeria, reports of mental health patients being mistreated in “treatment centres” – presumed medical centres dedicated to treating mental health patients – led human rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) to visit and investigate these centres. They found that patients were being chained, denied meals and a sanitary environment, and in some cases even harmed physically as part of their treatment procedure.
Since October 17th, thousands of Lebanese citizens have been flooding the nation’s city centers in peaceful protest of long-standing government corruption, growing inequality, sectarianism, and poor provision of public services.
Inequality: Past to Present Throughout history, Indigenous peoples have experienced oppression and marginalization globally. Although there have been movements toward reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, it is clear that both internationally […]
A Nation in Need of Humanitarian Justice The United Socialist Party of Venezuela, now led by Nicolas Maduro, Hugo Chávez’s successor, has been criticized of democratic repression, electoral manipulation and […]
Tonight, over 52,000 people will fall asleep in detention centers across the United States. Many have come fleeing gang violence, domestic violence, and poverty. They are hungry, as they are not given sufficient food, and the little food that is given is lacking in nutrients, or sometimes even rotten. They are not guaranteed to receive toothbrushes and soap. Conditions are so inhumane and so clearly based in xenophobia that U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called detention centers “concentration camps.”1
The political and economic situation in Syria as well as the ongoing civil war due to dissatisfaction with the Assad government has resulted in and perpetuated the current refugee crisis. As of October 2019, the total number of Syrian refugees and displaced peoples has risen to 12.9 million. Since 2011, the Middle East has witnessed a proliferation in popular mobilization against their respective autocratic governments triggered by political reform, a variety of religious and sociopolitical factors, and the deterioration of the economy[i]. However, the international community has up until recently largely overlooked a major underlying issue. As of recent years, studies have linked the current state of climate emergency to the continuous aggravation of the refugee crisis in this region.
On August 31st, 2017, the lifeless husks of 9 women and 10 Rohingya refugees washed ashore the sands of Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.1 Under dictatorial rule of the Myanmar army between 1962 and 2011, the Rohingya people of the Rakhine State have been handed a predicament of institutionalized oppression on the grounds of religious and ethnic discrimination. While these acts of terror are often justified by the supposed targeting of extremist subsets within the population, the scale and scope of these acts can only be regarded as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” says United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein. 2
