human rights
August 22, 2009
- Just want to say a quick but heartfelt, "Ramadan kareem!" to my Muslim readers. For those who may not be familiar with this pillar of Islam, my blog of last year offers a brief explanation. It's the first day of Ramadan in Jordan and, since the holy month commences in accordance with the lunar calendar, I'm not sure whether it's begun yet in Algeria or India or other countries ...
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August 20, 2009
August 13, 2009
- One of my favorite magazines is The Economist. In its July 23, 2009 issue, it published an interesting leader/editorial and a special report on the Arab world entitled Waking from Its Sleep. The latter is a follow up to a similar report published almost 20 years ago entitled When History Passes By.If anyone is interested in gaining a quick understanding of the region but lacks the time and ...
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August 6, 2009
- http://space710atkefa.blogspot.com/Look forward to seeing you at some of the related events -- a Burma update and a performance piece called "Words as Weapons of War" and the opening reception. For detailed info see Kefa Cafe, Space 7-10 blogsite above.
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July 29, 2009
- The Associated Press is reporting that Jordan has established a special tribunal to speed up the trials for dishonor killings cases in the country. That is all well and good, but I've never heard even a single person in Jordan--or any human rights activist, for that matter--whinge that the legal process for these crimes is too lengthy. What most of us wonder is why the victims and the ...
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July 21, 2009
- A Tale of Two ParadigmsKnowing the world's largest special forces training center just opened in Jordan doesn't make me feel any safer. Sometimes I really have to question how my taxpayer dollars are being used and why the mainstream media aren't doing a better job of laying it out for us.Amman Revoking Palestinians' Citizenship The comments following this article are every bit as interesting ...
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July 9, 2009
- One of the headlines in the July 10th issue of the Jordanian English-language daily newspaper is "No legal exemptions for 'honour crimes'." Of course, news like that is going to get my attention. There have been whispers that the Jordanian Parliament is reviewing the laws impacting the penalties for these crimes. Parliament has done so on a number of occasions over the past ...
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July 2, 2009
- Today the BBC and other news outlets are reporting that Syria has amended its dishonor killing law. President Bashar al-Assad, son of the Lion of Damascus, decreed that Article 548 of the Syrian penal code be abolished. Article 548 effectively decriminalized dishonor killings by allowing a maximum sentence of just one year for them.On the surface, this would seem to be good news. However, ...
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June 25, 2009
- If you are interested in the rest of the world, this is another column that I scribe following my observations on Bulgarian mentality. Well, most or some of these features are not limited to these certain boundaries only and can be applicable to humans in general.Features of Bulgarian Mentality,Feature manifestation number oneImagine the following situation. There is a boy in a family and he is ...
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June 20, 2009
- Today, our world is experiencing a rapid decline in cultural diversity and the eradication of indigenous peoples and their lifeway. One in five people in the world speak the same language: Mandarin Chinese. Spoken by the largest single ethnic group in the world - the Han - whose 1.3 billion speakers represent 92 percent of the mainland Chinese population and 19 percent of the world's population, ...
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