Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Henriette Johansen
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Finally, international steps to bring Syrian war criminals to justice
On April 15, 2014, France plans to arrange an informal confidential gathering of Security Council members (a so-called “Arria-formula” meeting) in order to consider a report on the mass use of torture in Syrian detention centres that went viral earlier this year. MEMO spoke to the former chief prosecutor...
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UN Roundtable: Palestine should trust the International Community
Earlier this year, Amnesty International reported about the ‘Trigger-happy’ Israel’s excessive use of force on Palestinians in the West Bank. Deputy Director of the organisation in the MENA region, Said Bou Madouha sent a letter to the Palestinian Authority, saying that amongst other things, the “Illegal use of excessive...
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Syrian Elections: despite ‘gaining ground’, has Bashar Al-Assad effectively banned his own candidacy?
The ten-day registration period for presidential candidates in Syria has come to an end. Bashar Al-Assad was the last of seven to register their candidacy at the Supreme Court for the country’s highest office. As the regime’s armed forces advance on the ground and UN regulations and advice is...
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Israel’s absurd war rhetoric
Israel’s outrageous attacks on the Palestinians in Gaza are now resonating internationally, gradually wiping out all hopes for humanity. As I write, the death toll has hit 1361 innocent souls and social media is buzzing with the very public disgrace of the Israel “Defence” Forces. The world watches as...
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Do Arab states really engage with human rights?
With growing demands for “bread, freedom and social justice” across the Arab Spring countries, many have started to question the status of human rights in the region and, more specifically, whether Arab states actually have any engagement with them in any meaningful way. Brutal clamp-downs and massacres by state...
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Protecting the creative voices of the Arab Uprising
Last week rapper Ahmed Ben Ahmed was released after three weeks in prison. The Tunisian artist, aka Klay BBJ, was originally sentenced to 21 months in prison for ‘insulting the police’ in one of his protest songs at a concert in the resort of Hammamet. According to Freemuse, a...
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Life and Death – The Tank Man and Rachel Corrie
The court decision in Israel, which exonerated the driver of a huge bulldozer in the death of activist Rachel Corrie, recalls a previous confrontation between man and machine – the 1989 stance of a Chinese citizen before a tank squadron moving toward Tiananmen Square. Chronologically and physically displaced, these...
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Lebanon’s black market in refugee organs
Today kidneys are sold in Beirut for 1 million Lebanese Pounds; that’s around $670, a very tempting sum for desperate Syrian refugees. Three years down the line of the conflict in their own country, Syrians in neighbouring Lebanon are exploited in many ways; they are especially vulnerable to the...
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Migrants take care of Israel’s elderly and in return are exploited as “infiltrators”
Today is the second day of a three-day strike in Israel with some 30,000 African asylum seekers protesting against detention and demanding refugee status. The furore rolled up yesterday as Israel approved an amendment in its detention policy two weeks ago, which enables the authorities to detain migrants, refugees...