Above photo: The “roadblocks of death” strangled the country’s transport system and became the scene of intimidation, robberies, rape, kidnappings and murder. Here we see armed roadblock operators south of Estelí, several with conventional weapons. Human rights experts and activists are expressing concern over a flawed and seriously unbalanced report of the Group of Human…
Last Thursday, Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, the British-Palestinian war surgeon, gave his first address as the newly-appointed rector of Glasgow University, chosen in recognition of his work at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. The following day he flew to Berlin, where he had been invited to address a major conference about Palestine. On arrival he was taken…
When the United Nations sets up a “commission of inquiry,” it can result in a powerful analysis of violations of human rights law, such as the one appointed in 2021 to examine Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories and its Apartheid practices. But other commissions can become political platforms aimed at demonizing a particular government…
Why do United Nations’ human rights bodies focus on some countries, but not others? Why do organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International appear to ignore important evidence presented to them? And why do the media repeat stories of human rights abuses without questioning their veracity?
Is it true that 50% of Nicaraguans want to leave their country owing to a climate of repression and economic decline, supposedly resulting from socialist policies? This was the allegation in a report published by AmericasBarometer, a research agency based at Vanderbilt University, which failed to note that its previous forecast, that 30% of Nicaraguans…
An article written by Winnie Narváez Herrera, Facilitator at ÁBACOenRed /FUPECG, and edited/translated by John Perry. In Latin America, the problem of housing quality is even more serious than the problem of not having a home, and this is made worse by the increasing effects of climate change, violence in some parts of the region…
Three previous articles described the attempted coup in Nicaragua in 2018, and how public support grew initially but then waned. This final article, covering the period from mid-July to the present day, shows how the coup was defeated and what happened in the aftermath. By July 2018, three months of violence – over 200 deaths…
On the fifth anniversary of the 2018 coup attempt in Nicaragua, conflicting accounts of the violence and killings still persist. The mainstream media has characterized the opposition protests as generally peaceful and cases of opposition violence as counter violence against brutal repression of dissent by the government. John Perry has written a series of articles…