Appeal to help free Ibtissame Betty Lachgar, a Moroccan feminist and human rights defender imprisoned for a peaceful act of expression.
human rights
Women in Afghanistan stand defiant
October 19, 2025Four years after the Taliban took over Afghanistan women have been reduced to non-persons with no future possible under their fascist rule. But women continue to fight, declaring: “the fall of Afghanistan was not the fall of our will.”
Chicagoans—old and young—fight back against ICE
October 7, 2025Participant’s report of a Community Defense Workshop on Oct. 4 at a Chicago school. Responding to the feds’ ongoing attacks on immigrants, our goal: “to keep our city’s people safe and supported as well as to manifest that we, the people, have the power to resist and organize against our increasingly fascist federal government.”
Handicap This! October 2025
October 6, 2025Takes up: Opening of the Disability Cultural Center in San Francisco; ‘Everyone Is Good at Something’ by Indian photographer Vicky Roy; and new steps in the struggle for the rights of people with disabilities in Ireland.
Queer Notes: March-April 2023
March 21, 2023A Lesbian mother in Mexico was reunited with her young children thanks to Lesbian Mothers in Mexico and All Out; about 50 high school students of the Wyoming Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) met with state legislators on the GSA’s biannual Civics Day; and in Tunisia, NGOs circulated a petition demanding freedom for a Trans woman and Trans man sentenced to prison for suspicion of taking part in an LGBTQ+ event.
Handicap This!: January-February 2023
January 24, 2023Takes up: Vanuatu, a Pacific island country, developed a national sign language, Storian wetem han; in Minnesota personal care assistants have won a wage increase through the SEIU Healthcare Minnesota union; the UN celebrated the International Day of Persons with Disabilities on Dec. 3.
Handicap This! December 2022
December 8, 2022Asian-American disability rights activist Alice Wong’s memoir “Year of the Tiger”; In Poland, caregivers of children with disabilities called for the right to work part-time jobs while keeping government stipends; and disability rights activists critique California’s CARE Courts Act, where courts can order involuntary treatment plans for people with psychotic disorders.
Voices from the Inside Out: What is criminal justice reform?
September 25, 2022A critical view from a prisoner against the criminal justice system: “If the criminals running the justice system aren’t held accountable, the criminal justice system will always be corrupt.”
Thoughts from the Outside: A way out of no way
July 19, 2022Faruq takes up “Civil,” a new documentary about human rights champion Benjamin Crump. To do right in this world, Crump, a lawyer, filed suits in a variety of civil and human rights cases including winning large settlements for the families of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.
Queer Notes: June 2022
June 3, 2022Takes up: UK waffling on protecting LGBTQI+ people from so-called conversion therapy; reviewers are calling ‘Badhaai Do,’ Harshavardhan Kulkarni’s Indian dramedy film about Lesbians and Gay men, bold and refreshing; Gay man Venton Jones won the Democratic runoff primary for Texas’s 10th House district against queerphobe Sandra Crenshaw; and a teacher in Florida created a template letter that cleverly works around Gov. Ron DeSantis’ hate-filled Don’t Say Gay Bill, HB 1557.
Handicap This!: May-June 2022
May 19, 2022Takes up: Difficulty for a disabled raped women in Kyrgyzstan to get justice; Mexican women marching on International Women’s Day for disabled women’s rights; the Disability Rights Coalition of Nova Scotia hailing a victory; and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons’ ad seeking psychologists boasted of all the mentally ill people in U.S. prisons.
Readers’ Views: November-December 2021, Part One
November 19, 2021Readers’ Views on Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives 2021-2022; Labor shortage?; Workers as reason; Support El Milagro workers!; Detroit women’s march; Chapelle’s sexism; Afghans dead and buried; Betrayal of Haitians; and Which side are you on?
Review: Reproductive Rights as Human Rights
November 17, 2021In ‘Reproductive Rights as Human Rights: Women of Color and the Fight for Reproductive Justice,’ Zakiya Luna discusses how SisterSong, the reproductive justice organization, was based and operates on the concept of human rights.
Support Maâti Monjib on hunger strike in Morocco
October 23, 2021Maâti Monjib, the Moroccan journalist, historian and human rights activist, has begun another hunger strike and needs your support.
Support Maâti Monjib!
September 29, 2021A letter from Maati Monjib asking for support from the human rights community in the face of his next hearing before the Rabat Court of Appeal on September 30.
The health crisis in India
May 29, 2021India is in the throes of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first reason behind the health crisis is a chaotic vaccination campaign and the second reason, which has impacted the first, is the augmentation of neoliberal healthcare over the last decades which has subjected the health sector, its institutions, systems and services to a severe process of erosion.
Colombia in Repression and Revolt
May 12, 2021In Colombia there is an ongoing rebellion against the neoliberal, authoritarian government of Iván Duque, who has unleashed his military and police against the unarmed population. Here we print translated excerpts from a May 9, 2021, interview with Afro-feminist Bety Ruth Lozano, a Colombian social leader living in the city of Cali, the epicenter of the revolt and also of the repressive cruelty that has resulted in deaths, disappearances, rapes and hundreds of injuries.
Biden’s broken immigration policy
May 8, 2021The number of people who cross the border without documents is rising and has been for many years. This trend has remained steady through the transition from Trump to President Biden, notwithstanding the self-promotional lies and distortions of professional smugglers and ultraconservative members of the U.S. Congress.
Trump’s immigrant policies challenged
November 28, 2020Both the “Remain in Mexico” policy, in which border guards stop asylum seekers from approaching U.S. border stations, and the family separation policy on the border which has failed to unite families of over 650 children are being challenged by immigrant rights activists and organizations.
Workers oppose China’s forced labor camps
Labor unions and human rights groups demand action against China’s incarceration of Uyghurs and forced labor.
News from Mexico: November-December 2020
Guanajuato has 2,587 missing persons, and 3,438 intentional homicides in the first nine months of 2020; President López Obrador claims to be against neoliberalism, but combines it with state-capitalism in developmentalist projects; many states and communities are COVID-19 hot spots with high levels of deaths, particularly in maquiladoras; and the Zapatistas report on their situation vis-a-vis COVID-19, and their resistance along with CNI against developmentalist projects.
Mexico News: The clandestine graves of Guanajuato
October 31, 2020‘Mexico news’ takes up the thousands of missing people in Mexico and the found clandestine graves; the resistance to Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s developmentalist capitalism; how COVID-19 affects Mexico; and how fare the Zapatistas and their future plans.
Queer notes: May-June 2020
May 3, 2020Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruling against Peruvian government in favor of Trans woman Azul Rojas Marin; LGBTQ Asians fighting hate crimes; and a coalition of LGBTQ people demanding California enact the Emergency Transgender Wellness and Equity Fund.
Queer Notes: May-June 2019
May 6, 2019International Transgender Day of Visibility; Puerto Rico bans gay reparative conversion therapy administered to minors; a Catholic hospital’s discrimination against Oliver Knight; and Chuck Kramer’s exhibit, “Faces Out & Proud.”
Readers’ Views, September-October 2018: Part 1
September 29, 2018Readers’ Views takes up: attacks on immigrants; Syria and the Left’s failure; Democratic Party’s selling out women; Women’s Liberation; Serena Williams; ending money bail the right way; Trump-Kim “peace”; genocide and war heroes; and a discussion on sex crimes and their fallout.
Philippines: Human rights vs. Duterte’s fascism
April 5, 2018In-person report from the Philippines.
Uprising in Honduras
March 12, 2018Protesters in Honduras consider the Nov. 26, 2017, reelection of President Juan Hernandez to be fraudulent. In the capital, Tegucigalpa, people lay down day after day to block the streets in front of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.
World in View: Reaction rises in Brazil and Costa Rica
Racist and homophobic politicians have moved from the fringes to contend for state power in Brazil. Fabricio Alvarado in Costa Rica and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil represent a further step down an anti-human path.
Women Worldwide: January-February 2018
February 4, 2018A group in rural Western Kenya fights “widow cleansing”; Mexican women from San Salvador Atenco, raped and tortured by government police in 2007, seek justice at Inter-American Court; El Salvadoran women convicted of aggravated murder after stillbirths or miscarriages seek justice with the help of the Citizen Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion.
DACA Dreamers and allies resist Trump
October 24, 2017A participant reports on a series of protests, rallies and marches of thousands taking place in September in Los Angeles against President Donald Trump’s attacks on youthful immigrants called Dreamers by ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival Program.
Readers’ Views: September-October 2017, Part 1
September 5, 2017Readers’ Views: facing far right’s threat; don’t scapegoat; Canadian strike; Transgender troops; women’s liberation; homeless in Los Angeles; defend dissidents; why read N&L.
Editorial: Venezuela: Which way forward?
Editorial on the situation in Venezuela including the deterioration of living conditions; the repression practiced by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and their attempt to gut Venezuela’s Bolivarian Constitution; and the personality cult built around Hugo Chávez, revealing contradictions in the movements for freedom. .
Queer Notes: May-June 2017
April 30, 2017Lesbian feminist Azza Sultan’s Bedayaa and Mesahat Foundation for Sexual and Gender Diversity fights for Queer rights in Egypt and Sudan; LGBT federal workers and senior citizens face rollback of their rights by President Trump; straight male politicians of The Netherlands solidarize with a Gay couple who were assaulted; Chechnya is arresting, detaining in concentration camps and killing men who are suspected of having a “nontraditional sexual orientation.”
Queer Notes: March-April 2017
March 21, 2017News on LGBTQ struggles: the first judge to rule for equal protection for Gay women and men, dies; Lebanon Judge rules that courts must protect homosexual people; a fundraiser for Chicago LGBT Asylum Support Partners; Tennessee legislators introduce several anti-Queer bills; the Center for Victims of Torture provides therapy for victims of torture, including LGBTQ people.
Chelsea Manning is not yet free
January 29, 2017Chelsea Manning received a Presidential commutation but deserves much more. She is owed a pardon, compensation and an apology
Inauguration of neo-fascism faces widespread revolt
January 23, 2017The lightning move by Republicans in Congress to prepare to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare—before Donald Trump even took office, with only the vaguest idea of what is to replace it, and with full knowledge that a large majority of Americans oppose the repeal of its most important provisions—gave a sign of how far the new single-party government intends to roll the clock back, with dizzying speed.
Humanism: a way forward for prisoners
September 17, 2016Prisoner and hunger striker Faruq looks at the way forward after the historic California prisoners’ hunger strike and emphasizes the importance of “the banner of our humanism that allowed the forging of a tremendous unification across the racial divides.”
Readers’ Views: July-August 2016, Part 1
July 7, 2016Readers’ Views on Hate: Orlando to Brexit; Black Lives Matter; Muhammad Ali and Dr. King; Duterte in the Philippines; News & Letters Readers Unite!; and Deadly Assault on Women From the U.S. to Israel.
‘We defend the earth’
July 6, 2016Indigenous people, mostly women, respond to a video about their community, the ejido of Tila, which struggled against the government who tried to take their land and are now an independent community.
End solitary confinement at Rikers Island
May 18, 2016A Transgender woman former prisoner exposes what life is like in solitary confinement at Rikers Island and argues for its abolition.
I. Discontent, revolt and reaction in the U.S.
May 6, 2016Part I of the Draft Perspectives 2016: Discontent is seething in the U.S. among workers, youth, Blacks, women, LGBTQ, including elements of the new society. Fear of revolution is powering neo-fascism opposing the revolt.
Review: Headscarves and Hymens
March 10, 2016A Review of “Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution” by Mona Eltahawy, reviewed by Adele an expert on the theocratic Right.
Woman as Reason: Trust Black Women in solidarity with Black Lives Matter
A statement of solidarity issued by Trust Women Partnership to Black Lives Matter that highlights the importance of reproductive justice in the struggle for freedom and self-determination.
Women WorldWide: January-February 2016
January 24, 2016A brief roundup of what women are doing worldwide including: a report to the UN about the appalling status of women in the U.S.; The Cupcake Girls organization that supports sex workers in two U.S. states; and the British group Mumsnet that fights against the gendered marketing of children’s toys, books and clothing.
LGBTQ gains in Africa
September 3, 2015A roundup of progressive legislation and legal victories involving LGBTQ people in Mozambique, Kenya, Botswana, and Zambia.
Review of Feminism Unfinished
August 30, 2015A review by Adele of “Feminism Unfinished: A Short, Surprising History of American Women’s Movements,” by Dorothy Sue Cobble, Linda Gordon, and Astrid Henry (W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.: New York, 2014). This book is a brief overview of the history of the feminist movement in the U.S. from the period after women’s right to vote was won in 1920 until the present.
International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia
July 3, 2015A report of the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, observed around the world each year on May 17 to raise awareness of human rights violations against LGBTI people and to advocate for our full human rights.
Refugees risk death fleeing war, terror and climate chaos
June 28, 2015Worldwide, the refugee crisis is unprecedented and is fueled by war, terrorism and climate change. The worldwide response is paltry with country after country turning away or deporting frantic and desperate people in search of a safe haven.
In-person report from Yemen: Houthis gun down homeless man in Taiz
Mohammed Al-Waleedi was killed by Houthi militants on the street in Taiz, Yemen, on June 26. This coldblooded senseless murder was met with a wide public outcry.
Transgender Day of Remembrance
January 31, 2015In cities across the world, the names of Transgender people who were murdered or committed suicide were read out at rallies on or around Nov. 20, the Transgender Day of Remembrance.