Washington has been relatively muted about the Bahrain crackdown. While the United States sent observers to the joint trial of human rights defenders Abu Deeb and Jalila al Salman, it has not publicly stated whether it thinks their trial met international standards.
The costs to the United States of failure to promote peaceful democratic transition in Egypt should not be underestimated. The uprising in Egypt, and in other countries of the region, has presented the U.S. commitment to promoting human rights and democracy around the world with a stern test.
Assertions that Morsi exercises unprecedented powers in his current role as nominal head of the executive should be taken with a large grain of salt.
The Bahrain government has concentrated on creating bureaucratic processes for implementation instead of producing real change that can be felt by those peacefully pressing for reform.
By stifling the possibility of legal street protests, the Bahraini regime has made more illegal protests a certainty. There isn't much left for those pressing for democratic reform.
The United States should review its relations with all authoritarian regimes to give human rights greater attention. While it may cooperate with them on counter-terrorism and other shared interests, it cannot turn a blind eye to the abuses these regimes commit.
While time drags on without meaningful reform, the protests across Bahrain intensify, some of which have developed a violent edge. The regime needs to find something better than its current Ostrich Strategy if it's to convince anyone that it is serious about reform.
Egyptians will go to the polls tomorrow to vote in their first-ever competitive presidential election. Whoever wins will have legitimacy in a contest in which tens of millions of voters will choose from a broad range of candidates.
By Meg Roggensack and Marshall Thompson Business and Human Rights What investors should know ahead of Facebook's IPO. View PDF Version» Much of Fa...
The collapses of authoritarian regimes of the last 15 months should have taught U.S. policymakers one lesson: the old formula of tolerating and colluding with authoritarianism in return for (an often illusory) stability does not work.
By Ruthie Epstein Refugee Protection Program My drive back from Karnes County, Texas, to San Antonio, two weeks ago, was long and empty. Not long by ...
Ignoring the human rights and democracy conditions that Congress has placed on U.S. foreign assistance to Egypt would be seen as the U.S. government giving its unconditional support to anti-democratic forces in Egypt.
President Obama is surely negotiating U.S. troop withdrawal carefully so as to keep U.S. soldiers from facing unnecessary risks. He should take the same care with the lives of Afghans.
There they sit, squeezed onto two benches in Bahrain's criminal court: the 20 medics who were tortured into making false confessions.
Karnes County, I hope, will provide a new model for more appropriate detention conditions -- a model that will mean little if it is not just a first step in transforming all facilities where ICE holds immigrants.
When Arben's visa was denied, a staffer at one office told me that my only options were to divorce Arben or move to Kosovo. I don't think I should have to do either of those things. I married Arben for better or for worse. I take that vow seriously, and I want to make my life with him.
With delicious irony, the Government of Bahrain sent out a press release last week declaring that it "welcomes visits by all human rights organization...
Egypt's democratic transition faces two main threats: subversion by anti-democratic religious extremists; and obstruction by an authoritarian military junta loathe to yield power to civilian rule. Those who support continuing democratic progress in Egypt must oppose both.
The U.S. Government appears to have too many eggs in the Bassiouni basket. It's the standard the Bahraini Government wants to be judged by, and the U.S. should not so readily agree.
As human rights abuses persist in Bahrain, human rights defenders on the ground there are forced to take their fight for political freedom to other mediums, including Twitter.
The first Guantanamo detainee case will yet again demonstrate that the military commissions are inherently flawed and that terror suspects should be tried in federal courts.
Bahrainis who stand up publicly to promote human rights risk harassment and arrest. Human rights defenders remain in constant jeopardy from the Bahraini dictatorship. Despite those threats, they continue to document human rights abuses and work for political freedom.
The quality of the U.S. relationship with Egypt will be determined by the progress Egypt makes towards democratic governance that protects and upholds the basic rights and freedoms of all of its people.
A growing number of former Bush administration officials and policy wonks across the political spectrum are calling on Obama to provide a more detailed legal justification for the lethal drone strike.
WASHINGTON -- Human rights groups have wasted little time calling on Vice President Joe Biden to focus on human rights abuses as he meets with high-le...
