Category: Human Rights

Can the Surveillance State Be Stopped?

Despite the public furor over NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations about U.S. government surveillance, the process rolls on unabated with few prospects of significant reform, writes Danny Schechter.

Trying to Scuttle Iran Nuke Talks, Again

Official Washington’s hardliners are back at it, pushing unrealistic demands about Iran’s nuclear program to ensure that a comprehensive agreement is scuttled and the military option is put back on the table, as Gareth Porter explains at Inter Press Service.

Death to the Death Penalty

Oklahoma’s ghoulish killing of convicted murderer Clayton Lockett on April 29 has brought new attention to America’s continued use of the death penalty, a politically popular issue in some states but a practice that has many reasons justifying its abolition, writes…

How Wall St. Bailed Out the Nazis

From the Archive: Official Washington dismisses any reference to Ukraine’s neo-Nazis as “Russian propaganda” because everyone knows that no respectable U.S. leader would get in bed with such people. But Wall Street bankers didn’t have such qualms, Jerry Meldon reported…

Hitler’s Shadow Reaches toward Today

From the Archive: The key role of neo-Nazis in Ukraine’s U.S.-backed coup is denied by the mainstream U.S. press, which can’t believe the U.S. government would collaborate with such unsavory characters, but that isn’t the real history, as Robert Parry…

Cold Water on the Neo-Cold War Hysteria

Official Washington’s neo-Cold War hysteria over Ukraine, including predictions of an imminent Russian seizure of the east, has prevented a cold-eyed appreciation of what is actually happening as Russian President Putin keeps signaling a willingness to negotiate, ex-CIA analyst Paul…

Ethnic Russians Are People, Too

Exclusive: There’s an odor of prejudice in how the mainstream U.S. news media treats the ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, as if they are mindless beings, easily duped “minions” of Vladimir Putin. But this bias reflects more negatively on the…

The Corruption of Human Rights Watch

Over the years, U.S. “public diplomacy” has pulled reputable NGOs into the U.S. propaganda orbit, sometimes via funding, sometimes by creating a revolving door to government jobs, as a letter from over 100 scholars suggests happened to Human Rights Watch.…

Ukraine’s Dueling Elections

Exclusive: Voters in two eastern Ukrainian provinces showed strong support for secession from the coup regime in Kiev, but the U.S. State Department and other regime supporters reject the outcome and vow to press ahead with a special presidential vote…

Burning Ukraine’s Protesters Alive

Exclusive: For the second time in a week, Ukrainian anti-regime protesters holed up in a building were killed by fires set by pro-regime attackers with ties to newly formed neo-Nazi security forces, reports Robert Parry.