Human Rights

Jailed for Blogging

Juan Cole reports that Omid Memarian, an Iranian writer, journalist, weblogger and social activist has been arrested, making him the fourth journalist to be arrested in an apparent Iranian crackdown on reformist journalists and webloggers who are seen as enemies of the regime. Cole urges people to complain to the Iranian government or their interests section in Washington, DC.

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They Fought the Law and the Law Won

"As Republicans inside Madison Square Garden praised the NYPD for keeping order," writes Michelle Goldberg, "grim stories of preemptive, arbitrary arrests, filthy jail conditions and long detentions without access to attorneys circulated among protesters, lawyers and quite a few ordinary New Yorkers who were arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. ...

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Block the Vote

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other civil rights leaders say the Republican Party is mounting a campaign to keep African-Americans and other minority voters away from the polls this November. "In recent years, many minority communities have tended to align with the Democratic Party," states a new report cosponsored by the NAACP and People for the American Way.

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Press Conference From Hell

"I don't know what the news is from the rest of Iraq or even what's going on with the governor of Najaf," writes Chris Albritton, a freelance journalist who has been covering the fighting in Iraq. "I do know what's happening with the police department, however. They're raiding the Sea of Najaf hotel and rounding the 100 or so journalists at gunpoint and subjecting them to mass arrest." Albritton describes his recent experience, when police "raided the hotel and forced all the journalists out onto the street. We were terrified. The cops yelled at us and pointed their weapons toward us.

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Pre-Emptive "Traitor" Baiters

"Federal agents and city police are keeping tabs on people they say might try to cause trouble at the Republican National Convention, questioning activists, making unannounced visits and monitoring Web sites and meetings. ... The intelligence unit of the New York Police Department ...

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Not a Client to Bring Home to Mom

Eritrea "signed Alexander Strategy Group, a firm with strong Republican ties, to a contract worth more than $300K a year to improve its ties with the United States." According to Amnesty International, "torture, arbitrary detention, 'disappearances' and ill-treatment of political prisoners" are common in the Horn of Africa

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