The US’s Biden administration moved Wednesday to designate the Houthi rebels, Ansar Allah, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) group, the latest effort to cut the group’s financial resources in response to attacks on shipping lanes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The designation will take effect on February 16. Officials stressed [...]
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Houthi Attacks in the Red Sea: When Every Path Forward Entails Global Risk, Take the Long View
Author’s Note: The publication of this piece coincidentally aligns with the initiation of a direct military response by the US and UK against the Houthis in Yemen overnight on 12 January 2023. Rather than update the piece, we have decided to publish it as-is. Everything below still stands – the Yemeni people deserve a considered, [...]
France opens investigation into fatal stabbing of tourist near Eiffel Tower
French anti-terrorism prosecutors said on Sunday that they had opened an investigation into the fatal attack against a 23-year-old German-Filipino tourist near the Eiffel Tower in Paris on Saturday evening. The attack took place at around 9 pm on Saturday. After killing the German-Filipino tourist with a knife, the attacker injured two other people, including [...]
Court-Martialing Imran Khan Is in Violation of International Law
Following global practice — including that of the U.S. military justice system — the Pakistan Army Act builds on maintaining good order and discipline among service members, as no military can effectively function without strict discipline. The court-martial, that is, trial by military officers of breaches of service-connected discipline, including crimes, sits at the heart [...]
The UN Must Combat Authoritarian Power Grabs Under the Guise of Anti-Corruption Campaigns
To what extent can the United Nations (UN) prevent and control so-called anti-corruption campaigns that serve only to bolster the power of authoritarian regimes? As authoritarian power spreads, this is an increasingly urgent question. If the UN does not take measures to track and curtail illegitimate anti-corruption campaigns, it is the people whom these campaigns [...]
A Proposal to Deter High-Profile Political Assassinations in Pakistan
This commentary proposes that a high-profile political leader, such as former prime minister Imran Khan, who recently suffered an assassination attempt at a public rally, should be declared a “permanent protectee” of Pakistan’s State Security. The notion of the permanent protectee, borrowed from U.S. security laws, empowers secret security services to seize and whisk away [...]
Explainer: How Sharia Law is More Progressive Than the US Supreme Court on Abortion
On June 24, 2022, in the landmark Dobbs v. Jackson decision, the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in a 5-4 decision, posing a risk to the reproductive rights of millions of American women. Though of course, the debate is limited in many ways to US constitutional laws and practices, it also draws on [...]
Searching For Answers Amid Enforced Disappearances of Pakistan's Balochi People
In late August, Pakistani publisher and human rights activist Faheem Baloch was detained by unidentified plain-clothes law enforcement officers in his Karachi bookshop and ushered away. A native of the Balochistan region of Pakistan, the publisher is known to be a dedicated cultural advocate, heading up a publishing house specializing in Balochi literature, and serving [...]
Rights activists slam Houthi rebel forces for blocking Yemen roads in violation of international law
Roads in and around Taizz, Yemen’s third largest city, have been blocked by rebel forces since 2015 in violation of international humanitarian law, provoking ire from a coalition of 15 human rights organizations who banded together Monday to call for meaningful action in the region to ensure the free flow of medication, food, and other [...]
India court rules Islamic call to prayer does not violate fundamental rights
India’s Karnataka High Court Monday dismissed a petition challenging the contents of the Islamic call to prayer (Azaan). The petition asserted that the term “Allahu Akbar,” Allah is the greatest, hurt the sentiments of other religious beliefs. The court held that Article 25 and 26 of India’s Constitution “embodies the principle of religious tolerance” and [...]