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19 November 2014

Today would have been Brittany Maynard's 30th birthday

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Brittany Maynard chose not to live to see her 30th birthday. Instead, on November 1, she used Oregon's death-with-dignity law to end her...
8 comments:
10 November 2014

This week, the U.S. must answer to the world on torture

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Today, the United Nations Committee Against Torture kicked off a session to review steps by countries to prevent torture and punish those wh...
1 comment:
03 November 2014

Election Day resources

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Tuesday, November 4, is Election Day in the U.S. If you are registered to vote, please do so, if you haven't already voted early. Voti...
26 October 2014

Amnesty International reports on human rights abuses in Ferguson

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Amnesty International (AI) recently released a report on human rights abuses in Ferguson, Missouri, in the wake of the August 9th shooting ...
25 October 2014

F___ human rights?!

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While visiting the Facebook page of the USA section of Amnesty International, specifically a post regarding this morning's execution i...
22 October 2014

Malala receives Liberty Medal

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Last night, Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai received the 2014 Liberty Medal here in Philadelphia "for her continued de...
21 October 2014

New PA law threatens prisoners' freedom of speech

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Earlier this month, on invitation, controversial convicted Philadelphia cop killer and former death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal (now serving ...

Monica's life was ruined, but Bill's got better

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Yesterday, Monica Lewinsky spoke here in Philly at a Forbes "30 Under 30" summit. She gave an emotional speech that set the Twit...
18 October 2014

Mexico releases prisoner of conscience

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Good news: According to Amnesty International (AI), "[p]risoner of conscience and torture victim Ángel Amílcar Colón Quevedo has been ...
14 October 2014

On Thursday, Oct. 16, wear purple to fight bullying!

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Thursday, October 16, is Spirit Day 2014. Spirit Day, named for the purple stripe of the rainblow flag representing "spirit", was...
12 October 2014

A youthful spin on the right-to-die movement

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Terminally ill 29-year-old newlywed Brittany Maynard is the new face of the right-to-die movement - a movement previously associated primari...
11 October 2014

Eleanor Roosevelt was much more than a wife

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Today is October 11, and I just learned that Eleanor Roosevelt was born on this date in 1884. The website FamousBirthdays.com describes h...
10 October 2014

Much meaning and symbolism in this year's Nobel Peace Prize

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Today, the Nobel Committee announced that Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan and Kailash Satyarthi of India will share this year's Nobel Pea...
07 October 2014

Same-sex marriage is on a roll - Idaho and Nevada today!

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Another good step towards equality for all: Today, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco struck down Idaho's and Neva...
06 October 2014

SCOTUS paves the way for legalized same-sex marriage in majority of states

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Today, in another great step forward towards equal rights for all, the US Supreme Court decided not to review five same-sex marriage cases, ...
30 September 2014

US signs endless-war treaty in Afghanistan, appears insane

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Today, according to the Washington Post , the US and Afghanistan signed a security agreement that "allows for 9,800 U.S. troops to stay...
23 September 2014

China is exporting torture

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Research by Amnesty International (AI) and the Omega Research Foundation has uncovered a "flourishing trade" in the "export o...
22 September 2014

US State Dept announces aid to Gaza; too little too late?

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Today, the State Department announced that the US will provide more than $71 million in "additional life-saving humanitarian assistanc...
14 September 2014

Get a flu shot, give a free vaccine to a child who needs it

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It's time for my annual flu shot, and I'm going to get mine at Walgreens this year. That's because Walgreens is partnering with...
13 September 2014

Student POC released from prison in Tajikistan

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More proof that worldwide activism can save lives: According to Amnesty International, Alexander Sodiqov has been released from prison in T...
08 September 2014

Busted: See satellite images of Russian military build-up in Ukraine

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Amnesty International has released satellite images that appear to illustrate "a build-up of Russian armour and artillery in eastern Uk...
02 September 2014

Amnesty condemns Israel's latest illegal land grab

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We recently learned that Israel is planning to illegally "settle" 988 acres of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank - the l...
28 August 2014

A mayor's immigration irony

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In his column today in the Washington Post , Dana Milbank writes about the anti-immigration rantings of Judith Flanagan Kennedy, mayor of L...
24 August 2014

Rights groups react to the murder of journalist James Foley

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James Foley was a much stronger journalist than I could ever hope to be. Foley went missing in Syria in 2012, and it appears that he remain...
21 August 2014

9/21: Join me in NYC for the People's Climate March (or get active where you live)

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Hundreds - literally hundreds - of organizations have joined together to plan what we hope will be the largest climate march in history. ...
18 August 2014

New report on U.S. hunger brings alarming news

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Today, the organization Feeding America released the results of a new study on hunger in America. The group calls the study "the nati...
14 August 2014

Ferguson and Gaza

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In Ferguson, Missouri, just outside of St. Louis, citizens continue to protest the recent shooting death of unarmed black teenager Michael B...
11 August 2014

Amnesty releases new report on civilian casualties in Afghanistan

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Today, Amnesty International released a new report on "failures of accountability for civilian casualties caused by international milit...
04 August 2014

More evidence that Texas executed an innocent man

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I've written before about the likelihood that Cameron Todd Willingham, executed by Texas in 2004 for an alleged arson that claimed the ...
24 July 2014

'An eye for an eye' is a problem

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Last night, there was another botched execution - this one in Arizona. It took Joseph Wood almost two hours to die, during which time he wa...