In defending the 2013 Constitutional Court decision that denied citizenship to undocumented Haitian immigrants and their children and now its documentation and deportation program, the government of the Dominican Republic has thumbed its nose at the international community, the regional human rights system and transnational activists. But now’s not the time to let up.
This past May, El Salvador suffered its highest murder rate since the end of the country’s civil war 23 years ago. But this grisly flash of news—what journalists in the region call the nota roja—doesn’t give the wider context. There’s another story to be told here beyond the numbers: how Latin American journalists are affected by the violence they cover and how, in turn, their coverage is creating a cultural acceptance of violence.
When Presidents Obama and Rousseff gather next week in Washington, DC, one topic, unfortunately, is unlikely to get much attention: the roiling global rights crisis. But there is a common agenda on which both democratic leaders could establish a much-needed, progressive consensus, involving digital freedom and promoting dialogue and human and democratic rights in Cuba and Venezuela. Will they?
Is there a greater hypocrisy than dedicating yourself to basic human rights, while leaving the possibility of unjust imprisonment and death due to an inhumane and retrograde stance on a critical social and health issue?
Since October, eleven journalists across six countries—two in Colombia, two in Honduras, three in Mexico, two in Brazil, one in Paraguay, and one in Peru—have been murdered, according to the Inter-American Press Association.
The shifting of the balance of world power away from the developed world to the Global South has raised an urgent question: can the post-WW II normative framework and the body of international law and practice be adapted and preserved?
President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and Rafael Correa exhibit none of the characteristics of the modern, progressive left—such as, support for indigenous communities’ land rights or LGBT rights—so why are they still called leftists? Because they say so.
Several months ago, former presidents Óscar Arias, Felipe Calderón, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Alejandro Toledo, and Ernesto Zedillo signed an open letter to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro expressing their concern over the deteriorating human rights conditions in the country and political prisoners such as former Mayor of Chacao Leopoldo López. Here is their letter—though little has changed since they signed it.
Predictably, the rates of financial inclusion are significantly higher across the region for those with a secondary education. But there is one country that counters that trend: Argentina. Why?
Poverty without the violence and economic chaos of Venezuela? CaracasChronicles.com founder Francisco Toro reflects on the different meanings of poverty, inequality, decay, and civility on a stroll through the streets of Kampala’s slums.
