Editor’s Note: Rights & Wrongs is a weekly column the world’s major human rights-related happenings. It is written by regular WPR contributor Juliette Terzieff. WORLD’S UNIONS RALLY FOR IRANIAN LABOR LEADER — Labor unions from around the world have joined forces with human rights groups to protest the detention of Mansour Osanloo, head of the Union of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, who was reportedly abducted as he stepped off a bus on July 10. Osanloo had previously been held in Tehran’s Evin for most of 2006 for organizing a bus driver walkout in December 2005. The union [...]
Earlier this month, on July 11, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier announced the release from Iraqi captivity of German-born hostage Hannelore Kadhim — or, as he called her, “Hannelore Krause.” The now 62-year-old Kadhim and her son Sinan were reported to have been kidnapped from their Baghdad home in early February. Speaking before the assembled media at the Foreign Ministry in Berlin, Steinmeier noted: “At the present time, I can tell you nothing about the background to the release,” before adding: “And I ask you please to refrain from any speculations. . . .” Most of the German media obediently [...]
One of the more disturbing sights greeting travelers to the Middle East and other regions with Muslim populations in the days after September 11 was a t-shirt defiantly bearing a familiar face. I saw the new fashions hanging for sale in markets in Southeast Asia, shirts adorned with the gaunt, bearded likeness of Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden had captured the imagination of a large number of people. Clearly, defeating him would require more than military might. Years later, the long, painful, and error-filled campaign to defeat Islamic extremists brings news that seems to go from bad to worse. America, [...]
