In the 6 to 9 June elections, Europeans are staking much more than it seems: with unprecedented support for the far right, between high levels of discontent and disinformation, they risk condemning themselves to losing social rights and legitimising a divided and ineffective European [...]Read the full article
Giulio Romani:“The ETUC demands that asylum-seekers should have the right to work in all member states. Trade unions and employers should work together to ensure decent employment conditions, essential to building solidarity between workers and equal opportunities and treatment for [...]Read the full article
Therese Svanström:“In a globalised world, corporate operations extend across borders; therefore, trade union activities must do the same.”Read the full article
The search for persons disappeared during the Spanish Civil War, a search backed by the United Nations and overshadowed by political debate, has resulted in the exhumation of just 800 mass graves over the last two decades, out of a total of around 3,500. It is a fragile advance that risks being [...]Read the full article
“We know there is no future for this capitalist food system. It has to die but it is not yet dead. In this process, food sovereignty activists act as collective midwives that are giving birth to a new system.”Read the full article
Daniel Bertossa:“All governments and actors have an obligation under the Geneva Conventions to protect civilians, especially those providing lifesaving services in conflict zones. Making human rights law optional or context-dependent sends a dangerous message, endangers public service workers and undermines the [...]Read the full article
The year 2020 marked an inflection point for Hong Kong’s book sector, when the Chinese government imposed a sweeping national security law on the city, partly to crush the 2019 protest movement that challenged Chinese President Xi Jinping. Publishing words in Hong Kong has become a risky [...]Read the full article
Mandeep Tiwana:“Although most countries have embraced the ritual of elections, the quality of democracy on offer is poor. In short, many elections in 2024 will be less free and transparent than the winners want us to believe.”Read the full article
Tamara Gausi:To round up the year, each Equal Times editor picks the stories that have stayed in their heart and mind, long after publication.Read the full article
“In the media, migrants are usually treated as number or statistics. Cinema, on the other hand, allows their personal stories to be told. It gives a voice to individuals.”Read the full article
“Internet shutdowns have a negative impact on democracy in French-speaking Africa, especially during election periods. They constitute a form of censorship that limits freedom of expression and access to information. They prevent citizens from finding out about candidates and election issues, [...]Read the full article
Eastern DR Congo is once again faced with a major influx of people displaced by the war. With authorities failing to respond adequately, the local population has taken matters into their own hands, providing concrete solutions and reinventing political [...]Read the full article
Unions and many environmentalists want to see all waste workers – including waste pickers – in decent working conditions, while ensuring that upstream workers are not left behind.Read the full article
The success of the far right in Argentina “cannot be separated from a critical political and economic situation [with galloping inflation] that makes you feel like your income is losing value from one minute to the next. It’s a daily battle through the economy, which causes tremendous [...]Read the full article
“The whole idea of strategic litigation is not just important from the perspective of winning victories. It is also important from the perspective of our experience in Europe being written into official records of state courts.”Read the full article
According to the United Nations Population Fund, 2.5 million children in Turkey are in need of humanitarian assistance and psychosocial support following the devastating earthquakes that killed more than 50,000 people across the Turkey-Syria border this [...]Read the full article
The enforced abductions and disappearances of Iraqi men that have occurred for decades – whether under the regime of Saddam Hussein, during the dark days of the so-called Islamic State’s reign of terror or following anti-government protests in 2019 – continue to haunt the relatives of the [...]Read the full article
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights – a landmark, post-Second World War commitment to the fundamental human rights and freedoms of all people – turns 75 this year. Can the world recommit to this noble promise or will attempts to uphold the sacred principles of the Declaration eventually be [...]Read the full article
Two years after the fires burned roughly 15 per cent of its surface area, inhabitants of Evia, Greece’s second largest island, are doing their best to move forward. Solidarity still plays an essential role in reconstruction efforts, just as it did when the tragedy was [...]Read the full article
How the Slow Food movement is helping local communities and smallholder farmers in Africa ensure food sovereignty and breakaway from neocolonial production systems.Read the full article
“Maybe it’s not the right to the city that we need. […] the city represents a form of accumulation that feeds on the extraction of everything around it: the favelas, the occupations and the countryside.”Read the full article
The Maricas Bolivia Movement, which has been occupying the media and the public space for over 10 years, fights not only against homophobia and transphobia in Bolivian society, Indigenous communities included, but also against white hegemony in the social imaginary of the institutional LGBTQI+ [...]Read the full article
Two years ago figures in the reparations movement helped set up a task force to come up with a series of recommendations to compensate Californians who are descendants of enslaved Africans and African Americans and right the wrongs caused by [...]Read the full article
“In addition to being a health crisis, the pandemic has resulted in a global restructuring of our living and working conditions,” says Chilean psychologist Alondra Carrillo, former spokesperson for the Coordinadora Feminista 8M and member of the Constitutional Convention of [...]Read the full article
Experts are calling on the government to strengthen its disaster preparedness and climate change adaptation strategies, particularly in agriculture, which forms the bedrock of the country’s economic activities.Read the full article
Enis Coşkun:On 14 May, the people of Turkey will elect their president and members of parliament. A hundred years after the foundation of a secular state under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal, these elections are crucial to the country’s [...]Read the full article
Despite having one of the most diverse media landscapes in Africa, Cameroon is also one of the most dangerous places to be a journalist on the continent, as the recent murders of Martinez Zogo and Jean-Jacques Ola Bébé demonstrate.Read the full article
The armed conflict has created new employment opportunities for all Syrians, both men and women. Many believe that the war has led to the ‘democratisation’ of the civilian sector since 2011 and, significantly, to the qualitative participation of women in areas with social [...]Read the full article
Kais Saied was elected president in 2019 with more than 70 per cent of the vote. While some warned of the dangers of his brand of populism at the time, no one anticipated a descent into autocracy with racist overtones. Most recently, Saied has targeted opposition politicians and trade [...]Read the full article
Blandine Lavignon:Georgia was rocked in early March by historic demonstrations in opposition to a draft law that would label media and NGOs receiving foreign funding as ‘foreign agents’. Civil society actors explain what is at stake.Read the full article
The guiding principle of the public library is that everyone deserves free and open access to our common cultural heritage. This places the institution at fundamental odds with capitalist consumer ideals. From New Delhi to Los Angeles, we visit seven ‘palaces for the [...]Read the full article
Owen Tudor:“Under incredibly difficult circumstances, and frequently at great personal risk, trade unionists have been delivering humanitarian assistance and working to keep the economy, especially vital services, going.”Read the full article
A new arts project is bringing together various communities in Nineveh province, northern Iraq, to restore peaceful coexistence following the overthrow of the so-called Islamic State in 2017.Read the full article
The announcement that Morocco allegedly bribed prominent figures in the European Parliament to defend its interests in Brussels has led to increased scrutiny of human rights violations in Morocco. The resulting picture is not a flattering [...]Read the full article