We are launching our annual appeal to fund our permanent Asia Solidarity Fund for the year 2025. We are in the midst of a deadly spiral of worsening crises - from the international ‘reactionary acceleration’ symbolised by the election of Donald Trump to global warming spiralling out of control. Maintaining solidarity, in all its forms, is a matter of the utmost urgency. Our association is committed to ensuring the continuity of this solidarity, including financial one, with the movements whose work we support in four Asian countries, for the help they provide to populations deeply affected by disasters of human or natural origin.
Solidarity !
Latest articles
South Korea had martial law for 6 hours. Why did this happen and what can we expect now? On Tuesday night, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol sent shockwaves through the world by declaring martial law in the country.
Yoon’s opponents in the National Assembly immediately sought to mass at the legislature to block the decree. This led to a dramatic confrontation with soldiers over (…)Israel’s Revenge: An Interview with Rashid Khalidi The scholar of Palestinian history talks about what has and has not surprised him about the world‘s response to Israel‘s assault on Gaza.
The historian Rashid Khalidi has, for many years, been a preeminent Arab-American intellectual and among the most vocal critics of America’s involvement in (…)What is happening in Syria? In just a few days, Syria has turned anew into a theatre of war of movement, in what looks like a resumption of the last major displacement of the battlefronts that took place in 2016, when the Assad regime regained control of Aleppo with Iranian and Russian support and Turkish complicity.
In (…)Statement: Urgent actions must follow the International Criminal Court Prosecutor’s application of an arrest warrant against Min Aung Hlaing On November 27, 2024, the ICC Prosecutor filed an application for an arrest warrant against Min Aung Hlaing, saying that “we will be demonstrating, together with all of our partners, that the Rohingya have not been forgotten.”
We, Women’s Peace Network, welcome the International Criminal Court (…)How quickly will Sri Lanka’s New Left Government Disappoint the Poor? The landslide electoral victory of the left-wing National People’s Power (NPP) alliance in Sri Lanka, led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party, has raised hopes among the country’s poor masses for a decisive break from the failed neoliberal policies that bankrupted the nation. However, (…)
Sri Lanka: Jaffna victory is the prized jewel in NPP electoral crown The Anura “Alai” or wave that engulfed the Tamil nationalist stronghold of Jaffna was the focus of this column published last week. (Anura “Alai”(Wave) engulfs Tamil Nationalist Stronghold of Jaffna).The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) led National People’s Power (NPP) made history by polling (…)
Kazakhstan: Mounting Socialism on Camel’s Back: An Interview with Sarah Cameron on the Famine in Kazakhstan Sarah Cameron is an American historian at the University of Maryland. Her research interests include the history of crimes against humanity, environmental issues, and the societies and cultures of Central Asia.
In 2018, she published a book about the famine in Kazakhstan (Asharshylyk), The (…)How the Nations of Eastern Europe Tried to Civilize Each Other: A Conversation with Polish Historian Ela Kwiecińska Ela Kwiecińska is a Polish historian who used to teach at the University of Warsaw. She was fired because of her critical attitude towards Polish national historiography. Ela currently works in the Institute of Slavic Studies at the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Ela’s doctoral dissertation, (…)Sri Lanka: The Elusive Rs. 1,700 day rate for tea pickers It is now six months since Ranil Wickramasinghe announced at the Kotagala May Day Rally of the Ceylon Workers’ Congress that the daily wages of estate workers would be increased to Rs. 1,700 and that they would be paid Rs 80 for every kilogram of green leaf plucked above the norm. The government (…)
Sri Lanka: Rice shortage saga: From adequate stocks to imports Govt. formulating laws to regulate large-scale mills to make rice equally available
The Government’s recent decision to import up to 70,000 MT of nadu rice has sparked debate, with consumers questioning the need for such a costly measure.
As previously claimed by farmer unions, Sri Lanka (…)Socialism, Democracy, Bureaucracy, and Umbrella Organizations Astract: Among the dilemmas faced by labor, socialist, and other movements of the subaltern classes striving to change society over the past two centuries, three are discussed here: forms of ownership, bureaucracy and “big tent” formulas for both unity of the working class broadly defined, and (…)
Palestinian Organisations Welcome Landmark Decision of the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber Issuing Arrest Warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant as a Major Step Toward Accountability Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights (Al Mezan), and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) welcome the decision of Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of (…)
Sri Lanka: Reading the General Election 2024 The National People’s Power (NPP) has made history. With its unprecedented, record-breaking electoral victory at the general election of 2024, the NPP has succeeded in engineering popular dissent towards comprehensive regime change. Its parliamentary super majority has been secured on the back (…)
Israeli Forces Ramp Up Attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital and its Medical Personnel Despite ICC Arrest Warrants Gaza, 24 November 2024 — Israeli forces have escalated deliberate attacks on medical personnel and health facilities in Gaza, with the latest wave of attacks concentrated on Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, North Gaza. Al Mezan strongly condemns Israel’s deliberate targeting and destruction (…)
Philippines: International Criminal Court (ICC) and Regional Trial Court (RTC) Complementarity and “Overlap” in Prosecuting the Duterte Drug War’s Crime Against Humanity In this thought-provoking article, human rights lawyer and retired judge Soliman M. Santos Jr. makes a compelling case for a united, domestic effort to bring former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte and his enablers to justice for the brutal “drug war” that claimed thousands of lives. Santos (…)
On the left (France): what to do about the rise of right-wing forces? How to develop a common strategy on Ukraine? How does the left in France confront the global “right-wing” turn? Can leftist organizations supporting Ukraine develop a common strategy? Researcher and longtime activist Catherine Samary discusses the role of the left in today’s French politics for [Posle (…)
Times of Struggle and Cultural Liberation—A Conversation with Elias Khoury On September 15, 2024, Elias Khoury, a giant of Lebanese political and literary life, died at the age of 76. Khoury was a renowned novelist and a deeply engaged political writer and thinker on Lebanese and Palestinian politics who contributed to MERIP throughout the years. In light of his (…)
The election of Trump and the Republicans under his thumb - The world is changing base as it did when Hitler came to power in 1933 The world is going to change fundamentally, as it did with the advent of Nazism in 1933. The well-elected US President and his Republican Party control the three federal powers, although there is still resistance from certain states such as New York and especially California.
Trump is better (…)India: Statement on Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand The BJP and its allied forces have swung back with great force in Maharashtra, and while they have been blocked in Jharkhand electorally, it does not mean they have been weakened.
The Maharashtra results have come as a blow to many. After the strong showing by anti-BJP forces in the (…)Philippines: Defining Red-Tagging, the Importance of What Is and Isn’t In a masterful analysis that challenges both state overreach and revolutionary romanticism, Soliman Santos offers a nuanced examination of red-tagging that speaks directly to feminists and leftists struggling to build genuine democratic spaces in the Philippines. By carefully dissecting recent (…)