The Protester

November 22, 2011
November 22, 2011
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Rock the Casbah

Davi Baker, who blogs for the San Francisco Examiner as the SF Muslim, goes back to the ninth century to speculate on the roots of change in the Arab world. In the work of scholar Patricia Crone, he uncovers political thinkers speculating on the best way to organize society without a caliphate. Consensus, participation, violent overthrow, acquiescence, or anarchy? Baker writes, "Essentially they argued that the Caliph must be agreed upon by the entire community, either unanimously or by consensus, and without this no legitimate Caliph could exist. It was widely accepted that Allah did not impose obligations which were impossible to fulfill, so it was reasoned that there was no obligation to establish a legitimate Caliph."
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November 19, 2011
November 19, 2011
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“One Has to Do All One Can for Human Rights”

Antonia Bertschinger tells us of her work at the Swiss section of Amnesty International. She tells us how she came to be involved with human rights work. Bertschinger came to the work via her interest in Afghanistan. She studied Persian in university and worked in the Kabul Museum in Switzerland. "I loved working there because it helped me learn so much about Afghanistan. This did some awareness raising for me to learn what it’s like to live in a country where all the rights are violated, especially women’s rights, and which had such a long war, and so many other disasters. She ended up working in the Foreign Ministry in Iran rather than win Afghanistan, however. It was there that she met so many people working to build a better society and for the protection of human rights. Bertschinger asks of her own home in Europe, "How can we ever forget that human rights and the rule of law are the basis of our good life?"
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March 11, 2011
March 11, 2011
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Let’s Beef Up and Meet Up

For the past few years, Iranian cyber activists have used Western sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Wordpress and other blogging tools with enthusiasm and intelligence. They have also created their own platforms such as Balatarin, which is reminiscent of Digg, and Gooya, which predates blogging and was born as a kind of political yellow pages, expanding into news gathering and political discussions.
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