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Welcome to ‘frackland:’ does a river have the right not to be polluted?
Hydraulic fracturing for natural gas or ‘fracking’ is one of the dirtiest forms of energy on the planet. Halting its destructive impact requires regulation and community control, but also something...
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A word to white women
If you identify as feminist you must examine what it means to be white, and the problem of the dominance of a white feminism which presents itself as universalWe live in exciting times....
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Is banking liberal?
The inability to distinguish between state currency and ‘bank money’ we have today is unjust and profoundly illiberal.There still circulates a well-nurtured myth. You deposit your savings in a bank and...
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Gender-based censorship
Gender-based censorship, which takes many forms, can be seen in attempts to stifle women’s public voice - from the suppression of Taslima Nasrin’s series for Indian TV to death and rape threats against...
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Russia and the Holocaust – whose genocide was it anyway?
27 January, anniversary of the Red Army’s liberation of Auschwitz in 1945, is widely marked as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, but Russia pays little attention to it. Why in a country so...
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Britain, Turkey and trading human rights for 'counter-terrorism'
openSecurity was inspired by a 2005 conference in Madrid on the anniversary of the Atocha station bombings, marked by consensus that 'counter-terrorism' measures had to be consistent with human rights...
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Sustainable security and the challenges of 2014
openSecurity's newest column explores the drivers of global insecurities and addresses their root causes. We look ahead to 2014 and the planet's unsustainable state. Sustainable Security is a concept...
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Bahrain’s attempts at subsidy reform
The burden of debt is being pushed onto the shoulders of citizens, and so subsidy reform may tip the delicate balance of the political and economic impasse.As Bahrain’s public debt approaches its legal...
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Lebanon's shot at utopia
Understanding the shortcomings of Lebanon in the race for Mediterranean oil wealth. Just like Brazil, bad timing might cut the country’s dreams short.2007 - the future looks bright for Brazil....
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Bliss Was It in that Dawn to Be Next Door
The author ponders literacy and the literate 'red blood corpuscles of society'and the way Arabic is taught in the Middle East and North Africa. He explores the shaky relationship between language and...
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Maidan on wheels
Euromaidan in Ukraine has produced another protest movement – Automaidan. It has picked up so much speed that the government is doing everything it can to put the brakes on…The message seemed real...
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Britain 'shines light of transparency' on secret lobbying. Just kidding.
David Cameron's lobbying bill exposes the hollowness of his muscular claims about cracking down on crony capitalism. Britain's democracy remains under corporate capture.Government wants to register...
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Putting development to rights: a post-2015 agenda
A lesson of the last decade's work on the Millennium Development Goals is the need to rethink current approaches to development, says David Mepham, the UK director of Human Rights Watch. The key...
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Greens - the UKIP of the left?
We already have a radical left alternative to UKIP's unpleasant populism, but that doesn't mean there is nothing to learn from them. Over the past 12 months, there have been repeated calls for a ' UKIP...
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East end boys and west end boys: does gentrification lead to homophobia?
Three men recently attacked my date and I in London's gay village Soho. They threw coins and shouted "faggot". I think gentrification partly prompted their resentment. The LGBT rainbow flag hangs over...
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How do we plan editorial partnerships?
The third in our series of blogs about openDemocracy's editorial partnerships programme. We walk you through how a partnership evolves from an idea emailed to us through a planned editorial...
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To raise funds, Indian rights groups must emulate the country’s newest...
Donations by ordinary citizens to India’s newest political party, the AAP, prove that Indians can and will donate to important causes. Indian rights groups can tap in to this generosity, but only if...
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Thank You Pete Seeger
“We are not afraid…we shall all be free.” Pete Seeger died last night, but the power of his music lives on. One activist pays tribute to another.A young Pete Seeger. Credit: http://peteseeger.net. All...
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The resilience of neoliberal urbanism
Resilience, the latest urban policy and think tank buzzword extolled upon the worlds urban dwellers, operates as an insidious alias to dispossession and territorial stigmatisation.Yesterday morning...
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How was he to know? The cracking of the Ukraine regime
Ukraine’s parliament has abandoned the law to curb public protests only recently introduced and the prime minister has resigned. What lies behind these dramatic events?The nation against the system:...
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