January 11, 2018 marked the 16th year that Guantanamo prison has exclusively imprisoned Muslim men, subjecting many of them to torture and arbitrary detention. About thirty people gathered in Washington D.C., convened by Witness Against Torture, (WAT), for a weeklong...
Remaining Peaceful Was Their Choice
People living now in Yemen's third largest city, Ta'iz, have endured unimaginable circumstances for the past three years. Civilians fear to go outside lest they be shot by a sniper or step on a land mine. Both sides of a worsening civil war use Howitzers, Kaytushas,...
Kathy Kelly says Let Yemenis Live
On May 2, 2017, before becoming Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, as Minister of Defense, spoke about the Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen, a war he orchestrated since March of 2015. "A long war is in our interest," he said, explaining that...
The Quality of Mercy by Kathy Kelly
During the spring of 1999, as part of Voices in the Wilderness’s campaign to end indiscriminately lethal U.S./U.N. economic sanctions against Iraq, the Fellowship of Reconciliation arranged for two Nobel Peace laureates, Adolfo Perez Esquivel and Mairead Maguire, to...
From the Ground Up by Kathy Kelly
On a recent Friday at the Afghan Peace Volunteers‘ (APV) Borderfree Center, here in Kabul, thirty mothers sat cross-legged along the walls of a large meeting room. Masoumah, who co-coordinates the Center’s “Street Kids School” project, had...
Wrongful Rhetoric and Trump’s Strategy on Iran
Mordechai Vanunu was imprisoned in Israel for eighteen years because he blew the whistle on Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program. He felt he had "an obligation to tell the people of Israel what was going on behind their backs" at a supposed nuclear...
At Every Door by Kathy Kelly
"I come and stand at every doorBut none shall hear my silent tread I knock and yet remain unseen" ~ Nazim HikmetOn July 18, 2017, at a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing focused on "The Four Famines: Root Causes and a Multilateral Action Plan,"...
‘Would You Like a Drink of Water?’ Please Ask a Yemeni Child
This week, in New York City, representatives from more than 100 countries will begin collaborating on an international treaty, first proposed in 2016, to ban nuclear weapons forever. It makes sense for every country in the world to seek a legally binding ban on...
Feed the Hungry, Treat the Sick: A Crucial Training
On June 15, 2017, the New York Times reported that the government of Saudi Arabia aims to ease the concerns of some U.S. legislators over US weapon sales to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis plan to engage in “a $750 million multiyear training program through the American...
Courage for Peace, Not for War, In Afghanistan
When activists like me return from visiting the Afghan Peace Volunteers in Kabul, Afghanistan, young seamstresses there often entrust each of us with about fifty sky-blue scarves. The word “Borderfree” is carefully embroidered, in English, on one end of each scarf; on...
