MEDIA ROOTS- The vast majority of the world is unaware of the existence of a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration was drafted after the atrocities of WWII and was the first global declaration of rights to which all human beings are inherently endowed. Its 30 articles have since served as the basis for numerous human rights treaties and laws. This … Read More
MEDIA ROOTS- In 2007, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles stated that Troy Davis, a man charged with killing a police officer in 1991, would never be put to death unless there was “no doubt” of his guilt. Despite a cloud of uncertainty surrounding the case and a lack of hard evidence linking him to the actual killing, Troy … Read More
MEDIA ROOTS- John Dau is one of Sudan’s Lost Boys, a group of more than 20,000 boys who escaped the genocide during the Sudanese Civil War, where 2.5 million Southern Sudanese were killed and millions of others were displaced. John gives Media Roots a moving account of his escape, his life growing up in the refugee camps, his experience coming to … Read More
MEDIA ROOTS- Perhaps one of the most abhorrent aspects of US foreign policy in the 21st century is the privatization of the US military and the government’s outsourcing of military jobs to corrupt war contractors. Despite Obama’s early campaign rhetoric about scaling down the use of contractors, he has increased their presence– they now make up approximately 50% of the … Read More
AMG– Award winning documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy explores the human and political consequences of one of the most bitter scandals of the war in Iraq in this feature. In the 1960’s, a prison was built in Abu Ghraib, an Iraqi city west of Baghdad, and during the regime of Saddam Hussein it became a center of torture and abuse where … Read More
