Declarations: The Human Rights Podcast

For some of us, these few months have been punctuated by heavy conversations about race around dinner tables, living rooms, maybe even over calls and social media comment threads. They've been with friends, family, strangers. Some of them have gone well, and many have not. These conversations require all parties to reach across generations, cultures and other forces that shape our worldviews, in o...

Have you heard the phrase 'abolish the police' being thrown around, but you're not really sure what this demand actually entails?  In this episode, we break down the ideas and intellectual histories of arguments to abolish, defund, and reform policing as an institution. We hope our discourse is helpful to you in figuring out where you stand in conversations around race and the criminal justic...

The prison-industrial complex. What does it mean? Who does it benefit? Who suffers? This week, we discuss how systemic racism manifests in the United States in the form of the prison-industrial complex. From its historical origins in slave patrols to the war on drugs, the criminal justice system has systematically entrapped Black bodies and monetized their labour to serve corporate interests. This...

In this episode, we are giving you a quick crash-course in how to protest safely and effectively, in the UK and in the US. We will cover your legal right to protest in the US and UK, give you tips on how to protest safely considering the current coronavirus pandemic, and discuss protesting as a non-Black person and how to leverage your privilege to help and protect Black protestors.

We need to talk about race.  Since its inception, Declarations has sought to shed light on some of the worst human rights violations across the globe. However right now, there is a specific violation that deserves all of our time, attention and effort - racism. Here at Declarations we are now solely committing ourselves to becoming a resource for anti-racist mobilisation, as we launch our new...

In this episode we discuss the Unist’ot’en campaign to protect their land and preserve it for future generations. In 2010, the Unist’ot’en began constructing a cabin in the exact place where three companies, TC Energy, Enbridge, and Pacific Trails, intended to build pipelines. Their campaign has faced hostility and violence, including from the government of Canada, and its national police force, t...

Join us as we discuss what the viral story of a Christmas card plea from a prisoner inside Shanghai Qingpu Prison tells us about our participation as consumers in regimes of forced labour, as well as the role and responsibility of corporate social responsibility for preventing these human rights violations. We are joined by Peter Humphrey, who speaks first hand about his own experience within this...

Join host Niyousha and panelists Matt and Muna as they interview Jacinta Gonzalez about her current work regarding hostile environments in the US, as well as discuss the Ellis Island legacy and the expansive infrastructures of technologies of oppression.

From 25th November to 4th December 2019, lecturers in 60 universities across the UK went on strike. Declarations hit the picket lines of Cambridge to find out why academics were swapping their blackboards for banners. 

Join us as we interview Maya Goodfellow, author of 'Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Became Scapegoats', for Part 1 of our series about the racialization of immigration. In this enlightening and extremely topical episode, we discuss security discourses of the 'scary' migrant, racial capitalism and the racialization of citizenship. 

In this episode, we discuss the provision and effectiveness of existing laws aimed to protect the rights of persons with disabilities. Touching on issues of positive discrimination, intersectionality and 'invisible' disabilities, we are joined by prominent student disability advocates Ebenezer Azamati and Rensa Gaunt. 

In this episode we discuss the current human rights infringements taking place in the semi-autonomous state of Kashmir. From the Public Safety Act to the repealment of Article 370, we interview lawyer, activist, and member of the Kashmir solidarity movement Mirza Saaib Beg and Academic and historian Waseem Yaqoob.

This episode focuses on the UK’s policy of deterring refugees and migrants from seeking asylum by extending the Home Office’s domestic “hostile environment” beyond state borders and into mainland Europe. We raise a number of questions on ethical and legal grounds. Our guest Marta Welander, founder of Refugee Rights Europe and PhD candidate and visiting lecturer in the Department of Politics and In...

From June to October 2017, the US-led Coalition launched an aggressive and highly destructive military campaign in Raqqa, Syria to oust the so-called “Islamic State” from the city. More than 80% of the city was destroyed via aerial bombardments, leaving Raqqa the most destroyed city in modern times. And over 1,600 civilians were killed. Amnesty and the Digital Verification Corps came to Queens’ Co...

In the first episode of this seasons' Declarations podcasts, the new team of panellists sets the stage for a discussion of some of the human rights issues that do not receive enough attention. The podcast gives rise to a dialogue around the very principles of human rights, informed by the panellists diverse geographical backgrounds and personal interests. Through their experience with human rights...

Until 2015, China harvested organs from prisoners on death row. The State has adopted an official policy that all organs must come from voluntary donations. Yet research suggests that there is a large discrepancy between the official Chinese government’s statistics on organ transplant rates in China (10,000 per year) and reality (estimates of 60,000-100,000 per year). When combined with the ongoin...

Technology is redefining the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers in this globalised world, whether it is artificial intelligence (AI) being used to screen their immigration applications or mobile applications designed to help them to access information and healthcare. The implications are far-reaching and complex, since such technological innovations could either strength or undermine human...

In this episode we discuss how the infrastructure of the US-Mexico border wall has become a weapon in and of itself. Since Trump’s campaign promise, “the wall” has captured onlookers’ horror and imagination. It is a frontline for so-called wars on drugs, terror, and migrants, but resistance to it is also a frontline in the fight for human rights. We explore the impact of the wall as weaponised inf...

This week’s episode explores how the petroleum industry in the Niger Delta takes place at the intersection of contentious relations between multinational oil companies, the Nigerian nation-state, and local communities in the oil-producing regions. The guest on the show is Dr Elias Courson, a lecturer at Niger Delta University, Nigeria and a former postdoc fellow at the Centre of African Studies, U...

In this episode, we speak with Donatella Rovera, Senior Crisis Advisor at Amnesty, Milena Marin, Senior advisor for Tactical Research, and Katya alkhateeb a senior researcher at the Essex Human Rights Centre, about launching the immersive investigation titled 'Rhetoric Versus Reality in the War in Raqqa' project. The project set out to document US-led Coalition civilian harms in Raqqa in 2017, thr...

In this episode we discuss the notion of a human rights-based approach to the socio-economic and cultural development of the UK, particularly in relation to race. The discussion explores the relationship between political representation and racial equality, alongside the development of political literacy amongst young people from minority backgrounds. Our guest for the panel discussion was Mr Simo...

In this episode we will be talking about the use of mapping and social media technologies to conduct human rights work, both outside the field and inside the field (what has come to be known as “Open Source Intelligence” or OSINT).  This kind of work increasingly supports how human rights workers know with certainty when something has happened, and is becoming an important part of denouncing...

The documentary “Cities of Sleep” explores the world of insurgent sleeper communities, as well as the infamous 'sleep mafia' in Delhi. Filmmaker Shaunak Sen and Cambridge PhD candidate Shreyashi Dasgupta join us to discuss the intersection between urban development, changing societies, city life and communities experiencing homelessness.

Over 10,000 migrant children have been lost after arriving in Europe. Where do they end up? What are their stories? And who is responsible for their increasing vulnerability and their being forgotten? Our guests are Cecilia Ferrara and Ismael Einashe, investigative journalists from Lost in Europe: an investigative network committed to recovering the stories of these missing children.

Everyone's asking, "How did he win? What does this mean for Brazil's future?" But Jair Bolsonaro's victory in the October presidential election also raises more systemic questions. Our guest, Dr Malu Gatto from the University of Zurich, joins us to explore the legacy of Brazil's not-so-dated dictatorship for Bolsonaro and for resistance movements like #NotHim.