Kurdish human rights director obtains visa – finally

The State Department announced that British citizen Kerim Yildiz, director of the Kurdish Human Rights Project would be granted a visa to travel to the United States. Yildiz has waited over a year for the visa. He is scheduled to meet with State Department officials to discuss Kurdish human rights issues, lecture in New York [...]

Man denied entry to U.S. possibly for ideological reasons

The ACLU is protesting the delay in granting Kerim Yildiz, a British citizen, a visa to travel to the U.S. at the invitation of the Open Society Foundations and the Patricia Gruber Foundation. The ACLU is concerned that Yildiz has been denied entry because of his work on human rights for Kurds. -db From the [...]

Free speech: Colombian journalist barred from the U.S. receives visa

The ACLU has called for the end to excluding visitors to the United States on ideological grounds as the State Department reversed a decision by the U.S. Columbian embassy blocking Hollman Morris from traveling to the U.S. to participate in the Nieman fellowship program at Harvard University. -db Free speech: Columbian journalist previously barred from [...]

Obama administration begins roll back of ideological exclusion of international scholars

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed orders lifting the ban of two foreign scholars denied the opportunity to address audiences in the United States. The two are prominent scholars from England and South Africa and were denied visas to the U.S. by the Bush administration. -DB American Civil Liberties Union Press Release January 20, 2010 [...]