EZILI DANTO Danto is president of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network. She just wrote the piece “Obama’s change in Haiti: The Return of Jean Claude Duvalier.” Danto states that Duvalier, a past dictator of Haiti, could not have been able to return without the cooperation of the U.S. and France. She notes that meanwhile, Jean-Bertrand…

CNN is reporting: “Police in Tunisia’s capital city used batons and tear gas to clear a peaceful demonstration on Friday. … [This occurs] after days of riots that have killed at least 21 people.” STEPHEN ZUNES Zunes just wrote the piece “Pro-Democracy Uprising Fails to Keep Washington From Backing Tunisian Dictatorship.” Zunes is professor of…

Rebecca Peters is a lawyer who was until recently director of the International Action Network on Small Arms, the global movement against gun violence. She said today: “In other countries — Germany, Britain, Canada, Australia, Israel, Finland, Belgium — even a single tragedy of this nature leads to a commission of inquiry and to legal…

Jo Comerford is executive director of the National Priorities Project; Chris Hellman is budget analyst for the group, which as part of the re-launch of its website, CostofWar.com, has just issued “What’s at Stake?” — 50 state-level briefs focused on the impact of war spending. Hellman said today: “In state after state, tough decisions are being…

“I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. … “I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world…

MELINDA MILES Founder and director of Let Haiti Live, a project of TransAfrica Forum, Miles has been doing relief and advocacy work on Haiti for more than a decade. She said today: “One year after Haiti’s devastating earthquake, there are over 1 million IDP’s [internally displaced persons], over 3,600 have died from a cholera epidemic…

In the U.S. till Thursday, Andy Worthington is author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison. He just wrote the piece “Guantánamo Forever?” He is co-director of the film “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo.”

Author of Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy, Frederick Clarkson is editor of the book Dispatches from the Religious Left: The Future of Faith and Politics in America. He is founder of the interactive blog “Talk to Action” about the religious right. He said today: “Jared Loughner may be many things. If police…

Miyoko Sakashita is senior attorney and director of the Oceans Program at the Center for Biological Diversity. She said today: “The Commission’s report confirms that the oil industry cannot be trusted, and the federal government is also to blame for being asleep at the wheel. There are systemic problems at the Department of the Interior…

In response to reports that the House will be reading aloud the Constitution on Thursday, attorney Robert Meeropol — founder and executive director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children — said today: “I hope that if that happens, Congress will take special note of Article III, Section 3, that defines treason, since rumors have been…