amy: the biden administration's decision to withdraw james cavallaro's nomination has sparked outragehin the human rights community. agnes callamard, the secretary general of amnesty international, condemned what she called "a state driven attack on a brilliant human rights lawyer because of his view on israel apartheid." she went on to say -- "the u.s. government has not engaged with the legal and empirical bases of positions on israel apartheid. instead it is censoring, shutting down debates, and threatening." omar shakir, who is the israel and palestine director at human rights watch, said the move "suggests that for the state department believing that palestinians deserve basic rights disqualifies one from serving on a human rights body. shameful and yet u.s. foreign policy in a nutshell." james cavallaro has become just the latest figure to lose or risk losing a position due to his iticism of israel. last year, the dean at harvard university's kennedy school of government vetoed a fellowship for former human rights watch executive director kenneth roth over his criticism of israe

the biden administration has withdrawn its nomination of a prominent human rights attorney james cavallaro to serve on the inter-american commission on human rights over the attorney's past comments describing israel as a "apartheid state" and for criticizing house minority leader hakeem jeffries' close ties to aipac, the american israel public affairs committee. cavallaro is co-founder and executive director of the university network for human rights. he has previously served on the inter-american commission on human rights from 2014 to 2017. writing on twitter, cavallaro decried what he described as "censorship of human rights advocates who denounce apartheid in israel." indian tax officials raided the bbc's offices in new delhi and mumbai for a second day today amid an ongoing firestorm over a new bbc documentary about prime minister narendra modi. modi has banned the film, which in part covers his time as chief minister of gujarat, when he was accused of complicity in the deadly 2002 anti-muslim riots which killed an estimated 1000 people. students have been arrested for showing or att