Category Archives: Human rights

Roman Abramovich takes Jersey to European human rights court over Chelsea sale proceeds

Posted on by

Lawyers for oligarch claim freezing of £5.3bn of assets ‘unfair and abusive’ amid row over use of funds for Ukraine

Roman Abramovich has gone to the European court of human rights (ECHR), claiming that a criminal investigation into his financial affairs by the Jersey authorities has breached his human rights, according to reports.

The former owner of Chelsea FC, who is under UK sanctions over his links to Vladimir Putin, is being investigated in Jersey over allegations of corruption and money laundering.

Continue reading...

El Salvador holds mass trial for 486 alleged members of notorious MS-13 gang

Posted on by

Human rights groups have warned that the collective prosecutions violate due process and block defendants from accessing legal counsel

A Salvadoran court on Tuesday began a collective trial of 486 alleged gang members, in one of the biggest mass trials under president Nayib Bukele’s crackdown on gang violence through controversial emergency powers.

Prosecutors say the charges against alleged members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, or MS-13, span more than 47,000 crimes committed between 2012 and 2022, including a weekend that was El Salvador’s bloodiest since its civil war.

Continue reading...

Israeli soldiers using sexual assault to force Palestinians out of West Bank, report says

Posted on by

Experts say attacks, also carried out by settlers, are leading girls to quit school and enter early marriages

Israeli soldiers and settlers are using gendered violence and sexual assault and harassment to force Palestinians from their homes in the occupied West Bank, human rights and legal experts say.

Palestinian women, men and children have reported attacks, forced nudity, invasive and painful body cavity searches, Israelis exposing their genitals, including to minors, and threats of sexual violence.

Continue reading...

Myanmar military regime widens sanitary towel ban, claiming rebels use them for first aid

Posted on by

Activists say clamp down on period products to target insurgents is gender-based violence and violates rights

Myanmar’s military regime is expanding its ban on the distribution of period products, claiming they are being used to treat wounded resistance fighters, according to local activists.

The south-east Asian country has been locked in civil war since 2021, when the military usurped the democratic government and launched a violent crackdown on dissidents. Artillery fire, the burning of townships and arbitrary arrests have become common in the years since then.

Continue reading...

UK has detained 76 ‘age-disputed’ children under one in, one out scheme

Posted on by

Concerns raised over minors placed in adult detention centres since removals began under scheme in September

More than 70 children from various conflict zones whose ages were disputed by the Home Office have been held in detention centres in the UK in preparation for forced removal to France under the government’s “one in, one out” scheme, research shows.

The one in, one out initiative means each small boat arrival can be forcibly returned to France in exchange for another person – who has not attempted the crossing – being brought to the UK legally.

Continue reading...

‘Severe disinformation campaign’ fuelling trans hate speech, Australia’s sex discrimination commissioner says

Posted on by

Trans and gender-diverse people experience ‘significant and preventable barriers to their safety and dignity’, report finds

The sex discrimination commissioner says there has been a concerted disinformation campaign against transgender rights since Australia’s postal survey on same-sex marriage.

The Australian Human Rights Commission released a report on Tuesday – coinciding with international trans day of visibility – finding that trans and gender-diverse people experience “significant and preventable barriers to their safety, dignity and full participation in society” spanning healthcare, housing, education, employment and public life.

Continue reading...

US-based dissident artist put on trial in China over satirical Mao sculptures, says rights group

Posted on by

New York-based Gao Zhen was detained in 2024 during a family visit to China and then tried for ‘defaming national heroes’

The Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen, known for making satirical sculptures of China’s former leader Mao Zedong, has been tried over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs”, his wife and a rights group have said.

Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit to China from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, his wife, Zhao Yaliang, and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese human rights defenders group, said.

Continue reading...

‘They can reach me wherever’: China using financial tactics to coerce people who flee, says report

Posted on by

UK urged to tackle transnational repression, as dissidents say Beijing has targeted them with tax bills and other threats

“I didn’t feel safe, even though I’m not based in Hong Kong any more,” said Christopher Mung Siu-tat after getting tax bills from Hong Kong authorities. “The regime can reach me by their long arms wherever I am.”

Siu-tat, the executive director at the Hong Kong Labour Rights Monitor, a UK-based NGO, fled Beijing’s sweeping national security laws years ago. The letters are the latest example of a series of transnational repression (TNR) tactics the 54-year-old has faced in recent years.

Continue reading...

Woman has sentence quashed by Tanzania court after over a decade on death row

Posted on by

Lemi Limbu, who has severe intellectual disabilities, remains in prison and will now face retrial for the murder of her daughter

A woman with severe intellectual disabilities in Tanzania has had her conviction and death sentence quashed after spending more than a decade in prison awaiting execution.

Lemi Limbu, now in her early 30s, was convicted of the murder of her daughter in 2015. On 4 March, a court in Shinyanga, northern Tanzania, declared she can appeal. She will face a retrial, but a date has yet to be set.

Continue reading...

‘Invasive’ AI-led mass surveillance in Africa violating freedoms, warn experts

Posted on by

Countries across the continent have spent more than $2bn on Chinese tracking technology that is not ‘necessary or proportionate’, new report finds

The rapid expansion of AI-powered mass-surveillance systems across Africa is violating citizens’ right to privacy and having a chilling effect on society, according to experts on human rights and emerging technologies.

At least $2bn (£1.5bn) has been spent by 11 African governments on Chinese-built surveillance technology that recognises faces and monitors movements, according to a new report by the Institute of Development Studies, which warns that national security is being used to justify implementing these systems with little regulation.

Continue reading...

Prison sentences for pair who attacked gay men hailed as sign of hope for Kenya’s LGBTQ+ community

Posted on by

The perpetrators were jailed for 15 years for robbery with violence in the east African country, where homophobic attacks are increasing

The sentencing of two people who attacked and robbed two gay men in Kenya has been hailed by LGBTQ+ rights advocates as a breakthrough and a sign of hope for the country’s queer community. “Abel Meli & Another” were sentenced to 15 years in prison for robbery with violence on 3 March at Milimani law courts in Nairobi.

The ruling is a rare example of justice being served for the queer community in Kenya. Njeri Gateru, the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, an independent human rights institution working towards equality for sexual and gender minorities in Kenya, said: “A lot is going against [the queer community] with the existence of the criminal laws and prevailing homophobic attitudes, but some of us still trust that we can find justice, so this case encourages us.”

Continue reading...

Peruvian state responsible for mother’s death in forced sterilisation, court rules

Posted on by

Landmark ruling in Celia Ramos case finds 310,000 women, most Indigenous, were targeted in brutal 1990s campaign

The highest human rights court in Latin America condemned Peru on Thursday over the death of its citizen Celia Ramos, who died at the age of 34 in 1997 after undergoing sterilisation “under coercion”.

The landmark ruling by the inter-American court of human rights (IACHR) is the first on Peru’s forced sterilisation programme, which operated between 1996 and 2000 and was directed against poor, rural and Indigenous women.

Continue reading...

Deaths of 22 children in Channel due to ‘catastrophic failure’ by UK and France, NGO says

Posted on by

Project Play finds UK taxpayers are funding ‘record child fatalities’ and ‘repeated violence’ against children in northern France

The deaths of 22 children while trying to cross the Channel in the last two years, along with the mistreatment of thousands of others, were due to “catastrophic failures” of the UK and French governments, according to a new report.

Project Play, an NGO that has worked with 2,192 children hoping to cross the Channel from northern France to the UK to claim asylum in the last two years, has documented the impact of the hostile conditions in northern France due to regular teargassing, evictions and dinghy-slashing by the French police.

Continue reading...

Alleged Australian IS fighters transferred from Syria to Iraq where they could face death penalty

Posted on by

Dfat says it is aware Australians are among 5,704 detainees transferred out of Syrian prisons and into Iraqi custody

A group of Australian men suspected of being former Islamic State fighters are among more than 5,000 detainees transferred from Syria to Iraq, where they potentially face charges which could carry the death penalty.

Iraq’s national centre for international judicial cooperation confirmed last Friday it had taken custody of the 5,704 alleged former fighters from 61 countries, including citizens of Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the US.

Continue reading...

‘Invisible’ children born in the brothels of Bangladesh finally get birth certificates

Posted on by

Destined to a perilous life with no right to an education or to vote, state recognition ‘gives them hope’, campaigners say

Through the decades that the Daulatdia brothel in Bangladesh has existed, children born there have been invisible, unable to be registered because their mothers were sex workers and their fathers unknown. Now, for the first time, all 400 of them in the brothel village have their own birth certificates.

That milestone was reached after a push by campaigners who have spent decades working with Bangladesh’s undocumented children born in brothels or on the street. It means they can finally access the rights afforded to other citizens: the ability to go to school, to be issued a passport or to vote.

Continue reading...

Trump ‘wouldn’t have wanted’ second strike on Caribbean boat survivors

Posted on by

US president says he will look into reports US military was told to conduct follow-up attack on suspected drug vessel

Donald Trump has said he will look into reports that the US military conducted a follow-up strike on a boat in the Caribbean that it believed to be ferrying drugs, killing survivors of an initial missile attack.

The US president also said on Sunday he “wouldn’t have wanted” a second strike on the vessel during the incident on 2 September – the first publicised operation in a series of attacks in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that Washington says are aimed at combatting the drug trade.

Continue reading...

Israel still committing genocide in Gaza, Amnesty International says

Posted on by

The NGO’s chief says last month’s ceasefire ‘risks creating a dangerous illusion that life in Gaza is returning to normal’

Amnesty International has said Israel is “still committing genocide” against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, despite the ceasefire agreed last month.

The fragile, US-brokered truce between Israel and Hamas came into effect on 10 October, after two years of war.

Continue reading...

Mahmood and Lammy breached human rights law over segregation of prisoner, judge finds

Posted on by

Treatment of terrorist with known mental health needs said to have contravened prohibition on inhuman or degrading treatment

Shabana Mahmood and David Lammy have been found to have breached a prohibition on inhuman or degrading treatment with respect to a prisoner who spent months segregated from other inmates, in what is believed to be a legal first.

Sahayb Abu was confined to his cell at HMP Woodhill in Milton Keynes, for 22 hours a day and prevented from associating with other prisoners for more than four months after Hashem Abedi, the brother of the Manchester Arena bomber, allegedly attacked prison officers at HMP Frankland.

Continue reading...

Shabana Mahmood tells MPs asylum system is ‘out of control and unfair’ amid Labour backlash over proposals – UK politics live

Posted on by

Labour MP calls government’s asylum plans ‘dystopian’ as home secretary announces measures in Commons

Momentum, the leftwing Labour group, has also denounced the government’s asylum plans. In a statement it says:

The home secretary’s new immigration plans are divisive and xenophobic.

Scapegoating migrants will not fix our public services or end austerity.

Draconian, unworkable and potentially illegal anti-asylum policies only feed Reform’s support.

The government has learnt nothing from the period since the general election.

Some of the legal changes being proposed are truly frightening:

Abolishing the right to a family life would ultimately affect many more people than asylum-seekers.

Continue reading...

British-Egyptian activist stopped from flying to UK, says family

Posted on by

Egyptian authorities prevented Alaa Abd el-Fattah from attending human rights awards in London

Alaa Abd el-Fattah, the British-Egyptian writer and human rights campaigner who was freed from jail in September, was stopped from flying to the UK by Egyptian passport control, his family has said.

Abd el-Fattah was pardoned after more than 10 years in jail but his status, including his right to travel back and forth between Britain and Egypt, was left unclear and subject to discussion between the family and authorities.

Continue reading...