First charge by AFP’s Special Operation Avalite established in December. Follow today’s news headlines live
Richard Marles will become the first minister to visit Kiribati in almost two years, AAP reports.
The deputy prime minister and defence minister is travelling to Kiribati for high-level talks with the nation’s re-elected government, which closed its country’s borders in 2024 while national elections were held.
Continue reading...Latest world report by Human Rights Watch describes Australia as a ‘vibrant democracy … marred by some key human rights concerns’
Australia’s “diabolical” treatment of asylum seekers and youth crime has worsened, a global human rights advocacy body has warned, urging voters to push back on leaders politicising the issue for gain.
Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) latest world report has lashed Australia for going backwards on children in the criminal justice system in 2024, referencing the Northern Territory’s decision to reintroduce spit hoods for youth detainees and the continued use of watch houses to detain children in Queensland.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email
Continue reading...Eron Kiiza, who was representing regime opponent Dr Kizza Besigye, was assaulted and sentenced to nine months’ jail, say colleagues
A human rights lawyer involved in a case featuring a prominent Ugandan opposition leader has been tortured after he was arrested and detained without trial, according to colleagues who have visited him.
Eron Kiiza was assaulted and arrested by soldiers on 7 January while entering a military courtroom where he was representing Dr Kizza Besigye – a political opponent of President Yoweri Museveni – and his aide Haji Obeid Lutale.
Continue reading...In ‘potentially trailblazing’ decision, European court of human rights finds country engaging in illicit deportations
The European court of human rights has found Greece guilty of conducting “systematic” pushbacks of would-be asylum seekers, ordering it to compensate a woman forcibly expelled back to Turkey despite her attempts to seek protection in the country.
In a judgment described as potentially trailblazing, the Strasbourg-based tribunal awarded the complainant damages of €20,000 (£16,500), citing evidence that the frontline EU state was engaging in the illicit deportations when she was removed.
Continue reading...Figure includes hundreds of children, who make up one in five migrants trying to reach Europe fleeing war and poverty
More than 2,200 people either died or went missing in the Mediterranean while trying to reach Europe in search of refuge in 2024.
The figure, cited in a statement from Regina De Dominicis, the regional director for Europe and central Asia for the UN’s children’s agency, Unicef, was eclipsed on New Year’s Eve when 20 people fell into the sea and were reported missing after a boat started to take in water in rough seas about 20 miles off the coast of Libya.
Continue reading...Assaults on medical facilities could amount to war crimes in certain circumstances, human rights office report says
Israel’s pattern of sustained attacks on Gaza’s hospitals and medical workers has brought the coastal strip’s healthcare system to the brink of “total collapse”, according to a report by the UN’s human rights office.
The report, which catalogues the besieging and targeting of hospitals and their immediate grounds with explosive weapons, the killing of hundreds of medical workers, and the destruction of critical life-saving equipment, said that in certain circumstances the attacks could “amount to war crimes”. Israel has consistently denied committing war crimes in Gaza.
Continue reading...Hussam Abu Safiya feared injured as Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza shut down after 11 weeks under siege
One of the few doctors still working in northern Gaza has been taken to an Israeli prison and his hospital shut down, his family believe.
Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan hospital in Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp, was initially taken to the Sde Teiman detention camp, according to his son, who has been told that the doctor’s leg was badly injured during a raid on the hospital by Israeli soldiers.
Continue reading...Protests have erupted nationwide after disappearance of boys not seen since they were approached by soldiers
The disappearance of four boys in Ecuador after they came into contact with the armed forces is posing a severe challenge to President Daniel Noboa’s “war on drugs”.
The four – all black, aged between 11 and 15, and residents of Las Malvinas, a poor area in the country’s largest city, Guayaquil – were returning from a football game near their homes on 8 December when 16 air force soldiers approached them.
Continue reading...Human rights group says Israel ‘brazenly, continuously and with total impunity … unleashed hell’ on strip’s 2.3m population
A report from Amnesty International alleges that Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip constitutes the crime of genocide under international law, the first such determination by a major human rights organisation in the 14-month-old conflict.
The 32-page report examining events in Gaza between October 2023 to July 2024, published on Thursday, found that Israel had “brazenly, continuously and with total impunity … unleashed hell” on the strip’s 2.3 million population, noting that the “atrocity crimes” against Israelis by Hamas on 7 October 2023, which triggered the war, “do not justify genocide”.
The unprecedented scale and magnitude of the military offensive, which has caused death and destruction at a speed and level unmatched in any other 21st-century conflict;
Intent to destroy, after considering and discounting arguments such as Israeli recklessness and callous disregard for civilian life in the pursuit of Hamas;
Killing and causing serious bodily or mental harm in repeated direct attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, or deliberately indiscriminate attacks; and
Inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction, such as destroying medical infrastructure, the obstruction of aid, and repeated use of arbitrary and sweeping “evacuation orders” for 90% of the population to unsuitable areas.
Continue reading...Rapper who spoke up for Woman, Life, Freedom movement is released five months after death sentence overturned
The Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi, who was sentenced to death in April for his support of anti-regime protests, has been released from prison by the Iranian authorities.
Salehi was sentenced by a revolutionary court in April for backing the Woman, Life, Freedom protests in September 2022 after the death of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman who died in police custody.
Continue reading...Campaigners say problems with digital transfer could affect hundreds of thousands of people on ‘10-year route’ visas
The Home Office has admitted that many people who have the right to live and work in the UK cannot access their eVisas and provide proof that they are allowed to be in the country.
Human rights campaigners have said problems with accessing eVisas could lead to a scandal involving hundreds of thousands of people. Those affected are allowed to be in the UK but cannot show their right to work or rent a home.
Continue reading...Information campaign directed at diplomatic missions expected after court cases highlighted ‘slave-like’ working conditions for domestic workers
The Australian government has restricted foreign diplomats bringing domestic workers into the country, a UN anti-slavery expert has reported, after two recent federal court cases exposed systemic exploitation a judge described as “slave-like working conditions”.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email
Continue reading...Officials acknowledge prisoners have harmed themselves but say they did not set themselves on fire or self-immolate
Several incarcerated people in Virginia’s high-security Red Onion state prison have intentionally burned themselves in a protest against harsh conditions at the facility.
A written statement from Virginia’s department of corrections acknowledged that men imprisoned there had harmed themselves, although the authorities confirmed six incidents while others reported that 12 men were injured.
Continue reading...A long-awaited Fifa report into the legacy of the Qatar World Cup has been published, but only after its key recommendation was rejected by the organisation.
Fifa’s subcommittee on human rights and social responsibility has found that the game’s world body “has a responsibility” to provide financial remedy to workers who suffered loss as a result of employment at the 2022 World Cup. Its report argues that Fifa should use its Qatar legacy fund for those workers. Two days before the report was published, however, Fifa announced that the $50m fund would be used on international development projects instead.
Continue reading...Draconian new laws allow mass incarceration of women and children forced to beg because of work ban
Destitute Afghan women arrested for begging under draconian new Taliban laws have spoken of “brutal” rapes and beatings in detention.
Over the past few months, many women said they had been targeted by Taliban officials and detained under anti-begging laws passed this year. While in prison, they claim they were subjected to sexual abuse, torture and forced labour, and witnessed children being beaten and abused.
Continue reading...Laila Soueif is to meet the foreign secretary, who in opposition called for the release of Alaa Abd el-Fattah
The British-born mother of an Egyptian political prisoner who has been on hunger strike for 58 days is preparing to meet the foreign secretary, David Lammy, to urge him to secure her son’s release.
Laila Soueif’s son Alaa Abd el-Fattah, a British and Egyptian dual citizen who wrote eloquently about the Arab spring and its aftermath, was jailed for five years for “spreading false news”. He was due to be released in September, but has not been freed.
Continue reading...Traditional allies such as Diane Abbott and John McDonnell are split over Friday’s vote as politicians grapple with the issue
During a Labour away day ahead of the last election, the party’s candidates were put through their paces as parliamentary debaters. The topic chosen, assisted dying, was a deliberately intractable issue designed to test their analytical skills. Yet just months later, scores of new MPs find themselves having to make a very real decision over changing the law.
“I’m genuinely the most back and forth on this that I’ve been on anything,” said one new MP who has found themselves on either side of the debate over recent months. Like so many, with the issues so finely balanced in their mind, a single conversation can sway their thinking.
Continue reading...Charges against Israeli prime minister and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant mark first time western-affiliated leaders have been targeted for war crimes
The international criminal court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders over the war in Gaza has been welcomed by Palestinians as a landmark moment in their decade-long fight to challenge the Israeli occupation through international institutions.
Thursday’s announcement from the international criminal court’s pretrial chamber of arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has sent shockwaves through the international legal system. As the first time that officials from a democratic, western-allied state have been charged with war crimes, it is widely seen as the most significant action taken by the court since it was set up at the turn of the century.
Continue reading...Al-Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud had been convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity
The international criminal court has sentenced an al-Qaida-linked extremist leader to 10 years in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out when he headed the Islamic police in Timbuktu in Mali, west Africa.
Al-Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud was convicted in June of torture, religious persecution and other inhumane acts. Judges found he was a “key figure” in a reign of terror after Islamic extremist rebels overran the ancient desert city in 2012.
Continue reading...Interim leader Muhammad Yunus confirms plans to put former PM on trial accused of crimes against humanity
Bangladesh will seek the extradition of the former prime minister Sheikh Hasina to face trial on charges including crimes against humanity, the country’s interim leader, Muhammad Yunus, has said in a speech.
Hasina, whose autocratic regime governed Bangladesh for 15 years, was toppled in a student-led revolution in August. Since then she has been living in exile in India after fleeing the country in a helicopter as thousands of protesters overran the presidential palace.
Continue reading...