Category Archives: Human rights

Families ask human rights court to free jailed Tunisian opposition leaders

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Daughters of Rached Ghannouchi and Said Ferjani demand justice amid continuing crackdown on dissent by President Saied


Families of detained Tunisian opposition politicians filed a case at the African court on human and peoples’ rights in Arusha, Tanzania, on Wednesday, accusing Tunisia of unlawfully arresting and detaining the leaders.

“On the evidence we are seeing so far, there is no proper basis for the charges,” said Rodney Dixon, a British lawyer handling the case. “They weren’t arrested lawfully with proper warrants, and the allegations haven’t been substantiated.”

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Millions of Syrian refugees face fight to reclaim homes, says human rights group

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Report by Syrian Network for Human Rights details laws giving Assad’s government powers to seize land

As many as 14 million Syrians face a near insurmountable barrier to returning to their homes after the government passed laws giving the state power to seize their land and property, according to a report by the Syrian Network for Human Rights.

The report, shared with the Guardian, urged the UN high commissioner for refugees to highlight the laws as one of the main obstacles to refugees returning home.

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Belarusian Nobel peace prize winner moved to brutal prison

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Ales Bialiatski has been in jail for 20 months following mass protests over regime of Alexander Lukashenko

The Nobel peace prize laureate Ales Bialiatski has been transferred to a notoriously brutal prison in Belarus and has not been heard from in a month, his wife has said.

Natalia Pinchuk said that Bialiatski, who is serving a 10-year sentence, has been kept in an information blackout since his transfer to the N9 colony for repeat offenders in the city of Gorki, where inmates are beaten and subjected to hard labour.

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Russian mercenaries behind slaughter of 500 in Mali village, UN report finds

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Report implicates Wagner group fighters in Moura atrocity, including the torture and rape of civilians

First came a single helicopter, flying low over the marshes around the river outside the village, then the rattle of automatic fire scattered the crowds gathered for the weekly market.

Next came more helicopters, dropping troops off around the homes and cattle pens. The soldiers moved swiftly, ordering men into the centre of the village, gunning down those trying to escape. When some armed militants fired back, the shooting intensified. Soon at least 20 civilians and a dozen alleged members of an al-Qaida affiliated Islamist group, were dead.

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Iran executes three men accused over anti-government protests

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Human rights groups condemn executions following demonstrations that swept country last year

Iran has executed three men it said were implicated in the deaths of three members of the security forces during anti-government protests, drawing condemnation from rights groups and the EU and risking further international isolation.

Saleh Mirhashemi, Majid Kazemi and Saeed Yaqoubi were killed on Friday morning, the Tasnim agency reported. Crowds had gathered outside the prison where they were being held on Thursday night as rumours of their imminent executions grew.

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Chinese activist sentenced to eight years on subversion charges

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Yang Maodong called it a ‘score-settling’ punishment for his two decades of rights advocacy

A Chinese court has sentenced a prominent rights activist to eight years in jail on subversion charges in what he said was a “score-settling” punishment for his two decades of rights advocacy.

Yang Maodong, who goes by the pen name Guo Feixiong, was sentenced on Thursday by the Guangzhou intermediate people’s court for “inciting subversion of state power,” his brother Yang Maoquan wrote on social media. Repeated phone calls to the court went unanswered on Friday.

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Son of jailed Hong Kong media tycoon condemns UK government ‘weakness’

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Sebastien Lai, son of Jimmy, also criticises Vatican over failure to hold China to account over human rights abuses

The British son of the jailed Hong Kong media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai has criticised Britain and the Vatican for failing to speak out strongly against the crackdown on dissent in the Chinese territory.

At a Washington event about the human rights situation in Hong Kong, Sebastien Lai said self-censorship in the former British colony was the anticipated result of the national security crackdown there, but the “hypocrisy” of some governments trying to trade with China was unexpected.

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Zimbabwe author Tsitsi Dangarembga has conviction for protest overturned

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Harare high court quashes suspended sentence and fine handed down to Booker-longlisted writer last year

Zimbabwean author and activist Tsitsi Dangarembga has had her conviction for inciting violence by staging a peaceful protest overturned.

The critically acclaimed writer was given a six-month suspended sentence and fined 70,000 Zimbabwean dollars (£170) in September 2022 for staging a protest calling for political reform. During the 2020 protest, alongside fellow activist Julie Barnes, Dangarembga held a placard inscribed: “We want better. Reform our institutions.”

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EU lawyers say plan to scan private messages for child abuse may be unlawful

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Under proposed ‘chat controls’ regulation, any encrypted service provider could be forced to screen for ‘identifiers’

An EU plan under which all WhatsApp, iMessage and Snapchat accounts could be screened for child abuse content has hit a significant obstacle after internal legal advice said it would probably be annulled by the courts for breaching users’ rights.

Under the proposed “chat controls” regulation, any encrypted service provider could be forced to survey billions of messages, videos and photos for “identifiers” of certain types of content where it was suspected a service was being used to disseminate harmful material.

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Iran hangs two men for blasphemy as executions rise amid unrest

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Deaths take number of prisoners executed to at least 203 since start of this year, says human rights group

Iran has hanged two men convicted of blasphemy, according to authorities, carrying out rare death sentences for the crime as the number of executions soars across the Islamic Republic after months of unrest.

The country remains one of the world’s top executioners, having put to death at least 203 prisoners so far this year, according to the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights. But executions for blasphemy remain rare, as in previous cases the sentences have been reduced by authorities.

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Anti-coronation protest leader hits out at police over arrests

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Graham Smith said Met officers should hang their heads in shame after 52 detained in central London

Police who arrested anti-monarchy protesters before King Charles III’s coronation have “destroyed whatever trust might have existed between peaceful protesters and the Metropolitan police,” the chief executive of the campaign group Republic has said.

After six members of the group were arrested at about 7.30am on Saturday – before their protest had begun – and had their placards seized, Graham Smith said officers “should hang their heads in shame” and that police had shown “no judgment, no common sense and no basic decency”.

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Campaign group teams with Hollywood to sharpen human rights focus

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Human Rights Watch follows lead of Pentagon, FBI and CIA to insert its messages into popular film and TV culture

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has decided to take on Hollywood to improve the visibility and awareness of humanitarian issues in popular culture.

As part of the move, the advocacy group has signed up with a talent agent firm, Activist Artists Management (AAM), to provide “scripted and unscripted content in film and television”, an HRW statement said.

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Grain trader Cargill faces legal challenge in US over Brazilian soya supply chain

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World’s biggest grain trader accused of ‘shoddy due diligence’ on deforestation and alleged rights violations

The world’s largest grain trader, Cargill, is facing a first-ever legal challenge in the United States over its failure to remove deforestation and human rights abuses from its soya supply chain in Brazil.

ClientEarth, an environmental law organisation, filed the formal complaint on Thursday, accusing Cargill of inadequate monitoring and a laggard response to the decline of the Amazon rainforest and other globally important biomes, such as the Cerrado savannah and the Atlantic Forest.

Soya beans bought from third-party traders, which make up 42% of all Brazilian soya Cargill purchases.

Soya beans owned by other companies that passes through Cargill ports.

Indirect land use change.

Soya sourced from the Cerrado savannah.

Soya sourced from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.

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Myanmar’s military rulers release more than 2,100 political prisoners

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The prisoners are to be released the most important Buddhist holy day of the year. However, deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi remains in jail

Myanmar’s ruling military council has said it is releasing more than 2,100 political prisoners as a humanitarian gesture.

Thousands more remain imprisoned on charges generally involving nonviolent protests or criticism of military rule, which began when the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.

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UN rights experts denounce planned Saudi executions of megacity opponents

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Three members of Huwaitat tribe face execution, reportedly for opposition to Neom project

UN rights experts have denounced the pending execution of three members of a Saudi tribe, reportedly in connection with their opposition to a planned Red Sea megacity.

Three members of the Huwaitat tribe, which inhabits the desert area in north-western Saudi Arabia where the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s $500bn (£400bn) futuristic megacity is under construction, face the “imminent risk of execution”, more than a dozen independent experts warned.

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Six Libyans face death penalty for converting to Christianity

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Religious laws are increasingly being used to silence civil society and human rights groups, say activists

Six Libyans are facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity and proselytising under laws increasingly being used to silence civil society and human rights organisations, say activists.

The women and men – some from Libya’s minority ethnic groups, including the Amazigh, or Berbers, in the west of the country – were separately detained in March by security forces.

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Uganda’s parliament passes mostly unchanged anti-LGBTQ bill

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Bill retains harshest measures of legislation adopted in March, including death penalty for certain same-sex acts

Uganda’s parliament has passed a mostly unchanged version of one of the world’s strictest anti-LGBTQ+ bills after President Yoweri Museveni asked that certain provisions from the original legislation be toned down.

Despite four amendments, the bill retains most of the harshest measures of the legislation adopted in March. Those include the death penalty for certain same-sex acts and a 20-year sentence for “promoting” homosexuality, which activists say could criminalise any advocacy for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer citizens.

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China ‘barring thousands of citizens and foreigners from leaving country’

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Analysis of Chinese court records shows eightfold increase in cases mentioning exit bans between 2016 and 2022

China is increasingly barring people, including foreign executives, from leaving the country, according to a report and research.

Scores of Chinese nationals and foreigners have been ensnared by exit bans, according to the report from the rights group Safeguard Defenders, while a Reuters analysis has found an apparent surge in court cases involving such bans in recent years.

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UK ‘should impose sanctions on human rights abusers in Sudan’ – report

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UK all-party group says failure to bring to justice Darfur abusers 20 years ago has led to current violence

The UK should impose sanctions on human rights abusers in senior Sudanese military positions as well as designate the Wagner group operating in Sudan as a terrorist group, a report from the all-party group on Sudan has urged.

The group, including the Conservative former Africa minister Vicky Ford, said on Wednesday the west has allowed impunity to become the norm, and the failure to bring to justice many of those responsible for the genocide in Darfur 20 years ago has allowed the same militia to regroup and form part of the forces now blocking democracy in the country.

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UK government funding anti-LGBTQ+ organisation in Uganda, says report

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The Inter-Religious Council of Uganda, which is openly homophobic, is a direct recipient of UK aid money

The UK government is helping to fund the work of a virulently homophobic religious organisation in Uganda, whose leaders have backed a proposed law that would make identifying as gay a criminal offence, a report has found.

Analysing official data given to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), the report by the Institute for Journalism and Social Change (IJSC) found a “staggering” number of connections between anti-LGBTQ+ organisations in Uganda and international aid donors, including the UK.

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