Family submit application to Strasbourg-based court in attempt to postpone withdrawal of life support
The parents of Archie Battersbee have submitted an application to the European court of human rights (ECHR) in an attempt to postpone the withdrawal of his life support.
Lawyers acting for Hollie Dance and Paul Battersbee, from Southend-on-Sea, Essex, had been given a deadline of 9am on Wednesday to submit the application.
Continue reading...Rights groups say they have a dossier of evidence against Gotabaya Rajapaksa – and a renewed appetite to bring him to account
It was a warm April day in 2019 and Gotabaya Rajapaksa was enjoying the afternoon with his family in an affluent suburb of Los Angeles. Rajapaksa, relaxed in his chinos and polo shirt as he strolled through the car park of the popular American supermarket Trader Joe’s, looked surprised when a woman sidled up and shoved a brown envelope into his hands. “You’ve been served,” said the private investigator before rushing away.
The charges inside that brown envelope, a civil suit alleging complicity in torture and killings, would not make it far in the courts. Seven months later Rajapaksa, a member of Sri Lanka’s most powerful political dynasty, would be elected president, and be granted immunity from prosecution.
Continue reading...Naomi Klein and Caroline Lucas among signatories to letter voicing concerns over country’s hosting of climate summit
A hundred days before the Cop27 summit is due to start in Sharm el-Sheikh, a group of environmentalists and activists have expressed alarm over Egypt’s ability to host the event successfully because of its poor record on human rights, as thousands of prisoners of conscience remain behind bars.
“We are deeply concerned that [a successful conference] will not be possible due to the repressive actions of the Egyptian government,” they said. “Indeed, it seems more likely at this point that the conference will be used to whitewash human rights abuses in the country.”
Continue reading...Killing of doorman in Andalucían town triggered rampage in which houses were burned and looted
Spanish Gypsy groups are calling for urgent action and protection after dozens of people were forced to abandon their homes in a small Andalucían town when a killing triggered a wave of racist violence.
In the early hours of Sunday 17 July, a 29-year-old pub doorman called Álvaro Soto was stabbed to death in Peal de Becerro after an argument with four members of the local Gypsy community. The alleged attackers were later arrested.
Continue reading...Human rights leaders report receiving emails from account purporting to be from Pavlou in recent days after campaigner’s arrest in London
Australian activist Drew Pavlou has said he was the victim of an “orchestrated campaign” before his arrest over a false “bomb threat” after it emerged that human rights leaders and politicians have been receiving emails from an account purporting to be him in recent days.
Pavlou was arrested after a “small peaceful human rights protest” outside the Chinese embassy in London, where he intended to glue his hand to the outside of the embassy building.
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Continue reading...Pavlou says the emailed threat was intended to frame him after he staged a peaceful protest carrying a Uyghur flag outside the embassy
Australian activist Drew Pavlou has been arrested in the UK over a false “bomb threat” delivered to the Chinese embassy in London that he claims came from a fake email address designed to frame him.
Pavlou said the “absurd” email claimed he would blow up the embassy over Beijing’s oppression of its Uyghur Muslim minority, but that it was confected by the embassy in order to have him arrested.
Continue reading...Four found guilty by a Nairobi court six years after murders of Willie Kimani, Josephat Mwenda and Joseph Muiruri prompted protests in Kenya
Three police officers in Kenya have been found guilty of murdering three men, including human rights lawyer Willie Kimani, six years after their bodies were found in a river.
Justice Jessie Lessit found police officers Fredrick Leliman, Stephen Cheburet and Sylvia Wanjiku as well as police informer Peter Ngugi guilty of murdering Kimani, his client Josephat Mwenda and taxi driver Joseph Muiruri on 23 June 2016.
Continue reading...Allegations include 160 killings of ex-government officials and security forces, torture and punishments
Taliban authorities have presided over widespread human rights abuses since they took control of Afghanistan last August, the UN said, including 160 killings of former government officials and members of the security forces, and dozens of cases of torture, arbitrary arrests and inhumane punishments.
A UN report, released on the day an Australian journalist said she had been detained in Kabul and forced to tweet a retraction of her reporting, also detailed a broad assault on the press. In total 173 media workers were affected by abuses including detention, threats, ill-treatment and assault.
Continue reading...Latest findings suggest Rwandan government has deployed surveillance campaign against relatives of Paul Rusesabagina
The mobile phone of a Belgian citizen who is the nephew of Paul Rusesabagina, a jailed critic of the Rwandan government made famous by his portrayal in Hotel Rwanda, was hacked nearly a dozen times in 2020 using Israeli-made surveillance technology, according to forensic experts at The Citizen Lab.
The findings follow earlier revelations by the Guardian and other media partners in the Pegasus Project, an investigation of Israel’s NSO Group, that Rusesabagina’s daughter, a dual American-Belgian national named Carine Kanimba, was under near-constant surveillance by a client of NSO Group from January to mid-2021, when the hacking attack was discovered by researchers at Amnesty International’s security lab.
Continue reading...Campaign launched to highlight plight of Maksym Butkevych amid fears he is being singled out over ties to UK
Family and friends of a prominent Ukrainian human rights activist who signed up to fight Russia and was captured have launched a public campaign to highlight his plight over fears he is being wrongly accused of being a “British spy” due to his ties to the UK.
Maksym Butkevych, 45, a former BBC Ukrainian service producer who studied at Sussex University and who sits on the board of Amnesty International’s Ukraine section, is well known as a human rights defender due to his work with refugees in Ukraine.
Continue reading...Offenders may be kept in prison after serving sentence, but wrongly made order ‘almost always amounts to arbitrary detention', rights group argues
A tool used by authorities to assess the risk posed by convicted terrorists before their release from prison is unreliable and should be investigated, the Australian Human Rights Commission and a peak body for Muslims have argued.
The Violent Extremism Risk Assessment 2 Revised, known as VERA-2R, is used to measure the threat posed by extremists, often when considering whether they will be subject to strict court orders once their prison sentence is completed.
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Continue reading...Kelvin Bilal Fawaz reveals how Farah’s TV interview was a reminder of how his own boxing career was lost to life in immigration limbo
A prodigious talent with the drive and ambition to make it all the way to the top, when Kelvin Bilal Fawaz got the chance to represent Team GB as a boxer at the 2012 Olympics in London it was a dream come true.
Trafficked as a child from Nigeria to the UK and forced into domestic servitude, Fawaz had the opportunity for Olympic glory in the place he now called home.
Continue reading...Latest updates: 1922 committee announce latest vote tally
Q: Lord Frost says Penny Mordaunt is not up to the job. You have worked with her. Do you agree with him?
Truss says she will not be making any disparaging comments about her opponents. The contest shows a broad range of talent. And the party did not get there through identity politics.
Continue reading...Campaigners say sentence amounts to torture amid fears that country’s new regime is rolling back women’s rights
A woman in Sudan has been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, the first known case in the country for almost a decade.
Maryam Alsyed Tiyrab, 20, was arrested by police in Sudan’s White Nile state last month.
Continue reading...Insurance firm redirected funding from club to Australian Human Rights Commission campaign after racism claims
A new campaign to tackle racism launched by the Australian Human Rights Commission was partly paid for by a sponsor who redirected funding from the AFL’s Collingwood football club after a report commissioned by the club found a culture of “structural racism”.
The AHRC said it hopes to tackle racism by appealing to those who have not experienced it.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Investigation by group of prominent human rights lawyers also criticises Syria and Iraq
Turkey should face charges in front of the international court of justice for being complicit in acts of genocide against the Yazidi people, while Syria and Iraq failed in their duty to prevent the killings, an investigation endorsed by British human rights lawyer Helena Kennedy has said.
The groundbreaking report, compiled by a group of prominent human rights lawyers, is seeking to highlight the binding responsibility states have to prevent genocide on their territories, even if they are carried out by a third party such as Islamic State (IS).
Continue reading...Family of Alaa Abd El Fattah join wife of Karim Ennarah, under travel ban, in demanding more action from foreign secretary
The family of a British national jailed in Egypt and the British wife of an Egyptian rights defender under a travel ban are demanding that Liz Truss do more to pressure her Egyptian counterpart when they meet this week.
The foreign secretary is expected to meet Egypt’s foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, in London after telling parliament in June that she would seek a meeting with him and raise the case of detained British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah. “We’re working very hard to secure his release,” she said.
Continue reading...Flight could take off within weeks and before court has ruled on whether scheme is lawful
The Home Office is planning a second flight to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, which could take off before the courts have ruled on whether the scheme is lawful, the Guardian has learned.
It is understood that a second flight could take off in a matter of weeks despite the fact that the full high court hearing to examine the government’s Rwanda plans does not begin until 19 July.
Continue reading...Human Rights Watch calls for donors to cut off funding to security forces and urges international court to investigate
Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip systematically torture critics in detention, a practice that could amount to crimes against humanity, an international rights group has said.
In its report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called for donor countries to cut off funding to Palestinian security forces that commit such crimes and urged the international criminal court to investigate.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Pether, who has been imprisoned for 14 months in Baghdad, has become ‘gravely ill’ according to his family
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has raised the case of jailed engineer Robert Pether with the Iraqi leader, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, as the Australian’s family warns he has become “gravely ill” and is rapidly deteriorating in his Baghdadi jail cell.
Pether has now been imprisoned for more than 14 months following a commercial dispute between his engineering firm and Iraq’s central bank, which had hired Pether’s company to help build its new Baghdad headquarters. Pether’s family say he is innocent and the trial was unfair and compromised.
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