Category Archives: Human rights

Israeli forces raid offices of six Palestinian human rights groups

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Property confiscated in move decried as ‘appalling attack’ on Palestinian civil society in occupied West Bank

Israeli forces have raided the offices of six Palestinian human rights groups in the occupied West Bank that it previously accused of being terrorist organisations, a move decried as an “appalling attack” on Palestinian civil society.

Property belonging to the prominent advocacy groups was confiscated and entrance doors sealed by soldiers in the early hours of Thursday.

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Saudi snitching app appears to have been used against jailed Leeds student

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‘Terrifying tool’ under scrutiny as Salma al-Shehab’s tweets suggest widely available phone app was used to report her

The Saudi woman who was sentenced to 34 years in prison for a tweet appears to have been denounced to Saudi authorities through a crime-reporting app that users in the kingdom can download to Apple and Android phones.

A review of Leeds PhD student Salma al-Shehab’s tweets and interactions shows she was messaged by a person using a Saudi account on 15 November, 2020 after she posted a mildly critical tweet in response to a Saudi government post about a new public transportation contract.

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Saudi woman given 34-year prison sentence for using Twitter

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Salma al-Shehab, a Leeds University student, was charged with following and retweeting dissidents and activists

A Saudi student at Leeds University who had returned home to the kingdom for a holiday has been sentenced to 34 years in prison for having a Twitter account and for following and retweeting dissidents and activists.

The sentencing by Saudi’s special terrorist court was handed down weeks after the US president Joe Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia, which human rights activists had warned could embolden the kingdom to escalate its crackdown on dissidents and other pro-democracy activists.

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Foreign Office official raised ‘stark’ criticisms of Rwanda plan, court hears

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Guardian, BBC and Times seek release of documents about policy of sending asylum seekers abroad

A Foreign Office official raised concerns about plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, citing state surveillance, arbitrary detention, torture and killings by the country’s government, the high court has heard.

The court has been asked to consider an application by the foreign secretary to keep parts of certain government documents secret for fear the contents could damage international relations and threaten national security.

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Australia’s indefinite detention of people with mental impairment breaches human rights, advocates say

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Experts argue system lacks proper monitoring and effectively ‘disappears’ people, sometimes for decades

Australia’s use of indefinite detention for people with cognitive impairments is a breach of human rights and the “outrageous” failure to implement a proper monitoring regime is rendering people with a disability invisible from public view, experts say.

More than 1,200 people with a mental impairment are being indefinitely detained in Australia despite not having been convicted of a criminal offence. Each state and territory uses a variety of orders to enforce indefinite detention, including in prisons and hospitals.

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Coalition used private contractor to collect intelligence on Nauru asylum seekers

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Exclusive: asylum seekers in the offshore detention centre who had contact with Australian journalists, lawyers and advocates were closely watched, documents reveal

The Australian government used private security contractors to collect intelligence on asylum seekers on Nauru, singling out those who were speaking to journalists, lawyers and refugee advocates, internal documents from 2016 reveal.

Intelligence officers working for Wilson Security compiled fortnightly reports about asylum seekers “of interest”, including individuals flagged as having “links with [Australian] media”, “contact with lawyers in Australia” or “contacts with Australian advocates”.

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Sri Lankan government accused of draconian treatment of protesters

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New president Ranil Wickremesinghe is attempting to crush mass protests that forced out predecessor

The Sri Lankan government has been accused of a draconian crackdown on protesters who were involved in toppling Gotabaya Rajapaksa as president, with activists facing intimidation, surveillance and arbitrary arrest.

Dozens of protesters have been detained by the police in recent days as the government, led by the newly appointed president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, tried to crush the mass protest movement that forced Rajapaksa to flee the country and resign in early July.

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Archie Battersbee: ruling on hospice move expected on Friday

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Lawyers had requested that 12-year-old be moved from Royal London hospital to spend his last moments in private

A ruling on whether 12-year-old Archie Battersbee can be moved from hospital to a hospice to die is expected at the high court on Friday morning.

Lawyers for the boy’s family took part in an hours-long legal hearing on Thursday, with the court in London sitting until late in the evening.

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Passenger kept from boarding after Jetstar’s refusal to assist with wheelchair makes discrimination complaint

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Exclusive: Complaint lodged with human rights commission after man turned away at gate of Sydney airport flight

A passenger with a disability has lodged a discrimination complaint after he was turned away at the gate when trying to board a Jetstar flight in Sydney.

Tony Jones, who suffered a spinal cord injury after falling off a balcony at the age of 18 and has since relied on a wheelchair, said he had contacted the airline to organise assistance in advance of his flight to Ballina in May last year.

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Commonwealth Games must do more for LGBT rights, says former swimmer

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Michael Gunning calls for event to push for change after a ‘petrifying’ visit to his home country, Jamaica

The former Team GB swimmer Michael Gunning has called on the Commonwealth Games to do more to help improve LGBTQ+ rights in member countries as he talked of his “petrifying” experience visiting his home country, Jamaica, for the first time since he came out as gay.

Gunning, who retired from swimming earlier this year to help promote equality in sport, said the event could do more on the global stage to push the issue.

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Archie Battersbee’s parents take case to European court of human rights

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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.

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‘A moment of opportunity’: fall of Sri Lankan president raises victims’ hopes

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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.

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Fears that Egypt may use Cop27 to whitewash human rights abuses

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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.”

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Spanish Gypsy groups call for protection after families flee racist mob

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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.

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Drew Pavlou says he is victim of ‘orchestrated campaign’ after arrest over false ‘bomb threat’

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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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Australian activist Drew Pavlou arrested in London but denies sending Chinese embassy bomb threat

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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.

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Kenyan police officers found guilty of murder of three including human rights lawyer

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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.

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Taliban presiding over extensive rights abuses in Afghanistan, says UN

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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.

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Nephew of jailed Hotel Rwanda dissident hacked by NSO spyware

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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.

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Family of captured Ukrainian human rights activist plead for help

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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.

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