Category Archives: Human rights

Peacekeepers needed to end ‘harrowing’ abuses in Sudan, say UN experts

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Government and paramilitary forces responsible for rape, violence and torture, according to civilian interviews

Peacekeepers should be deployed to Sudan immediately and an existing international arms embargo should be expanded to protect civilians from “harrowing” rights abuses committed by the warring parties in the country’s civil war, UN experts said on Friday.

Sudan’s army (SAF) and its rival, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces [RSF], have raped and attacked civilians, used torture and made arbitrary arrests, according to a UN-mandated fact-finding mission based on 182 interviews with survivors, relatives and witnesses. The violations “may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity”, its report said.

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Algeria election to take place amid ‘steady erosion of human rights’

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Abdelmadjid Tebboune set for second term as president after changed poll date is expected to favour him

Algeria goes to the polls on Saturday in a presidential election being held in the context of what rights groups have called “a steady erosion of human rights” under the president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who is expected to win a second five-year term.

As many as 24 million people are eligible to vote in the north African country in a process moved forward by three months.

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Starmer rejects Badenoch’s claim Labour is ‘clueless’ and urges Tories to apologise for the ‘mess they made’ – as it happened

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PM says he will not take lectures from previous government as Kemi Badenoch launches Tory leadership campaign

Kemi Badenoch is speaking now. She says she wants to talk about the future.

She was born in the UK, but “grew up under socialism”, she says (referring to her childhood in Nigeria).

Labour have no ideas. At best, they are announcing things we have already done, and at their worst, they are clueless, irresponsible and dishonest.

They are trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public about the state of Britain’s finances, placing political donors into civil service jobs, pretending that they have no plans to cut pensioner benefits before the election and then doing exactly that to cover the cost of pay rises for the unions with no promise of reform, But their model of spend, spend, spend is broken, and they don’t know what to do, and this will only lead to even more cynicism in politics.

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Afghan women sing in defiance of Taliban laws silencing their voices

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Women push back at law stating they must not sing or read aloud in public by posting videos of themselves singing

Afghan women, both inside and outside the country, have posted videos of themselves singing in protest against the Taliban’s laws banning women’s voices in public.

Late last month the Taliban published new restrictions aimed, it said, at combating vice and promoting virtue. The 35-article document, which includes a raft of draconian laws, deems women’s voices to be potential instruments of vice and stipulates that women must not sing or read aloud in public, nor let their voices carry beyond the walls of their homes.

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Funeral of refugee activist Viraj Mendis to draw mourners from all over Europe

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Mendis, who stayed in Manchester church for two years in 1980s to fight deportation, has died aged 68 in Germany

Refugees and human rights activists are making their way to Bremen in north-west Germany for the funeral of a man who fought for freedom and safety for asylum seekers.

Viraj Mendis came to prominence after seeking sanctuary in a Manchester church where he spent two years in the 1980s. He died aged 68 on 16 August in Bremen, which offered him sanctuary after he was deported from the UK.

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South Korea’s climate law violates rights of future generations, court rules

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Absence of legally binding targets for greenhouse gas reductions from 2031-49 deemed unconstitutional

South Korea’s constitutional court has ruled that part of the country’s climate law does not conform with protecting the constitutional rights of future generations, an outcome local activists are calling a “landmark decision”.

The unanimous verdict concludes four years of legal battles and sets a significant precedent for future climate-related legal actions in the region.

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‘Frightening’ Taliban law bans women from speaking in public

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New vice and virtue restrictions offer ‘a distressing vision of Afghanistan’s future’, says UN

New Taliban laws that prohibit women from speaking or showing their faces outside their homes have been condemned by the UN and met with horror by human rights groups.

The Taliban published a host of new “vice and virtue” laws last week, approved by their supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, which state that women must completely veil their bodies – including their faces – in thick clothing at all times in public to avoid leading men into temptation and vice.

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Fears grow for women’s rights activists jailed in Iran after 87 executions in one month

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Prisoners including Nobel prize winner Narges Mohammadi were reportedly beaten for protesting against a recent execution

There are fears for the fates of women’s rights activists imprisoned in Iran after a surge in executions since the election of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, in July.

At least 87 people were reportedly executed in July, with another 29 executed on one day this month. The mass executions included Reza Rasaei, a young man sentenced to death for his participation in the Woman, Life, Freedom protests.

Human rights organisations fear further executions in the lead-up the second anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death in custody and the unprecedented nationwide protests that followed. Amini, who was 22, had been arrested for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code before she died in September 2022.

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Australia and Indonesia to deepen military ties after striking ‘historic’ security pact

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Anthony Albanese and Prabowo Subianto announce conclusion of treaty negotiations but reporters weren’t able to ask questions about new deal

Australia and Indonesia have struck a new security pact that will lead to more joint military exercises and visits, prompting human rights advocates to call for safeguards.

The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, told the Indonesian defence minister and president-elect, Prabowo Subianto, in Canberra on Tuesday that there was “no more important relationship than the one between our two great nations”.

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Global health charities warn of ‘huge and terrible’ threat to abortion rights if Trump returns

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‘Global gag rule’ and funding cuts will be ‘on different scale’ if Republicans win again, family-planning providers say

Providers of women’s healthcare around the world are preparing for potentially disastrous consequences should Donald Trump win the US presidential election in November.

Policies pursued during Trump’s last presidency caused “devastating” harm in a number of countries, said Beth Schlachter, a senior director at MSI Reproductive Choices in the US. It meant “clinics shuttered, health teams closed, women dying … but a second Trump term will be on a different scale”.

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‘Enforced disappearances’ send a chill through Kenya’s protests

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Dozens are reported as having gone missing since demonstrations began, and some have turned up dead

One mid-morning in June, Emmanuel Kamau prepared to leave his home for work as a bus conductor in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

It was the second week of nationwide protests against proposed tax increases, and demonstrations were expected to disrupt the transport network. But as a casual worker who got jobs on an irregular basis, the 24-year-old decided to take a chance to try to earn some money to put food on the table.

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Iranian woman reportedly paralysed in shooting over alleged hijab law violation

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Arezoo Badri was shot as police attempted to pull her over in the northern city of Noor

A woman is reported to have been left paralysed after being shot by Iranian police who were attempting to stop her car over alleged violations of Iran’s draconian hijab laws.

According to human rights groups and sources inside Iran, Arezoo Badri was driving home in the northern city of Noor on 22 July when the police attempted to pull her over after her car was identified as being on an impoundment list.

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‘Fierce repression’ of Venezuela election protests must end, UN rights team says

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Human rights investigators say ‘escalating’ crackdown has seen 23 deaths and over 100 children and teens detained

United Nations human rights investigators have urged Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, to halt the “fierce repression” being perpetrated by his security forces after last month’s allegedly stolen presidential election.

In a statement published two weeks after the 28 July vote, the UN’s fact-finding mission to Venezuela condemned Maduro’s “escalating” crackdown, during which more than 100 children and teens have been detained. The UN investigators said they had recorded 23 deaths, the vast majority caused by gunfire and nearly all young men.

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Bangladeshi journalists hopeful of press freedom as Hasina era ends

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Reporters cautiously optimistic as interim government takes over after years of intimidation and censorship

Bangladeshi journalists are hoping the resignation of the prime minister Sheikh Hasina will bring an era of censorship and fear to an end, as they prepare to hold a new interim government to account.

Arrests, abuse and forced disappearances at the hands of Bangladesh’s security forces have loomed over journalists for most of Hasina’s 15-year rule, preventing them from routine reporting for fear of writing anything that could be perceived as embarrassing for the government.

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Israel minister condemned for saying starvation of millions in Gaza might be ‘justified and moral’

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EU, UK and France urge Israel’s government to distance itself from comments by its finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich

The EU, France and UK have condemned a senior Israeli minister for suggesting it might be “justified and moral” to starve people in Gaza.

The comments from Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, in which he said “no one in the world will allow us to starve two million people, even though it might be justified and moral in order to free the hostages”, sparked international outrage.

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Palestinian prisoners describe systemic abuse in Israel’s jails

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Guardian interviews back up report by rights group B’Tselem, which says jails should now be labelled ‘torture camps’

Violence, extreme hunger, humiliation and other abuse of Palestinian prisoners has been normalised across Israel’s jail system, according to Guardian interviews with released prisoners, with mistreatment now so systemic that rights group B’Tselem says it must be considered a policy of “institutionalised abuse”.

Former detainees described abuse ranging from severe beatings and sexual violence to starvation rations, refusal of medical care, and deprivation of basic needs including water, daylight, electricity and sanitation, including soap and sanitary pads for women.

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UN calls for foreign security forces to be deployed faster to quash Haiti gang wars

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Armed gangs control much of Caribbean country’s capital with reports of 40 rape victims a day in areas, UN reports

The UN has called for the deployment of international security forces in Haiti to be accelerated after a report that at least 1,379 people were killed or wounded in gang warfare and 428 people kidnapped in the country between April and June this year.

“Service providers report receiving an average of 40 rape victims a day in some areas of the capital,” warns the new report from the UN’s office in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.

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Guinea court finds former dictator guilty in stadium massacre trial

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Moussa Dadis Camara convicted of crimes against humanity after ordering 2009 crackdown on unarmed protesters

A court in Guinea has found the former dictator Moussa Dadis Camara and seven other military commanders guilty of crimes against humanity in a long-awaited verdict relating to a notorious massacre and mass rape that took place in 2009.

In a ruling in the capital, Conakry, the initial charges, including murder, rape and kidnapping, were recategorised as crimes against humanity. Afterward, Camara and his former police chief Moussa Tiegboro Camara were given 20-year prison sentences for ordering a crackdown on thousands of unarmed protesters, who were aggrieved that he had decided to stand in the presidential election the following year.

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Somalia arrests another journalist as press clampdown intensifies

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Detention of reporters for covering sensitive news is having a ‘chilling’ effect on free media in Somalia, say rights groups

The arrest of a journalist for reporting on drug use in the Somali military is the latest incident in an apparent clampdown on critical reporting in the country, which is having a “chilling” effect on Somalia’s media, rights campaigners said.

AliNur Salaad was detained last week and accused of “immorality, false reporting and insulting the armed forces”, after publishing a now-deleted video suggesting that soldiers were vulnerable to attacks by al-Shabaab militants because of widespread use of the traditional narcotic khat.

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IDF charges reservist with aggravated abuse of Palestinian prisoners

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Indictment comes as nine other soldiers appear in Israeli military court over allegations of sexual abuse of detainee

Israel’s military has charged a reservist with aggravated abuse of Palestinian prisoners, a spokesperson said on Tuesday, as nine other soldiers appeared in military court for an initial hearing over allegations they had sexually abused a detainee from Gaza.

The new indictment alleges that the unnamed soldier, assigned to escort handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinians, used a baton and his assault rifle to attack prisoners on multiple occasions.

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