Category Archives: Human rights

Hong Kong: first person charged under new security law

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Tong Ying-kit, 23, charged with terrorism and inciting secession for allegedly driving motorbike into group of police last week

China has begun putting its new Hong Kong security law into action, as a 23-year-old man became the first person on Monday to be charged under the legislation and authorities announced a purge of literature from libraries and schools.

The law, imposed last week following anti-government protests in Hong Kong last year, classes as illegal all activities the government deems to be secessionist, subversive, or terrorist, as well as foreign intervention in the city’s internal affairs.

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‘Magnitsky sanctions’: who are those being targeted by UK?

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Forty-nine individuals and organisations from four nations are accused of rights abuses

The UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has announced sanctions against 49 individuals and organisations accused of human rights abuses from four different countries.

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Hong Kong journalists and lawyers scramble to adapt to security law

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Protective measures taken and social media erased as both question how they can operate

Journalists and lawyers in Hong Kong are scrambling to adapt as Chinese authorities set up the apparatus to enforce a controversial national security law, including appointing a hardline party official to head a new security agency.

Zheng Yanxiong, who is best known for tackling protests on the mainland, is to run the office established under the law that empowers mainland security agents to operate in Hong Kong openly and unbound for the first time.

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New UK law could challenge China over Hong Kong, but will it go far enough?

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Legislation will allow Foreign Office to confront countries over human rights, but who it will target remains to be seen

New UK human rights sanctions legislation set to be published in the next few weeks is being touted as a possible tool with which to confront Chinese officials over Hong Kong, but questions loom about whether the law’s range and impact can meet such high expectations.

The difficulties inherent in drafting watertight sanctions is reflected in the long delay prior to its publication. An act giving the government the right to introduce what is known as Magnitsky-style laws against human rights offenders was passed in May 2018, but since then Foreign Office lawyers have been working on the detailed secondary parliamentary legislation known as a statutory instrument (SI).

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‘War on drugs’ blamed for deaths of at least 122 children in Philippines

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Activists claim young people are deliberately targeted and call for UN to investigate human rights record of Duterte regime

At least 122 children, including a one-year-old, have been killed during President Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs” in the Philippines, according to a report that concluded some children have been deliberately shot at and targeted as proxies.

The study, by the World Organisation Against Torture, adds to growing calls for the UN human rights council to establish an independent investigation into abuses committed under Duterte. Rights groups estimate that tens of thousands of people may have died as a result of unlawful killings during anti-drug operations launched after his election in 2016.

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‘We want to stay’: refugees struggle to integrate in Greece after camp life

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Asylum seekers discharged from island holding centres are given little support to find accommodation and work

It never occurred to Sarah Husseini that one day she might think of Moria camp with something approaching affection. The 22-year-old Afghan spent two years in the infamous holding facility on Lesbos and, throughout, her young daughters were “sick, sick, sick”.

But then she, her husband Ali and their two toddlers were instructed to board a ferry to Piraeus and their world changed. “The UN told us ‘the government wants you to leave, you have papers now, you can’t stay here any more’,” she says, explaining why she has ended up semi-destitute in central Athens.

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‘It would spread quickly in those cells’: Covid-19 imperils packed Egypt prison

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Families of prisoners at notorious Tora complex concerned publicised efforts to contain virus are purely cosmetic

Fears are mounting over the safety of prisoners in Egypt’s notorious Tora prison, as rights groups say parts of the complex have been cordoned off to quarantine those diagnosed with coronavirus.

Families of those held inside the huge compound south of Cairo, which houses at least eight individual prisons, including two maximum security wings, say the authorities’ attempts to combat the spread of Covid-19 inside Tora are at best cosmetic. “Things have been erratic since they banned visits in March,” said Mona Seif, whose brother, the activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, has been detained in at the prison since September.

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Coronavirus mass surveillance could be here to stay, experts say

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Use of invasive digital and physical tracking measures soars as the pandemic spreads

Extensive surveillance measures introduced around the world during the coronavirus outbreak have widened and become entrenched, digital rights experts have said, three months after the World Health Organization declared a pandemic.

The measures have often been billed as temporary necessities rushed into place to help track infections, but governments have been accused of denting civil rights with the widespread use of techniques such as phone monitoring, contact tracing apps, and physical surveillance such as CCTV with facial recognition.

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Seven Papuan activists convicted of treason after anti-racism protests

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‘Balikpapan Seven’ accused of promoting West Papua independence movement at Indonesia rallies

Seven Papuan activists have been found guilty of treason and sentenced to up to 11 months in prison for their involvement in anti-racism rallies in West Papua last year, a verdict that has been condemned by human rights groups.

The men, known as the “Balikpapan Seven”, were convicted over protests that were sparked last summer by a viral video in which Papuan students were called “monkeys” and subjected to other racist taunts. Thousands of people took part in the rallies, some of which turned violent.

Prior to Wednesday’s hearing, protests calling for the treason charges to be dropped took place in cities across Indonesia, where the Black Lives Matter movement has prompted greater discussion of injustices facing West Papuans.

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Family of Giulio Regeni ‘betrayed’ by Italian PM over arms sale to Egypt

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Murdered student’s mother and rights groups condemn $1.2bn deal approved by Giuseppe Conte

Rights groups and the family of the murdered Italian student Giulio Regeni have heavily criticised an arms deal between Italy and Egypt worth an estimated $1.2bn (£960m).

Regeni’s mutilated body was found by the side of a major road on the outskirts of Cairo in early 2016. His murder remains unsolved, but there are widespread suspicions that he was abducted, tortured and killed by Egyptian security forces.

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EU ‘covered up’ Croatia’s failure to protect migrants from border brutality

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Exclusive: Brussels officials feared disclosing Zagreb’s lack of commitment to monitoring would cause ‘scandal’

EU officials have been accused of an “outrageous cover-up” after withholding evidence of a failure by Croatia’s government to supervise police repeatedly accused of robbing, abusing and humiliating migrants at its borders.

Internal European commission emails seen by the Guardian reveal officials in Brussels had been fearful of a backlash when deciding against full disclosure of Croatia’s lack of commitment to a monitoring mechanism that ministers had previously agreed to fund with EU money.

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Julian Assange indictment fails to mention WikiLeaks video that exposed US ‘war crimes’ in Iraq

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‘Shameful’ Collateral Murder footage shows Apache helicopter mowing down 11 civilians – including two Reuters journalists – in Baghdad

US prosecutors have failed to include one of WikiLeaks’ most shocking video revelations in the indictment against Julian Assange, a move that has brought accusations the US doesn’t want its “war crimes” exposed in public.

Assange, an Australian citizen, is remanded and in ill health in London’s Belmarsh prison while the US tries to extradite him to face 18 charges – 17 under its Espionage Act – for conspiracy to receive, obtain and disclose classified information.

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UN chief expresses shock at discovery of mass graves in Libya

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Fears grow of further atrocities in areas controlled by Khalifa Haftar forces

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has expressed deep shock at the discovery of mass graves in Libyan territory recently recaptured from forces commanded by Khalifa Haftar, and called for a transparent investigation.

Guterres also called on Libya’s UN-backed government to secure the mass graves, identify the victims, establish the causes of death and return the bodies to the next of kin. He offered UN support in carrying out the measures, his spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said.

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Zoom admits cutting off activists’ accounts in obedience to China

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Meetings on Tiananmen Square massacre and Hong Kong crisis were taken down because Communist government complained

Zoom has admitted it suspended the accounts of human rights activists at the behest of the Chinese government and suggested it will block any further meetings that Beijing complains are illegal.

On Thursday the video conferencing platform was accused of disrupting or shutting down the accounts of three activists who held online events relating to the Tiananmen Square massacre anniversary or discussing the crisis in Hong Kong. None were given an explanation by Zoom.

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Shamima Begum’s UK citizenship should be restored, court told

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Woman who fled as schoolgirl to join Isis cannot fight fair appeal from Syria, lawyers say

Shamima Begum, the woman who left Britain as a schoolgirl to join Islamic State, cannot effectively challenge the government’s decision to deprive her of British citizenship while she is in a detention camp in northern Syria, the court of appeal has been told.

At the start of a two-day online hearing, her lawyers challenged a ruling by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) this year that she has not been rendered stateless because she is entitled to Bangladeshi citizenship.

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Global protests throw spotlight on alleged police abuses in West Papua

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The Black Lives Matter actions have given renewed impetus to the campaign against injustices in the Indonesian province

Student Eden Armando Bebari, 19, was allegedly shot and killed by Indonesian security forces while fishing in his home town in West Papua in April.

Indonesian media described Bebari as a member of an armed criminal group, a claim denied by his parents. Many residents in Papua, the eastern-most province of Indonesia, now fish and tend crops to ease food shortages brought about by coronavirus lockdowns.

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Notorious Sudanese militia chief in Darfur conflict arrested in CAR

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Ali Kushayb, wanted for human rights abuses and war crimes, faces trial in The Hague

One of the most notorious Sudanese militia leaders in the brutal conflict in Darfur has been arrested in the Central African Republic and handed over to the International criminal court.

Ali Kushayb, who had been on the run for 13 years, surrendered to authorities in a remote corner of northern CAR near the country’s border with Sudan, said a spokesman for the ICC.

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‘What does the UN stand for?’: anger follows memo on anti-racism protests

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Secretary general has clarified staff are ‘not banned’ from demonstrations after previous guidance warned support for action on George Floyd killing risked reputational damage

The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, sought to defuse a row over guidance to staff suggesting they should not participate in protests triggered by the police killing of George Floyd. He clarified that staff were “not banned” from joining anti-racism demonstrations, as long as it was in an “entirely private capacity”.

In a letter to staff that followed public pushback from the UN’s own special rapporteur on freedom of assembly, Guterres insisted that a memo from its ethics board did not mean that staff were required to “remain neutral or impartial in the face of racism”.

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Afghan car blaze deaths prompt fury over mistreatment of refugees in Iran

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Protest comes amid investigation into death by drowning of dozens of Afghans who crossed Iranian border illegally

The deaths of three Afghan refugees in a car blaze in Iran have prompted an outpouring of anger in Afghanistan, after reports that the vehicle caught fire after it was shot at by Iranian police.

Tens of thousands of Afghans have protested on social media against the mistreatment of the refugees. Dozens more have protested on the streets in Kabul and in eastern Nangarhar province, with more demonstrations planned for major cities like London, Washington DC and Toronto in mid-June. 

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Jailed Australian democracy activist has ‘disappeared’ inside Vietnam’s prison system

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Chau Van Kham’s family has lost contact with him for nearly four months and fear the Australian government has ‘forgotten about him’

A 70-year-old Australian democracy activist has “disappeared” inside Vietnam’s prison system: no one from his family or the Australian government has been allowed to see or speak with him for nearly four months. 

Human rights advocates, lawyers and Chau Van Kham’s family said the charges against him are baseless and politically motivated, his single-day multiple-defendant trial was grossly unfair, and his failing health means his 12-year prison sentence is “effectively a death sentence”.

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