Category Archives: Human rights

‘Let the boats in’: Rohingya refugees plead for stranded relatives to be saved

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Two boats still stranded at sea as Malaysia accused of using Covid-19 as an excuse to turn them back

Rohingya refugees whose relatives, including children, have been stranded for weeks on cramped boats have urged international governments to act before they perish at sea.

Two boats carrying around 500 people were last spotted off Bangladesh about a week ago, but are believed to have returned to the high seas. The refugees on board, who were fleeing desperate conditions in camps in Bangladesh, had attempted to reach Malaysia but appear to have been turned away. Bangladesh has also said it will not allow the boats to dock.

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Fears for Nigerian humanist held for blasphemy in sharia state

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Mubarak Bala, head of humanist association, taken to Kano after Facebook posts criticising Islam

A prominent Nigerian humanist accused of blasphemy has been arrested and taken to the northern city of Kano, according to figures close to him.

Mubarak Bala, the president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, was taken from his home on 28 April in neighbouring Kaduna state and taken to Kano, where a warrant for his arrest was issued, Leo Igwe, a fellow Nigerian humanist and human rights advocate, said.

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UK increases arms sales to repressive regimes

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Campaigners condemn government and defence exporters accused of selling weapons to states with poor human rights records

UK arms sales to repressive regimes increased by £1bn last year compared with 2018.

The increase, of more than 300%, has been condemned by arms control campaigners, who accuse the government of putting profits before human rights.

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Leading Saudi activist dies in detention, say campaigners

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Reported death of Abdullah al-Hamid puts spotlight back on kingdom’s human rights record

A leading activist serving an 11-year prison sentence has died in detention in Saudi Arabia, campaigners have said, highlighting the kingdom’s human rights record.

Abdullah al-Hamid, 69, died after a stroke in his prison cell earlier this month, according to multiple rights groups, including Amnesty International.

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Coronavirus pandemic is becoming a human rights crisis, UN warns

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Report released on authoritarian responses, surveillance, closed borders and other rights abuses

The coronavirus pandemic must not be used as a pretext for authoritarian states to trample over individual human rights, or repress the free flow of information, the UN secretary general António Guterres warned today in a fresh attempt to bring the UN’s influence to bear on the crisis. He said what had started as a public health emergency was rapidly turning into a human rights crisis.

Government responses to the crisis have been regarded as disproportionate in countries including China, India, Hungary, Turkey and South Africa.

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Court hearings via video ‘risk unfairness for disabled people’

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UK equalities watchdog warns move amid virus to focus on online sessions could hamper rapport and access to justice

Remote video trials could disadvantage people with learning disabilities, the equalities watchdog has warned, as courts switch to online hearings during the coronavirus crisis.

An interim report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has highlighed concerns about the impact of conducting cases without defendants being present in court.

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US urges China to let human rights lawyer return home after ‘unjust detention’

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Wang Quanzhang has been barred from reuniting with his family after serving nearly five years in prison for ‘subversion’

The US has called for Chinese authorities to allow a prominent human rights lawyer to return home, after having spent almost five years in “unjust detention”.

Wang Quanzhang was released two weeks ago after serving four-and-a-half years for “subversion”, but has been barred from reuniting with his family.

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China ‘bars lawyer from going home’ after prison release

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Wang Quanzhang’s wife fears Covid-19 may be used as pretext to keep him under house arrest

A prominent Chinese human rights lawyer barred from returning home after his prison release two weeks ago has been prohibited from reuniting with his family after a 14-day quarantine period.

Wang Quanzhang’s wife and rights groups fear authorities are using the coronavirus pandemic as a pretext to hold him indefinitely under de facto house arrest.

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Outspoken Saudi princess reveals that she is in prison

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Princess Basmah, a human rights advocate, demands that her uncle the king frees her

A senior Saudi royal and granddaughter of the country’s founding monarch has revealed she is being held in prison and demanded that the current ruler and her cousin, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, release her and provide medical care.

Princess Basmah bint Saud bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, an outspoken human rights advocate, claims she is being detained without charge in Riyadh with one of her daughters. She says neither have received explanations for their arrests, despite repeated pleas to the kingdom’s royal court, and to her uncle King Salman.

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Tanzania to ease education ban on pregnant girls – but not in classrooms

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Official announcement greeted with cautious optimism but World Bank comes under fire over $500m education loan

Tanzania has pledged to improve access to education for pregnant girls after receiving a controversial $500m (£402m) World Bank loan, but has stopped short of readmitting them to mainstream classrooms.

The World Bank has been accused of undermining human rights and has faced criticism from local and international civil society groups over the Tanzania secondary education quality improvement programme loan. Campaigners say approval should not have been given without first securing a commitment from the government to reverse its discrimination towards pregnant girls and end compulsory pregnancy tests.

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Roma suffer under EU’s ‘environmental racism’, report concludes

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Thousands live in squalor due to policies of exclusion and deprivation, says study

Europe’s Roma communities are often living on polluted wastelands and lacking running water or sanitation in their homes as a result of “environmental racism”, a report has concluded.

The European Environmental Bureau (EEB), a pan-European network of green NGOs, found Roma communities were often excluded from basic services, such as piped drinking water, sanitation and rubbish collection, while frequently living at or near some of the dirtiest sites in Europe, such as landfills or contaminated industrial land.

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Teargas, beatings and bleach: the most extreme Covid-19 lockdown controls around the world

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Violence and humiliation used to police coronavirus curfews around globe, often affecting the poorest and more vulnerable

As coronavirus lockdowns have been expanded globally, billions of people have found that they are now faced with unprecedented restrictions. Police across the world have been given licence to control behaviour in a way that would normally be extreme even for an authoritarian state.

Related: ‘We can’t go back to normal’: how will coronavirus change the world?

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Exiled Pakistani journalist goes missing in Sweden

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Sajid Hussain, who wrote about rights abuses in Balochistan, had been granted Swedish asylum

A prominent Pakistani journalist who fled the country after receiving death threats has gone missing in Sweden where he had been granted political asylum.

Sajid Hussain, 39, went into self-imposed exile in 2012 after his reporting on forced disappearances and human rights abuses in the turbulent region of Balochistan had led to death threats. He had continued to run an online newspaper, the Balochistan Times, from abroad covering the same topics.

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We Ugandans are used to lockdowns and poor healthcare. But we’re terrified

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Coronavirus has given President Yoweri Museveni an opportunity to further clamp down on freedoms

In Uganda, for the first time since 2013, more than three people can legally meet without needing to inform the police. Last week, parts of the Public Order Management Act, a law used to gag political opponents, was declared unconstitutional. But most Ugandans are staying away from crowds and keeping at home to control the spread of coronavirus.

The government moved quickly to close schools and universities. Measures became more and more stringent – closing borders, compulsory quarantine, banning public transport and the sale of non-food items at open markets.

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Former child bride wrongfully accused of murdering husband sues in Pakistan

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Rani Bibi was 14 when she was convicted but received no compensation for the miscarriages of justice that led to her spending two decades in prison

A child bride who spent 19 years in prison for a murder she did not commit is to sue the Pakistan authorities in an effort to persuade the country to help thousands of other victims of miscarriages of justice.

Rani Bibi was just 14 when she was convicted, alongside her father, brother and cousin, of the murder of her husband and spent the next two decades sweeping the floors of an overcrowded Pakistan prison.

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Covid-19 lockdown turns Qatar’s largest migrant camp into ‘virtual prison’

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Thousands of labourers trapped in squalid, over-crowded conditions as huge area of Doha Industrial Area sealed off by police

Qatar’s largest labour camp for migrant workers has become a virtual prison and is in total lockdown after hundreds of construction workers became infected with Covid-19.

Police are guarding the perimeter of a huge zone within the “Industrial Area”, leaving thousands of workers trapped in squalid, over-crowded camps, where the virus can spread rapidly. No one can enter or leave, say workers who live in the area, many of whom had been working on Fifa World Cup 2022 infrastructure projects.

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Bill sets five-year limit to prosecute UK armed forces who served abroad

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Legislation to stop ‘vexatious’ claims excludes alleged crimes by military personnel in Northern Ireland

A five-year time limit on bringing prosecutions against soldiers and veterans who have served abroad – except in “exceptional circumstances” – is to be imposed under legislation introduced by the government.

Clauses in the overseas operations (service personnel and veterans) bill would protect serving and former military personnel from what the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, claimed was a “vexatious” cycle of claims and re-investigations.

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Delhi’s Muslims despair of justice after police implicated in riots

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Allegations mount that police in Indian capital incited and aided recent mob violence and failed to help Muslim victims

On one side of the marketplace, it was carnage. As the Hindu mob descended, Muslim-owned stalls selling car parts were slowly reduced to debris and ashes. But just 100 metres away stood two police stations.

As the mob attacks came once, then twice and then a third time in this north-east Delhi neighbourhood, desperate stallholders repeatedly ran to Gokalpuri and Dayalpur police stations crying out for help. But each time they found the gates locked from the inside. For three days, no help came.

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List of world’s worst ‘digital predators’ stretches from India and Brazil to US

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Freedom of expression group names and shames alleged offenders on online censorship and orchestrated repression

A freedom of expression group has launched a list of “digital predators”, ranking what it says are 20 of the world’s worst offenders for cyber-censorship and orchestrated online repression.

Published on Thursday by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) to coincide with World Day Against Cyber-Censorship, the list names and shames entities around the globe whose activities it regards as “tantamount to preying on journalism”.

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Kylie Moore-Gilbert: jailed British-Australian not among 70,000 prisoners freed in Iran as coronavirus spreads

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Political prisoners, including the University of Melbourne academic, have overwhelmingly been excluded from furloughing

Iran has temporarily freed 70,000 prisoners from jails around the country out of fear coronavirus could spread through prisons unchecked, but British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert has not been released.

Political prisoners have overwhelmingly been excluded from the furloughing of prisoners, with other dual nationals such as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Iranian-born British aid worker, remaining imprisoned despite growing concerns for their health.

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