Foreign secretary asked to intervene as death penalty hangs over four young men at mass trial in Cairo
A group of British MPs has called on the foreign secretary to intervene in the case of four young men facing a death sentence in Cairo for crimes they allegedly committed as children.
One of them is Ammar El Sudany, who was in the bath when Egyptian security forces raided his home.
Continue reading...FDA ban brings an end to decades-long battle against use of ‘aversive therapy’ at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts
The US government has banned an electric shock machine that is used to zap children and young adults with special needs in a school outside Boston – the only institution in the world known to practice the controversial punishment “treatment”.
Related: Elizabeth Warren drops out of Democratic presidential race – live
Continue reading...Igor Matovic’s centre-right OLaNO party rides wave of outrage over the murder of a journalist to a stunning victory
Slovak voters have handed a resounding victory to the centre-right, anti-graft OLaNO opposition party in an election dominated by an angry backlash over the 2018 murder of a journalist investigating corruption in the eurozone state.
Having vowed to immediately push through anti-corruption measures should he win office, the OLaNO party leader, Igor Matovic, galvanised voter outrage over the murder of Jan Kuciak and his fiancee and the high-level graft their deaths exposed.
Continue reading...Case brought by three Eritreans against Nevsun Resources can continue as companies operating overseas face new legal risk
A Vancouver-based mining company can be sued in Canada for alleged human rights abuses overseas including allegations of modern slavery, Canada’s supreme court has ruled.
The decision means three Eritreans who filed a civil suit against Nevsun Resources in British Columbia can continue their case in a lower court.
Continue reading...Erick Kabendera, a known critic of the government, faces steep fine after pleading guilty to tax evasion charges in case widely seen as part of President Magufuli’s media crackdown
An investigative journalist known for holding the Tanzanian government to account has been released from prison after pleading guilty to charges widely discredited as politically motivated.
Erick Kabendera, who has written for the Guardian and various other publications, was arrested by plainclothes police officers in July last year. This week he has been ordered to pay 275m Tanzanian shillings (£92,180) on charges of tax evasion and money laundering.
Continue reading...Writer and activist who was imprisoned for insulting Ugandan president calls on him to go as 18-month sentence is revoked
The feminist academic and writer Stella Nyanzi has been released from prison after her 18-month sentence for insulting Uganda’s president was quashed.
Nyanzi collapsed as she left court in Kampala on Thursday, and scuffles broke out between her supporters and prison wardens, who fired live rounds into the air to disperse the crowd.
Continue reading...Human rights activist Patrick Zaky had been studying at the University of Bologna
The family of an Italian doctoral student murdered in Cairo have urged “democratic governments” to intervene in the case of an Egyptian master’s student in Italy who was detained on arrival in Egypt last week.
Paola and Claudio Regeni, the parents of Giulio Regeni, whose mutilated corpse was found in 2016, called on Italy to do more to help Patrick Zaky, an Egyptian student and activist studying at the University of Bologna who was detained and reportedly tortured on arrival in Cairo to visit his family.
Continue reading...ECHR accused of ‘ignoring reality’ in ruling on men who entered north African enclave
The European court of human rights has been accused of “completely ignoring the reality” along the continent’s borders after it ruled that Spain acted lawfully when it summarily deported two people who tried to scale the border fence separating Morocco from Spanish territory six years ago.
The Strasbourg court announced its decision on Thursday in the case brought by the two men, who are from Mali and Ivory Coast.
Continue reading...Government has ignored laws intended to prevent stigma, discrimination and bullying, Human Rights Watch claims
Young people in Vietnam continue to be taught at home and at school that same-sex attraction is a “disease” and a “mental illness” that can be cured and treated, despite legislation designed to support and protect LGBTQ+ rights.
Stigma and discrimination about sexual orientation and gender identity contribute to the verbal harassment and bullying of LGBTQ+ young people, which in some cases leads to physical violence, according to a report published on Thursday by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Continue reading...Court of appeal orders Home Office not to remove anyone scheduled to be deported from two detention centres on 6.30am flight
A group of about 50 people due to be deported to Jamaica on Tuesday morning won a last-minute reprieve on Monday night following an emergency ruling by the court of appeal.
The court ordered the Home Office not to remove anyone scheduled to be deported from two detention centres near Heathrow on the 6.30am flight to Jamaica – “unless satisfied [they] had access to a functioning, non-O2 sim card on or before 3 February”.
Continue reading...Rights activists criticise trial, saying members of the Network group were tortured
A Russian court has sentenced a group of anti-fascists to between six and 18 years in prison on terrorism and other charges, with rights activists describing the punishment as monstrous.
Sergei Morgunov, a lawyer for one of the seven defendants, said a military court in the central city of Penza had handed down the verdict in the Network case. All seven had denied the charges.
Continue reading...Activists handed long prison sentences or death penalty by court set up for terror cases
Saudi Arabia is using a secretive special court set up for terrorism-related cases to systematically prosecute human rights activists and other dissenting voices who defy the country’s absolute monarchy, a new report has found.
The human rights watchdog Amnesty International spent five years investigating 95 cases heard at the Specialised Criminal court (SCC) in Riyadh, concluding in a report published on Thursday that the court is routinely used as a weapon to silence criticism despite the kingdom’s recent attempts to cultivate a reformist image.
Continue reading...Matt Hancock’s comments come as UK seeks tougher sentencing for terrorists
A senior government minister has raised further questions over Britain’s relationship with the European convention on human rights (ECHR) as Boris Johnson scrambles to push through tougher sentencing for terrorists.
Legal experts have suggested the government’s intended plan to extend the time terrorists serve in prison could be in breach of the ECHR, to which Britain has been signed up for decades.
Continue reading...Opposition leader Zitto Kabwe received death threats after asking bank to suspend education fund over human rights concerns
An opposition leader in Tanzania said he was taking death threats he received after he urged the World Bank to withdraw a $500m (£382m) education loan to the country over human rights concerns “very seriously”.
But Zitto Kabwe, leader of the alliance for change and transparency party (Act), added that he would not be intimidated by comments made by the leader of the ruling party and other officials that his request to the bank was an act of betrayal and he should be killed.
Continue reading...Khalid Mollah died while working among the thousands who dismantle old ships in Chittagong. Now, in a test case that could transform the industry, his widow is suing the firm that sold the vessel for scrap
Khalid Mollah was uneducated, illiterate and out of work when, in early 2009, he left his pregnant wife Hamida Begum to take the 200-mile bus ride to Chittagong from the small village of Gopai, in northern Bangladesh. The young man’s destination was Sitakunda, the notorious, 20km stretch of wide beach and tidal mudflats just north of Bangladesh’s fast-growing second city.
Here, nearly 25,000 people work in dozens of ship-breaking yards, steel-rolling mills and factories to recover and sell on every bit of plate metal, deck, mast, funnel, hatch, gangplank, wire, nut, cable, bolt, wood and rivet that makes up the world’s giant ships.
Continue reading...Government says schools to face more scrutiny after report that thousands may have been victims of paedophile ring
Afghanistan’s attorney general has launched an investigation into the alleged abuse of more than 500 schoolboys, following the discovery of a paedophile ring in the country’s Logar province.
Jamshid Rasooli, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office, said a committee had been appointed. “We are in the process of running a comprehensive, impartial investigation,” he said.
Continue reading...European assembly says WikiLeaks founder’s detention ‘sets dangerous precedent’
Julian Assange’s detention “sets a dangerous precedent for journalists”, according to politicians from the Council of Europe’s parliamentary arm, who voted on Tuesday to oppose the WikiLeaks founder’s extradition to the US.
The words of support for Assange and implicit criticism of the UK government will be contained in a final report produced by the Labour peer Lord Foulkes for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which focuses on upholding human rights across the continent.
Continue reading...Campaigners say education funding would be ‘inappropriate if not irresponsible’ in light of ban on pregnant girls attending school
An opposition MP and activists in Tanzania are urging the World Bank to withdraw a $500m (£381m) loan to the country, amid concerns over deteriorating human rights, particularly for women and girls.
In a letter addressed to the bank’s board members, Zitto Kabwe said he feared the money would be used by the ruling party “to distort our electoral processes’” and ensure an easy victory in an election year.
Continue reading...Civil liberties groups condemn move as ‘a breathtaking assault on our rights’
The Metropolitan police will start using live facial recognition, Britain’s biggest force has announced.
The decision to deploy the controversial technology, which has been dogged by privacy concerns and questions over its lawfulness, was immediately condemned by civil liberties groups, who described the move as “a breathtaking assault on our rights”.
Continue reading...Melbourne University academic rebuffed bid to recruit her in exchange for her release, letters reveal
Iran tried to recruit the British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert as a spy for Tehran in exchange for her release, but the overture was furiously rebuffed, letters smuggled out of Evin prison reveal.
Moore-Gilbert, a Cambridge-educated academic specialising in Middle East politics, is currently being held in Ward 2A, an isolated Revolutionary Guard-run wing of Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, serving a 10-year sentence for espionage, a charge she, and the Australian government, rejects as entirely false.
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