British resident Nina Saleh unable to return home with adopted baby after being refused visa three times
A Norwegian woman who has lived in Britain for 20 years says she has been left stranded in Pakistan after travelling there to adopt a baby.
The UK Home Office has refused Nina Saleh a visa to return home with baby Sofia three times, despite Saleh going through a stringent and lengthy adoption process in the UK with British authorities’ involvement.
Continue reading...Victims include imprisoned followers of Falun Gong movement, China Tribunal says
An independent tribunal sitting in London has concluded that the killing of detainees in China for organ transplants is continuing, and victims include imprisoned followers of the Falun Gong movement.
The China Tribunal, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, who was a prosecutor at the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, said in a unanimous determination at the end of its hearings it was “certain that Falun Gong were used for forced organ harvesting”.
Continue reading...Tens of thousands of people dressed in black call for complete withdrawal of suspended bill
Continue reading...China’s power grab via a new extradition bill must be opposed by governments around the world, especially Britain’s
It took something out of the ordinary to provoke a million people in Hong Kong to take to the streets to demonstrate against proposed new extradition rules. Roughly one-sixth of the population demonstrated peacefully: families, young and old, lawyers, academics, students, professionals and manual workers.
What caused such an outpouring against a piece of legislation? Quite simply, the people of Hong Kong – not British, but Hong Kong Chinese – have seen their government connive with the Communist regime in Beijing to undermine their way of life and freedoms.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Yana Peel co-owns NSO Group that licensed Pegasus software to authoritarian regimes
A leading human rights campaigner and head of a prestigious London art gallery is the co-owner of an Israeli cyberweapons company whose software has allegedly been used by authoritarian regimes to spy on dissidents, the Guardian can reveal.
Yana Peel, the chief executive of the Serpentine Galleries and a self-proclaimed champion of free speech, co-owns NSO Group, a $1bn (£790m) Israeli tech firm, according to corporate records in the US and Luxembourg.
Continue reading...China, India and Bangladesh among otherwise thriving countries failing to make headway on issue affecting 152 million minors
Progress towards ending child labour has stalled in the countries most likely to be supplying goods to the west, a study has found.
Despite high economic growth and big improvements in education and development, countries such as China, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia have made little progress in tackling child labour.
Continue reading...Reporters discovered Carlos Luis Malatto, accused of five counts of crimes against humanity, in Messina
Human rights groups have expressed outrage after a former Argentinian army officer accused of committing murder and forced disappearances during the 1976-83 military dictatorship was found enjoying a beach holiday in Sicily.
Reporters from la Repubblica discovered Lt Colonel Carlos Luis Malatto in a tourist village in the province of Messina, even though he is currently on trial in Rome for crimes committed in Argentina, which is also seeking his extradition.
Continue reading...Demonstrations against the extradition bill follow a 50-year tradition of publicly challenging authority
In Hong Kong, people have most of the freedoms of a democracy except the right to choose their leaders. The city’s last British governor, Chris Patten, described it as a place that enjoyed “liberty without democracy”.
That has made protests particularly important as a political tool and an expression of Hong Kong identity. For more than half a century, the people of Hong Kong have been taking to the streets to force distant authorities – first in Britain and later in Beijing – to reconsider how they govern the city.
Continue reading...Murtaja Qureiris, 18, is on trial for charges including ‘sowing sedition’, says Amnesty
A young Saudi man, arrested when he was 13, could face execution for taking part in Shia-led protests as a child, Amnesty International has said.
Murtaja Qureiris, now 18, is on trial for charges that include joining a “terror group” and “sowing sedition”, according to the rights group. He was detained in September 2014 and held in solitary confinement for part of the time since.
Continue reading...Human rights group calls on England and Wales to ban police use of AFR in public spaces
Automated facial recognition poses one of the greatest threats to individual freedom and should be banned from use in public spaces, according to the director of the campaign group Liberty.
Martha Spurrier, a human rights lawyer, said the technology had such fundamental problems that, despite police enthusiasm for the equipment, its use on the streets should not be permitted.
Continue reading...Trump administration’s ban on terminations is a crisis directed at women, warns Kate Gilmore
The US policy on abortion is a form of extremist hate that amounts to the torture of women, the UN deputy high commissioner for human rights told the Guardian.
The attack on women’s rights was a “crisis”, organised and well-resourced by very extremist groups.
Continue reading...Research shows only four of biggest companies in £17bn industry said they conducted due diligence specifically to uncover abuses
The world’s biggest canned tuna brands are failing to tackle modern slavery in their Pacific supply chains, leaving thousands of workers at sea under threat of human rights abuses, a report has found.
According to findings published on Monday by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC), an international corporate watchdog, only four of the world’s 35 largest tuna retail brands said they conducted due diligence with the specific aim of uncovering modern slavery in their supply chains.
Continue reading...Police are investigating suspected misconduct involving millions of dollars of funds from donors
Amnesty International has shut down its Zimbabwe branch over alleged abuse of donor funds and fraud by staff.
The human rights group says it has launched further investigations with the help of police into suspected graft and misconduct involving millions of dollars and Amnesty Zimbabwe has indefinitely been placed under administration.
Continue reading...Defector calls on European tourists and online viewers to shun cultural displays that take children out of school
The highest-ranking official to defect from North Korea has called for Europeans to stop being an audience for the “child exploitation” in the country’s famous mass games.
Thae Yong-ho, the former deputy ambassador to the UK, who defected in 2016, said travel companies and tourists should boycott the cultural displays, which attract large numbers of visitors and social media viewings. He said North Korean children already faced appalling rates of malnutrition, brainwashing and forced labour and the displays were yet another act of cruelty.
Continue reading...The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has spoken openly about the spectre of antisemitism in Germany. She told CNN that “We have always had a certain amount of antisemites among us ... Unfortunately there is to this day not a single synagogue, not a single day care centre for Jewish children, not a single school for Jewish children that does not need to be guarded by German policemen.” Her remarks came a week after the country’s ombudsman for antisemitism, Felix Klein, suggested that observant Jews would be wise not to wear kippahs (skullcaps) in public. Taken together, these developments might suggest that Germany is sliding back into its dreadful past. In fact, they are signs of a determination that this must not happen. The crime figures do not suggest there is a crisis under way – though crime statistics do not measure fear.
The Jews of Germany are alarmed. It is not just the success of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in recent elections that contributes to their feeling of unease. A short-lived campaign to ban circumcision in 2012 was the first alarm bell; large demonstrations against the Gaza war in 2014, in which hostility to Israel often seemed indistinguishable from antisemitism, was another. And they are aware of the rising currents of antisemitism around Europe, even if it takes different forms in different countries.
Continue reading...Trio arrested over alleged role in failed independence bid should be freed, panel says
The fugitive Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont has welcomed a UN report on the detention of three fellow separatists, which he said confirmed they were “political prisoners”.
The former Catalan vice-president Oriol Junqueras and the Catalan civil society group chiefs, Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez, arrested over their alleged role in the failed regional independence bid, have been in custody since late 2017 and are among 12 regional leaders currently on trial in Madrid.
Continue reading...In failing to hold Egypt and Saudi Arabia to account over the deaths of Giulio Regeni and Jamal Khashoggi, the west is making a rod for its own back
The parents of Giulio Regeni, the Italian doctoral student murdered in Cairo three years ago, last week wrote an emotionally charged letter to Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. “As long as this barbarism remains unpunished,” they told the Egyptian president, “until all those who are guilty, regardless of their position, are brought to justice in Italy, no one in the world can stay in your country and feel safe.”
Regeni was found in a ditch in February 2016, less than 2km away from the national security agency headquarters. His body, naked from the waist down, bore clear signs of brutal torture. Regeni’s parents, who say they have yet to see any sign that the murder is being investigated, said they could only identify their son by the tip of his nose. They want those responsible extradited to Italy.
Continue reading...To the outside world, Loujain al-Hathloul is regarded as one of the most influential women on the planet – but in her own country, she is seen as a threat who must be stopped
Loujain al-Hathloul always likes to ask questions, her brother Walid says. “Growing up, she always pointed out the hypocrisy around driving in Saudi Arabia, trying to understand why women were banned from driving. She kept questioning.”
But when Hathloul, now 29, was pulled over while driving in neighbouring United Arab Emirates last April before being deported back to Saudi Arabia, the kingdom’s rulers began the latest in a series of increasingly brutal efforts to silence her.
Continue reading...The foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt has created a new role of ambassador for human rights, which, according to a Foreign Office statement, “demonstrates the UK’s commitment to defending human rights globally”. Plainly it does nothing of the sort. What it demonstrates is the government’s desperation to repair the reputational damage incurred as its support for the worst human rights abusers of the Middle East comes under increasing scrutiny.
Related: UK arms exports are still playing a central role in Yemen’s humanitarian crisis | Anna Stavrianakis
Continue reading...Council of Europe’s damning report says human rights violations must be urgently addressed
Europe’s top human rights watchdog has accused Hungary’s government of violating people’s rights and using anti-migrant rhetoric that fuels “xenophobic attitudes, fear and hatred”.
A damning report from the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Dunja Mijatović, concluded: “Human rights violations in Hungary have a negative effect on the whole protection system and the rule of law” and should “be addressed as a matter of urgency”.
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