Proposal to replace restrictive legislation with independent media council could end closures of outlets but campaigners remain wary
The Malaysian government is considering repealing a restrictive media law and creating an independent watchdog to regulate the industry.
In a move that activists hope will become the first of many to improve press freedom in the country, the government is discussing the abolition of the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA).
Continue reading...William Barr announces he has reinstated a policy dormant for 16 years, following authorization from Congress and signing by Trump
The US government is set to carry out the death penalty for the first time in 16 years, William Barr, the attorney general, announced on Thursday, despite criticism of capital punishment as “immoral and deeply flawed”.
The justice department scheduled the execution of five death row federal inmates for December and January.
Continue reading...Emboldened by the body-positive movement and a sense of rage, a growing chorus is pushing back against a common custom
The media officer of one of the UK’s top medical schools doesn’t realise she hasn’t muted herself as she puts me on hold.
She sniggers with her colleague as she passes on my request – to speak to an expert on male circumcision – before informing me they don’t have one.
Continue reading...Ramush Haradinaj agrees to appear at Serbia war crimes inquiry but not as leader
Kosovo’s prime minister has resigned after being invited for questioning by a Hague-based court investigating crimes against ethnic Serbs during and after the 1998-99 war.
Ramush Haradinaj said he had agreed to be interviewed at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office next week and did not want to appear there as prime minister.
Continue reading...Cross-party inquiry finds people from African countries often perceive reasons given for failed applications as biased or discriminatory
British MPs have warned that the UK visitor visa system is “broken” and doing “severe damage” to UK-Africa relations.
The problems faced by experts trying to visit the UK are so widespread that many Africans believe the Home Office to be prejudiced against them and deliberately trying to reduce visitor numbers.
Continue reading...Mohamad Rahimeh found a talent for cooking in the Calais refugee camp. Now he has a viable business in London
When Mohamad Rahimeh arrived in the Calais refugee camp that was nicknamed “the Jungle”, cooking was the last thing on his mind. He was a political scientist from Syria with a journey from hell behind him. Food was just a means to an end.
But when a close friend fell sick, he rustled up a meal of eggs. A hidden talent was uncovered.
Continue reading...Strict rules governing women’s lives could be changed according to Saudi newspaper
Saudi Arabia could be planning to relax the country’s strict male guardianship laws to allow women to leave the country without needing permission from a male relative, according to reports.
Travel restrictions for women over the age of 18 are due to be lifted this year, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, quoting Saudi officials familiar with the matter.
Continue reading...As deadly airstrikes prompt plans to release detainees, fears rise for those trapped in the country amid claims of serious abuses
Kosofo was hiding in the bathroom when a deadly airstrike ripped through the ceiling of the hall he was locked inside, in Tripoli’s Tajoura migrant detention centre last week.
“I saw the hell with my eyes. I saw things that I had seen during the Darfur war,” says the Sudanese man in his 20s, who has asked to go by a nickname for his own safety.
Continue reading...Advocates warn the new panel, helmed by an abortion and gay rights opponent, is a threat to progressive reforms
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has unveiled a new panel tasked with reviewing “the role of human rights in American public policy” in a move that some advocates warned could imperil LGBTQ and women’s reproductive freedoms.
Pompeo announced the launch of the “Commission on Unalienable Rights” at the state department in Washington on Monday, telling reporters: “As human rights claims have proliferated, some claims have come into tension with one another provoking questions and clashes about which rights are entitled to gain respect.”
Continue reading...Journalists risk everything to hold power to account, crucial work for which a $1bn global fund should be established
Daphne Caruana Galizia was driving away from her home in October 2017 when a bomb planted under the seat of her car was remotely triggered, killing her instantly.
Caruana Galizia was a renowned anti-corruption journalist who had published damaging revelations about Malta’s prime minister and his political allies. The stories she was working on at the time of her death might have remained unpublished were it not for Forbidden Stories, an initiative run by a global network of investigative journalists whose mission is to finish the work of who have been imprisoned or harmed. The Daphne project, published last year, was a collaborative effort between 45 journalists in 15 countries.
Continue reading...Government dismisses UN allegations of summary executions, arbitrary arrests, torture and sexual violence
Opponents of Burundi’s government are being subjected to numerous human rights violations, according to a UN commission.
Returning refugees and even Catholic bishops are being targeted, the commission found, as well as those who refuse to join the ruling party or its youth wing, the Imbonerakure, which is accused of gang-rape and torture.
Continue reading...Wife of Wang Quanzhang says his health has deteriorated after four years incarceration
The wife of the jailed Chinese human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang has described her husband as a “totally changed man” after she and her son were allowed to see him for the first time since he disappeared nearly four years ago.
Wang, 43, was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison in January for “subverting state power” after a closed-door trial.
Continue reading...EU countries sending growing numbers back to country of arrival in bloc
The number of asylum seekers returned to Italy from elsewhere in Europe under a controversial EU regulation has almost tripled in five years, amid concern over their treatment in Italy and Germany.
Under the terms of the Dublin regulation, member states can send people back to their country of arrival in the EU – usually Italy or Greece.
Continue reading...Abdul Aziz Muhamat delivers a plea for urgent action to the Human Rights Council
Since Abdul Aziz Muhamat left Manus Island for the last time, he has climbed a mountain in his new home of Switzerland, and then returned to advocating for the resettlement of the hundreds of men and women he left behind.
The Sudanese refugee spent more than six years in Australia’s offshore processing and detention system in Papua New Guinea, before he was granted residency in the European nation earlier this month.
Continue reading...Right to life is likely to be undermined alongside the rule of law, special rapporteur says
The world is increasingly at risk of “climate apartheid”, where the rich pay to escape heat and hunger caused by the escalating climate crisis while the rest of the world suffers, a report from a UN human rights expert has said.
Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said the impacts of global heating are likely to undermine not only basic rights to life, water, food, and housing for hundreds of millions of people, but also democracy and the rule of law.
Continue reading...Visa decision overturned for British resident Nina Saleh, 48 hours after Guardian and others published her story
A woman who was refused a visa to return to London after travelling to Pakistan to adopt a baby has been told she can come home.
Nina Saleh has a Norwegian passport but full UK residency rights after living in London for 20 years. She was refused a visa to return home with baby Sofia three times, despite going through a stringent and lengthy adoption process in the UK with British authorities’ involvement.
Continue reading...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.
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