Lawyer who defended activists, victims of land seizures, and members of Falun Gong found guilty of ‘subversion of state power’
The prominent Chinese rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison for subversion.
A court in Tianjin heard on Monday that Wang had been found “guilty of subversion of state power”.
Continue reading...Asian Football Confederation, which has come under fire for failing to call for the refugee footballer’s release, says its president was recused from overseeing the region 18 months ago
The Asian Football Confederation claims its president, Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al-Khalifa, is not responsible for matters regarding the Thai detention of Hakeem al-Araibi because he was recused from overseeing the region 18 months ago out of conflict-of-interest concerns.
The new claim came in response to a call from the World Players Association for Salman to be disqualified from office if the refugee footballer was returned to Bahrain.
Continue reading...Investigation comes as Saudi efforts to normalise relations with west move on to Davos
A UN expert on executions is to travel to Turkey next week to lead an “independent international inquiry” into the death of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian journalist killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October.
Agnes Callamard, the special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said she would evaluate the circumstances of the crime and “the nature and the extent of states’ and individuals’ responsibilities for the killing”. She will report on the findings from her five-day visit to the UN human rights council in June.
Continue reading...Exclusive: In an interview with the Guardian he pleads for his release and says he fears torture and jail if extradited to Bahrain
Hakeem al-Araibi, the refugee footballer from Bahrain who was detained in Thailand while on his honeymoon, has said he is “losing hope” and believes he will be tortured again or even killed if he is deported to Bahrain.
Speaking to the Guardian from Bangkok Remand Prison, a visibly distressed Al-Araibi said he was “terrified ” and that his fear was “getting worse every day”. Al-Araibi was given asylum in Australia in 2017 after fleeing his home country where he was persecuted for his beliefs, tortured in prison and convicted on a trumped-up vandalism charge.
Continue reading...Journalists, lawyers, minority rights activists and anti-hijab protesters among those held
Iranian authorities arrested more than 7,000 dissidents last year in a sweeping crackdown that led to hundreds being jailed or flogged, at least 26 protesters being killed, and nine people dying in custody amid suspicious circumstances, according to Amnesty International.
Those rounded up during violent dispersals of peaceful protests in what Amnesty called “a year of shame for Iran” included journalists, lawyers, minority rights activists and women who protested against being forced to wear headscarves.
Continue reading...The woman was robbed and told if she protested she would be ‘killed and put in box’
A Bangladeshi factory that produces clothes for Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Mothercare was forced to compensate an “outspoken” female worker after she was beaten up on the orders of management and threatened with being murdered, the Guardian has learned.
The woman claimed to have been “severely beaten up” by security guards and the HR and compliance management at the factory, which is used by the brand Stanley/Stella. She said she was robbed of her severance pay and told that if she protested she would be “killed and her body put in a cardboard box”, an industry watchdog report that endorses her account states.
Continue reading...Open letter says the arrests mean diplomats are more cautious about work in China
More than 140 former diplomats and leading China experts have called on Xi Jinping to release two Canadian citizens detained last month as a diplomatic stand-off between Ottawa and Beijing escalates.
In an open letter Chinese president, former envoys to China from Canada, the UK, the US, Australia, Germany, Sweden and Mexico described how the arrests of Michael Kovrig, a Canadian diplomat on leave, and Michael Spavor, a businessman, have sent a chill through the diplomatic community.
Continue reading...The people are rising up. But the western celebrities and the human rights industry that fought for this are absent
In 2017, a US law firm signed a contract with the Sudanese government, to assist in efforts to lift the economic sanctions that had been suffocating the country since 1997. Within weeks, George Clooney and John Prendergast, veteran activists for human rights in Sudan, wrote a letter in Time magazine, objecting to this. They asked rhetorically, did the law firm’s senior ranks, filled with ex-senators and congressmen, not know that president Omar al-Bashir’s regime had committed mass atrocities? That it was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Darfur? That it persecuted Christians? “The question of their firm working in the service of such a brutal and vile regime can only be answered by the simplest of terms,” they concluded. “Probably, they just don’t know.”
The sanctions were lifted, but it made little difference. The world had forgotten Sudan and was in no rush to be reminded. All that was associated with the country, ticked off neatly in the Clooney/Prendergast letter, was unsavoury. So allow me to remind you. For the past four weeks, Sudan has been seized by a popular uprising on the part of a people that has been suffering under a brutal dictatorship for 30 years, and from the effects of the global human rights machine that cut them off from the world for 20.
Continue reading...Judges rule decision to share evidence with US without death penalty assurances not unlawful
The mother of an alleged hostage killer for Islamic State has lost her legal challenge against a Home Office decision to share evidence with the US without seeking assurances that her son and another suspected jihadist terrorist would not face the death penalty.
El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey are accused of belonging to a group of Isis members, nicknamed the Beatles because of their British accents, responsible for killing a number of western captives.
Continue reading...Opposition to authoritarian rule reflects increased concern of voters and institutions, Human Rights Watch claims
From Europe to Yemen and Myanmar to the US, authoritarian and populist leaders face an increasingly powerful human rights pushback, according to an influential annual survey of global rights.
Despite mounting pessimism around rights abuses and attacks on democracy by populists on both the far left and far right, the “big news” of the past year was the growing trend to confront abuses by “headline-grabbing autocrats”, said Human Rights Watch.
Continue reading...Mansoura and Al-Azhar universities backtrack after video of celebratory embrace goes viral
Two students expelled from university in Egypt for the “immoral act” of hugging in celebration of their engagement have been reinstated after a viral video of their embrace drew widespread public sympathy.
The universities of Al-Azhar and Mansoura initially told both students they would be thrown out after footage emerged showing the male student kneeling and proposing to the teenage woman before presenting her with a bouquet of flowers. The video, shot on the campus of Mansoura University, then showed the pair embracing, a moment greeted by cheers from their friends.
Continue reading...Saudi teen was granted asylum by Canada after flying to Thailand to escape her family
The Saudi woman who barricaded herself in a Thai hotel room in a desperate attempt to flee abuse landed in Canada on Saturday, capping a tumultuous and uncertain journey towards safety.
Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun arrived in Toronto, the country’s largest city. As she entered the airport’s arrivals area, she was accompanied by Canada’s minister of foreign affairs, Chrystia Freeland, who has been a vocal critic of Saudi Arabia’s jailing of female dissidents.
Continue reading...Bill Shorten urges Scott Morrison to accept Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun now that the UN has validated her refugee claim
Labor has said the Saudi teenager Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun should be resettled in Australia now that her refugee claim had been validated.
The party’s foreign affairs spokeswoman, Penny Wong, told ABC radio on Thursday Bill Shorten had written to Scott Morrison urging him to accept Qunun.
Continue reading...Nearly two years after raising the alarm, Human Rights Watch report reveals continued allegations of electric shocks and beatings on boys aged 14 to 17
Kurdish security forces in Erbil are continuing to torture children to confess their involvement with Islamic State, according to allegations in a report released by Human Rights Watch.
According to the organisation, which first raised the alarm about the mistreatment of child detainees by Kurdish security forces nearly two years ago, it has collected claims of the continued regular use of beatings and electric shocks to extract confessions, often prior to trials lasting a handful of minutes.
Continue reading...Thai authorities say 18-year-old will not be forced to return with her father to the Middle East, where she claims her family will kill her
An 18-year-old Saudi woman who barricaded herself in a Bangkok airport hotel room to prevent her forcible return to a family she claims will kill her, has been taken under the protection of the UN high commissioner for refugees in Thailand.
The Australian government said on Monday night Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun’s situation was “deeply concerning” and it had lobbied the Thai government and the UNHCR to allow her to formally claim asylum.
Continue reading...Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun says she will be killed if forced to return to abusive family
An 18-year-old Saudi woman being detained in Bangkok having fled from her family after renouncing Islam fears she will be killed if she is repatriated, according to a close friend who said the threats to her life are real.
Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun has barricaded herself in her hotel room for fear that Thai immigration officials, who have gathered outside her door, would force her on to a plane to leave the country. Thai immigration officials have confirmed she has been denied entry to the country.
Continue reading...The lack of global outcry over the detention of two Canadians virtually guarantees the next such case
Canada’s foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, has called China’s detention of Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor a “worrying precedent” but for many China watchers it is all too familiar.
It reminds us of the detentions of other foreign citizens, such as Canadian Kevin Garratt, Briton Peter Humphrey, Sweden’s Gui Minhai, or Taiwanese Lee Ming-che, and that over the years China has institutionalised arbitrary and secret detention affecting innumerable Chinese citizens, and with little international consequence.
Continue reading...Family of activist Amaya Eva Coppens, 24, appeal for help to ‘stop the repression’ of Nicaraguan government
The mother of a medical student facing more than 20 years in prison for protesting against the Nicaraguan government is appealing to the international community to put pressure on president Daniel Ortega’s regime.
Amaya Eva Coppens, a Belgian-Nicaraguan dual national, is due to stand trial in the capital Managua after being “abducted” in a raid by more than 30 riot police and paramilitaries on 10 September.
Continue reading...All-party group and lawyers concerned for eight women allegedly mistreated in Saudi Arabia prison
A cross-party group of British parliamentarians and international lawyers is requesting the right to visit eight female activists detained in Saudi Arabia, following allegations that they have been subjected to ill treatment, including torture.
The lawmakers and advocates, who have convened a detention review panel, intend to produce a detailed document on their findings, following claims that the activists, some of whom were instrumental in securing women the right to drive in Saudi Arabia, have been maltreated in Dhahban prison and denied access to lawyers or relatives.
Continue reading...We cast a look back at the issues that dominated the headlines in the past year, from the devastation in Yemen to the trauma of Rohingya refugees
The year was dominated by allegations of sexual abuse and harassment in the aid sector, and anger at the failure of those in power to believe and support those making them.
Continue reading...