UN rapporteur calls for move as food deliveries are attacked and starvation becomes a weapon of war in Gaza and Sudan
UN peacekeepers should be routinely deployed to protect aid convoys from attack in places such as Gaza and Sudan, a senior United Nations expert has proposed.
With starvation increasingly used as a weapon of war, Michael Fakhri said armed UN troops were now required to ensure that food reached vulnerable populations.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Restrictions to be reviewed as embassy official says ‘UK-China relations are showing a positive momentum’
China is considering lifting the sanctions it imposed on UK parliamentarians in 2021 in the latest sign of warming relations between London and Beijing.
The Chinese government is reviewing the sanctions, which it introduced four years ago, in response to what it called “lies and disinformation” about human rights abuses in Xinjiang, according to two UK government sources familiar with the conversations.
Continue reading...Akua Reindorf said law never permitted self-ID, but trans campaigners call remarks ‘profoundly unhelpful’
Transgender people must accept a reduction in their rights after the supreme court decision on gender because they “have been lied to over many years” about what their rights actually were, one of the commissioners drawing up the official post-ruling guidance has said.
Speaking at a debate about the repercussions of April’s ruling that “woman” in the Equality Act refers only to a biological woman, Akua Reindorf said trans people had been misled about their rights and there “has to be a period of correction”.
Continue reading...ECJ advocate general condemns ‘stigmatising’ law that bars such content from schools and primetime TV
A Hungarian law banning content about LGBTQ+ people from schools and primetime TV has been found to violate basic human rights and freedom of expression by a senior legal scholar at the European court of justice.
The non-binding opinion from the court’s advocate general, Tamara Ćapeta, issued on Thursday, represents a comprehensive demolition of the arguments made by the Hungarian government defending its so-called childprotection law, passed in 2021.
Continue reading...Soueif is willing to do ‘what it takes’ to free Alaa Abd el-Fattah, after a lifetime of speaking up against injustice
Laila Soueif, lying shrunken on a hospital bed at St Thomas’ hospital in London on the 247th day of her hunger strike in pursuit of freedom for her son, imprisoned British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, is locked in what may prove to be her last of many trials of strength with Egypt’s authoritarian regime.
A remarkable, witty and courageous woman, she has the self-awareness to admit: “I may have made a mistake, God knows,” but she will not back down, and anyone looking back at her rich life has little evidence to doubt her perseverance.
Continue reading...Top human rights lawyer calls for UK to take case of Alaa Abd el-Fattah to international court of justice
The UK government should impose sanctions on key figures in the Egyptian government in response to its refusal to release the British-Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, Labour’s most prominent human rights lawyer has proposed.
Writing in the Guardian, Helena Kennedy called for the UK to take the case to the international court of justice, as France has recently done in the case of a national held by Iran.
Continue reading...Low respect for international law and human rights set worrying precedent, international development minister says
Israel is setting a dangerous precedent for international human rights law violations in Gaza that is making the whole world more dangerous, Norway’s international development minister has warned.
Norway has played a historical role in the region, including by facilitating the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians that led to a celebrated breakthrough deal in 1993. Last year it recognised the Palestinian state, one of a minority of European countries to do so.
Continue reading...Laila Soueif continues protest against detention of Alaa Abd el-Fattah in Cairo
The mother of the imprisoned British-Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah has been admitted to hospital after spending more than 240 days on hunger strike.
Laila Soueif’s family said she had been admitted to St Thomas’ hospital in London on Thursday night with dangerously low blood sugar levels, but continues to refuse medical intervention that would provide her with calories.
Continue reading...John Casson says Cairo ‘fobbing us off’ by refusing to release British-Egyptian national Alaa Abd el-Fattah
The former British ambassador to Egypt, John Casson, has urged the UK to advise its citizens against travelling to Egypt, in response to Cairo’s refusal to release dual British Egyptian national Alaa Abd el-Fattah.
A UN panel found on Wednesday that Fattah had been held arbitrarily in jail since 2019, but Egypt was refusing to give the UK consular access – let alone release him. His mother has been refusing food in protest at his detention.
Continue reading...Report from Human Rights Watch criticises Museveni regime for arbitrary arrests and detentions, violence and extortion since draconian new law enacted
The Ugandan authorities have “unleashed abuse”, perpetrating widespread discrimination and violence against LGBTQ+ people in the two years since the world’s harshest anti-gay laws were enacted, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The government’s policies in Uganda had encouraged attacks and harassment against people and organisations seen as being supportive of gay rights, said researchers from the rights group.
Continue reading...IDF says practice ‘strictly prohibited’ after report of incidents quoting both Palestinians and Israeli troops
Israel is investigating “several cases” involving soldiers who have forced Palestinians to act as human shields in Gaza, sending them into buildings and tunnels to check for bombs and gunmen.
“The use of Palestinians as human shields, or otherwise coercing them to participate in military operations, is strictly prohibited in IDF [Israel Defense Forces] orders,” the Israeli army said in a statement.
Continue reading...Laila Soueif announces life-endangering action in protest over continued detention of Alaa Abd el-Fattah in Cairo
The mother of the imprisoned British-Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah has announced she has resumed a near-total hunger strike, stopping taking the 300-calorie supplements she had been consuming on her partial hunger strike for the past three months.
Since the start of her hunger strike 233 days ago, Laila Soueif, 69, has lost 36kg, about 42% of her original body weight, and now weighs 49kg. She is taking the life-endangering step in protest at the continued detention of her son in Cairo beyond his five-year sentence.
Continue reading...‘Palestinian territory must not be reduced nor subjected to any demographic change,’ joint statement declares after Israel announces military expansion
Australia has joined 22 other nations in condemning Israel over its decision to allow limited aid into Gaza while announcing a military expansion to “take control” of the besieged strip.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said his troops were “making progress” on taking control of Gaza after Israel’s military had earlier declared a central city a combat zone and killed more than 60 people in airstrikes, while a senior minister said Israel’s army would “wipe out” what remains of Palestinian Gaza.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email
Continue reading...Policy review of intelligence-sharing with foreign countries risks leaving ‘very serious flaws’, say NGOs and MPs
Labour has been accused of rubber-stamping torture policy it criticised while in opposition for enabling UK complicity in serious human rights abuses overseas.
The policies regulating British support for foreign security and intelligence services were blamed for facilitating injustices in cases such as those of Jagtar Singh Johal and Ali Kololo, and it was hoped Labour would strengthen them in government.
Continue reading...Move to speed up appeals of people in government-funded hotels could be challenged on discrimination grounds, officials warn
A plan to fast-track the appeals of asylum seekers living in government-funded hotels could face multiple legal challenges on the grounds of discrimination, the government has said.
A 24-week legal deadline on appeal decisions for those staying in hotel rooms is being introduced in an attempt to fulfil a Labour manifesto promise to end a practice that costs the taxpayer billions of pounds a year.
Continue reading...Kyiv-based Centre for Civil Liberties says tortured inmates bypassed amid focus on territory and security guarantees
Ukrainian and Russian civil society leaders have called for the unconditional release of thousands of Ukrainian civilians being held in Russian captivity, pushing for world leaders to make it a central part of any peace deal.
Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Kyiv-based Centre for Civil Liberties, which won the 2022 Nobel peace prize, said most of the discussion on ending the conflict, led by Donald Trump’s administration, focused solely on territories and potential security guarantees.
Continue reading...World now in era of repressive regimes’ impunity, climate inaction and unchecked corporate power, says report
The first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency have “supercharged” a global rollback of human rights, pushing the world towards an authoritarian era defined by impunity and unchecked corporate power, Amnesty International warns today.
In its annual report on the state of human rights in 150 countries, the organisation said the immediate ramifications of Trump’s second term had been the undermining of decades of progress and the emboldening of authoritarian leaders.
Continue reading...Hearings over bar on cooperation with Palestinian aid agency are test of Israel’s defiance of international law
Israel will come under sustained legal pressure this week at the UN’s top court when lawyers from more than 40 states will claim the country’s ban on all cooperation with the UN’s Palestinian rights agency Unrwa is a breach of the UN charter.
The five days of hearings at the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague have been given a fresh urgency by Israel’s decision on 2 March to block all aid into Gaza, but the hearing will focus on whether Israel – as a signatory to the UN charter – acted unlawfully in overriding the immunities afforded to a UN body. Israel ended all contact and cooperation with Unrwa operations in Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem in November, claiming the agency had been infiltrated by Hamas, an allegation that has been contested.
Continue reading...Finland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania cite rising threats from Russia to justify once again using one of world’s most indiscriminate weapons
Rights groups have expressed alarm and warned of a slippery slope of again embracing one of the world’s most treacherous weapons, after five European countries said they intend to withdraw from the international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines.
In announcing their plans earlier this year, Finland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania all pointed to the escalating military threat from Russia. In mid-April, Latvia’s parliament became the first to formally back the idea, after lawmakers voted to pull out of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, which bans the use, production and stockpiling of landmines designed for use against humans.
Continue reading...Palestinians pushed into new misery as supplies of food, fuel and medicine run out in seven-week siege
Gaza has been pushed to new depths of despair, civilians, medics and humanitarian workers say, by the unprecedented seven-week-long Israeli military blockade that has cut off all aid to the strip.
The siege has left the Palestinian territory facing conditions unmatched in severity since the beginning of the war as residents grapple with sweeping new evacuation orders, the renewed bombing of civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, and the exhaustion of food, fuel for generators and medical supplies.
Continue reading...