Category Archives: Human rights

Release of Ukrainian prisoners in Russia key to any peace deal, rights groups say

Posted on by

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...

Trump’s first 100 days supercharged a global ‘freefall of rights’, says Amnesty

Posted on by

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...

Israel faces legal pressure at UN’s top court over Unrwa ban

Posted on by

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...

Campaigners sound alarm as European nations move to exit landmine ban

Posted on by

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...

Despair in Gaza as Israeli aid blockade creates crisis ‘unmatched in severity’

Posted on by

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...

Uyghur rights group calls on hotel chains not to ‘sanitise’ China abuses in Xinjiang

Posted on by

Growth in international hotels coincides with government effort to push region as a tourism destination

Almost 200 international hotels are operating or planning to open in Xinjiang, despite calls from human rights groups for global corporations not to help “sanitise” the Chinese government’s human rights abuses in the region, a report has said.

The report by the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) identified 115 operational hotels which the organisation said “benefit from a presence in the Uyghur region”. At least another 74 were in various stages of construction or planning, the report said. The UHRP said some of the hotels also had exposure or links of concern to forced labour and labour transfer programmes.

Continue reading...

Irregular migrant crossings into Europe fall 30% in first quarter of 2025

Posted on by

Human rights groups say drop is partly due to EU policies that turn blind eye to rights abuses in countries such as Libya and Tunisia

Irregular crossings at Europe’s borders have fallen by 30% in the first quarter of the year compared with the same period last year, in a decrease that rights groups partly attributed to EU policies that have emphasised deterrence while seemingly turning a blind eye to the risk of rights abuses.

The decline was seen across all the major migratory routes into Europe, the EU’s border agency Frontex said in a statement, amounting to nearly 33,600 fewer arrivals in the first three months of the year.

Continue reading...

Sudan in ‘world’s largest humanitarian crisis’ after two years of civil war

Posted on by

NGOs and UN say country is ‘worse off than ever before’ with wide-scale displacement, hunger and attacks on refugee camps

Sudan is suffering from the largest humanitarian crisis globally and its civilians are continuing to pay the price for inaction by the international community, NGOs and the UN have said, as the country’s civil war enters its third year.

The UK is hosting ministers from 20 countries in London on Tuesday in an attempt to restart stalled peace talks. However, diplomatic efforts have often been sidelined by other crises, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Continue reading...

UK MP refused entry to Hong Kong accuses China of ‘hidden blacklist’

Posted on by

Wera Hobhouse says her apparent presence on secret list of critics of country’s human rights record made her a target

A Liberal Democrat MP refused entry to Hong Kong to see her young grandson has said her experience should be “a wake-up call for any parliamentarian”, given that it seems to show China holds a secret list of banned politicians.

Wera Hobhouse, who was turned back by officials on Thursday, said she was given no explanation as to why this happened, and could only assume that it was because she had spoken out about rights abuses by China.

Continue reading...

IDF unit involved in Gaza paramedics’ killing was under command of brigade led by notorious Israeli general

Posted on by

Golani troops were under command of reservist Armoured 14th Brigade, part of division led by Brig Gen Yehuda Vach

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) unit involved in the killings of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers in the Gaza Strip last month was under the command of a brigade led by a notorious Israeli general previously accused by some of his own troops of having “contempt for human life”.

The IDF has confirmed that troops from Golani, one of the army’s five infantry brigades, opened fire on two convoys of ambulances in Rafah on 23 March and dug a mass grave to cover the bodies of those killed until the corpses could be retrieved by a UN team six days later. It has disputed allegations from two witnesses who exhumed the bodies and newly released postmortem results that found several of those killed had close-range gunshot wounds to the head and chest and were discovered with their hands or legs tied.

Continue reading...

Activist takes case over Trinidad’s homophobic laws to UK’s privy council

Posted on by

Legislation was repealed in 2018 but Caribbean country’s supreme court last week recriminalised the act after appeal

The privy council in London will soon be called upon to make the final decision on a court case to remove homophobic laws in Trinidad and Tobago.

The laws were repealed in 2018 in a high court judgment that struck from the statute book the “buggery law” that had criminalised consensual anal sex since an act passed in 1925 under British rule. However, last week Trinidad’s supreme court upheld a government appeal against the ruling and recriminalised the act, dealing a hammer blow to LGBTQ+ rights in the Caribbean country and prompting the UK Foreign Office to update its advice for LGBTQ+ travellers.

Continue reading...

EU urged to put human rights centre stage at first central Asia summit

Posted on by

Bloc to discuss trade, security and energy with leaders of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan

The EU is being urged to put human rights centre stage as it begins its first summit with the leaders of central Asia.

The president of the European Council, António Costa, and the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, are meeting the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan on Friday.

Continue reading...

World Bank announces multimillion-dollar redress fund after killings and abuse claims at Tanzanian project

Posted on by

Communities in Ruaha national park reject response to alleged assault and evictions of herders during tourism scheme funded by the bank

The World Bank is embarking on a multimillion-dollar programme in response to alleged human rights abuses against Tanzanian herders during a flagship tourism project it funded for seven years.

Allegations made by pastoralist communities living in and around Ruaha national park include violent evictions, sexual assaults, killings, forced disappearances and large-scale cattle seizures from herders committed by rangers working for the Tanzanian national park authority (Tanapa).

Continue reading...

People displaced by Uganda oil pipeline ‘received inadequate compensation’

Posted on by

Many of the people displaced by Eacop project were inadequately rehoused or compensated, report says

People displaced from their homes alongside the site of an oil pipeline under construction in Uganda have complained of being inadequately rehoused or compensated.

When completed, the East African crude oil pipeline (Eacop) will transport oil from the Tilenga and Kingfisher oilfields in western Uganda to the port of Tanga in Tanzania.

Continue reading...

Aboriginal women are scared to seek help for fear their children will be taken, report finds

Posted on by

Human Rights Watch spoke to 33 Aboriginal parents who between them have had 114 children removed and placed in out-of-home care

Warning: this story contains distressing descriptions of violence

Briana* was just starting to get a handle on the unpredictability of feeding, bottles and all that comes with a newborn when she received an email informing her she had lost custody of her three-month-old son.

Days later, child protection authorities took her child. With him, they took many of the milestones the 36-year-old first-time mother was looking forward to. “I’m going to miss those first words, the first rollover, everything,” she says.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Drones, informers and apps: Iran intensifies surveillance on women to enforce hijab law

Posted on by

Iranian police are using digital tools to identify and punish women who defy the Islamic state’s harsh dress code

Like many women in Iran, Darya is used to feeling under surveillance. Yet in recent months, the 25-year-old finance analyst from northern Tehran says that she never knows who could be watching her every move.

She says she has received messages from the police before warning her of suspected violations of the country’s strict hijab laws, but last November she was sent an SMS message containing her car registration plate that stated the exact time and place that she had been recorded driving without her head properly covered. Next time it happened, the SMS warned, her car would be impounded.

Continue reading...

West Papuan Indigenous people call for KitKat boycott over alleged ecocide

Posted on by

Thousands of acres of rainforest is being cleared to produce palm oil, used in popular Nestlé and Mondelēz brands

West Papua’s Indigenous people have called for a boycott of KitKat, Smarties and Aero chocolate, Oreo biscuits and Ritz crackers, and the cosmetics brands Pantene and Herbal Essences, over alleged ecocide in their territory.

All are products that contain palm oil and are made, say the campaigners, by companies that source the ingredient directly from West Papua, which has been under Indonesian control since 1963 and where thousands of acres of rainforest are being cleared for agriculture.

Continue reading...

German man with green card ‘violently interrogated’ by US border officials

Posted on by

Berlin checking if US immigration policy has changed after Fabian Schmidt becomes third German to be detained

Berlin is investigating whether US immigration policy has changed, after a German national who is a permanent US resident was detained and “violently interrogated” by US border officials.

Fabian Schmidt, 34, is being held at a detention centre in Rhode Island after attempting to return to his home in New Hampshire after a trip to Luxembourg.

Continue reading...

Duterte’s arrest gives ‘a sense impunity ends’, says Nobel peace prize winner

Posted on by

Maria Ressa says rules-based order ‘can perhaps still exist’ but social media is being used to undermine democracy around the world

The arrest of Rodrigo Duterte is a welcome sign that the rules-based order continues to hold, the Nobel laureate Maria Ressa has said, even as the global order has been marred by the US “descending into hell” at the hands of the same forces that consumed the Philippines.

Ressa’s remarks came after Duterte, the former president of the Philippines, made his first appearance before the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague, accused of committing crimes against humanity during his brutal “war on drugs”.

Continue reading...

LNP accused of ‘outrageous betrayal’ after halting implementation of anti-discrimination law reform

Posted on by

Attorney general says legislation developed in response to Citipointe scandal could ‘create unnecessary burden on organisations and institutions’

The Queensland government is facing criticism after announcing an indefinite delay to the implementation of anti-discrimination law reforms designed to protect victims of domestic violence, homeless people, women at work and others.

The state attorney general, Deb Frecklington, told parliament on Friday she would introduce legislation to delay implementation of the Respect at Work and Other Matters Amendment Act 2024.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...