Facebook messages from the Italian student killed in Cairo in 2016 show his concerns about studying in the country
The Facebook messages written by the Cambridge student Giulio Regeni in the weeks leading up to his murder give the lie to any notion he was a spy or political agitator.
Even before he left England, Regeni was concerned about the risks he might face doing his thesis on trade unions in Egypt, a sensitive subject in the country.
Continue reading...Widespread internment, torture and rights abuses have been claimed by former detainees as Beijing continues a policy of denial
Amnesty International has collected new evidence of human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region of China, which it says has become a “dystopian hellscape” for hundreds of thousands of Muslims subjected to mass internment and torture.
The human rights organisation has collected more than 50 new accounts from Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities who claim to have been subjected to mass internment and torture in police stations and camps in the region.
Continue reading...Muhoozi Kainerugaba leads Special Forces Command, an elite military unit blamed for widespread abuses
Lawyers acting for the victims of a wave of abductions and torture by security forces in Uganda have named senior military commanders, including the president’s son, in a complaint to the international criminal court.
Prosecutors at the ICC are already reviewing an earlier submission from the opposition politician Robert Kyagulanyi, the former reggae singer known as Bobi Wine, describing widespread human rights abuses before presidential polls held in January.
Continue reading...Despite promises in opposition to end enforced abduction by the security forces, under Imran Khan’s government numbers have increased
The abductors moved with an ease and stealth that suggested they had done this before. As Qayyum* and his family slept, 12 masked and uniformed soldiers used a ladder to scale the gate of the house, in an affluent neighbourhood of the Pakistani city of Quetta in Balochistan. The family woke as they burst in but the officers silenced them with an order: don’t scream or we will beat you. One demanded Qayyum’s national identity card.
“Bring your phone and laptop,” barked an officer. A bag was shoved over Qayyum’s head and he was dragged outside and thrown into the back of a car.
Continue reading...Saudi Arabia announced it would end capital punishment for juvenile crimes, but campaigners fear at least 10 prisoners could be executed at any time
Saudi security forces arrested Mohammed Al Faraj outside a bowling alley when he was 15 years old. The teenager from Qatif, aShia-majority province in the east of the country, was separated from his companions and transferred to a prison for adults in the city of Dammam where he was detained and denied outside contact.
When his family was finally able to visit him in October 2017, Al Faraj claimed he’d been beaten and kicked, forced into stress positions for hours and left for days in solitary confinement. Observers say Al Faraj was tortured into confessing to three crimes related to protests in the restive Qatif province, including harbouring a fugitive, attending the funeral of a relative in 2012 and sending WhatsApp messages that could affect public security. The charges carry the death penalty.
Continue reading...Arrested Lawyers Initiative says hundreds punished on trumped-up charges and hundreds more await trial
Campaigners are seeking to use the UK’s Magnitsky-style human rights sanctions against Turkish prosecutors and officials responsible for arresting and imprisoning thousands of lawyers.
Organisers of the Arrested Lawyers Initiative (ALI) are gathering evidence about the alleged torture and mistreatment of judges and legal representatives detained in Turkish jails.
Continue reading...Suspect accused of torturing man in prison run by Syrian intelligence service in 2011
A Syrian doctor living in Germany has been arrested on suspicion of crimes against humanity in his country of origin, prosecutors have said, in the latest German move against suspected war crimes in Syria.
The suspect, identified as Alaa M, is accused of having “tortured a detainee ... in at least two cases” at a prison run by the Syrian intelligence service in the city of Homs in 2011, according to German federal prosecutors.
Continue reading...If we really shouldn’t lie about our history, as the prime minister says, let’s finally open up about the atrocities of empire
When Boris Johnson claimed last week that removing statues is “to lie about our history”, you could almost admire his brass neck. This is the man who was sacked from his first job, on the Times, for lying about our history. He fabricated a quote from his own godfather, the historian Colin Lucas, to create a sensational front-page fiction about Edward II’s Rose Palace. A further lie about history – his own history – had him sacked from another job, as shadow arts minister under the Conservative leader Michael Howard.
But, Johnson tells us: “We cannot now try to edit or censor our past. We cannot pretend to have a different history”. Yet lies and erasures are crucial to the myths on which Britain’s official self-image is founded, and crucial to hiding the means by which those who still dominate us acquired their wealth and power.
Continue reading...Prof Massimo Del Bene aids African migrants whose captors inflicted horrific injuries to extort ransom payments
The first patient was a young Ghanaian man who had been tortured every day for more than a year in Libya by traffickers trying to extort a ransom for his release, says Prof Massimo Del Bene, head of reconstructive surgery at the San Gerardo hospital in Monza, north of Milan.
Since then, the surgeon renowned for performing the first double hand transplant in Italy, has adapted his expertise to what he calls “torture surgery”, helping African migrants who have survived Libyan detention camps, where traffickers and criminal gangs are documented to have tortured captives to extort ransom money.
Continue reading...Rights activists criticise trial, saying members of the Network group were tortured
A Russian court has sentenced a group of anti-fascists to between six and 18 years in prison on terrorism and other charges, with rights activists describing the punishment as monstrous.
Sergei Morgunov, a lawyer for one of the seven defendants, said a military court in the central city of Penza had handed down the verdict in the Network case. All seven had denied the charges.
Continue reading...The two psychologists who designed the US “enhanced interrogation” programme that included waterboarding and other forms of torture, are due to give evidence in open court for the first time this week.
James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen will answer questions at a pre-trial hearing on the 9/11 attacks before a military tribunal in Guantánamo Bay.
Continue reading...Simon Cheng, a former UK consular employee, has only been offered a two-year visa
Questions have been raised about Britain’s treatment of a former UK consular worker from Hong Kong, who said he was asked to resign after being detained and allegedly tortured on a work trip to mainland China.
Simon Cheng has been offered a two-year UK visa, but sources said it is a “working holiday” type, which only allows him to spend 12 months employed and leaves him without a path to permanent residency.
Continue reading...I was born in 1931 in the small German town of Meiningen, famous for its theatre, much like Stratford-upon-Avon. Its mainly middle-class citizens were deeply disillusioned, tired of the infighting of the political parties. Germany seemed to be in a state of social and moral disintegration, crying out for healing and reconciliation. People were drawn to a charismatic, unconventional power-hungry leader who read their minds and promised what they wanted to hear. I know history never quite repeats itself, but the analogies are frightening.
The single issue was the exceptionalism (Opinion, 29 July), the superiority of the German race. The good, mainly churchgoing citizens easily voted his Brown Shirts onto the regional council (cpcf the Brexit party). Two years later they voted nationally in sufficient numbers to enable Hitler to seize total power. It was all perfectly legal, too late to effectively protest. Dissent was now treason (think the Daily Mail). My father’s parents were Jews. Outcasts now (think our non-Brits), a few years later we had no choice but to flee and my grandmother to take poison. I pray for our PM and hope that I am needlessly crying wolf.
Canon Dr Paul Oestreicher
Brighton
Your article about the iniquitous and exorbitant fees charged by the Home Office for renewal of leave to remain gives a clear account of the situation (Report, 31 July, theguardian.com). I am, however, disappointed that you did not mention that many people who have applied for asylum are also caught up in this, having had their asylum claim rejected and been granted discretionary leave to remain instead. So after suffering hardship, persecution and possibly torture in their own countries, having made the difficult decision to leave their homeland, and having struggled for years through the UK asylum system with the humiliations and frustrations that entails, they too are now caught in the DLR trap. As you mention, the fees are calculated per person, including for even the tiniest children. The government is making a huge profit out of people who have come to this country seeking a place of safety. Guardian readers might wish to join asylum and refugee support groups up and down the country who are campaigning on this issue.
Barbara Forbes
Birmingham
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Continue reading...Gotabaya Rajapaksa was defence secretary in last years of war against Tamil Tigers
The brother of the former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa is being sued in a US court over alleged extrajudicial killing and torture, by the same lawyers who successfully brought a civil suit against the Syrian government for the killing of the Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa was Sri Lanka’s defence secretary during the final years of the country’s civil war against the Tamil Tigers until his brother lost the presidency in 2015, and has been mooted as the family’s presidential candidate in this year’s election.
Continue reading...Exclusive: cuts, burns and bruising documented, despite government denials of torture
Political prisoners in Saudi Arabia are said to be suffering from malnutrition, cuts, bruises and burns, according to leaked medical reports that are understood to have been prepared for the country’s ruler, King Salman.
The reports seem to provide the first documented evidence from within the heart of the royal court that political prisoners are facing severe physical abuse, despite the government’s denials that men and women in custody are being tortured.
Continue reading...Bahrain will do anything to hunt down dissident athletes and their families. International sporting bodies must step up to protect the helpless
I can never truly express my gratitude to you all, the Australian people, for bringing me home. There were countless dark moments over the 76 days of my detention, when my future looked nothing but bleak. The prospect of never seeing my wife, family or friends again became too close to reality.
The moment I was reunited with my loved ones, hundreds of supporters made it to the airport to give me a warm welcome that went far beyond my imagination. It is something I will never forget for the rest of my life.
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...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...