Category Archives: Helena Kennedy

Turkey should face international court over Yazidi genocide, report says

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Exclusive: Investigation by group of prominent human rights lawyers also criticises Syria and Iraq

Turkey should face charges in front of the international court of justice for being complicit in acts of genocide against the Yazidi people, while Syria and Iraq failed in their duty to prevent the killings, an investigation endorsed by British human rights lawyer Helena Kennedy has said.

The groundbreaking report, compiled by a group of prominent human rights lawyers, is seeking to highlight the binding responsibility states have to prevent genocide on their territories, even if they are carried out by a third party such as Islamic State (IS).

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Report urges Scottish government to introduce misogyny act

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Working group led by Helena Kennedy QC recommends law to crack down on daily abuses that ‘absolutely degrade women’s lives’

A misogyny act for Scotland, created exclusively for women to crack down on street harassment, organised online hate and an onslaught of rape and disfigurement threats, has been recommended to the Scottish government by Helena Kennedy.

Set up in February 2021 to consider the creation of a standalone offence of misogynist hate crime, Lady Kennedy’s working group has returned a far more ambitious report that recommends naming explicitly the daily abuses that “absolutely degrade women’s lives”.

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Angry TV film-makers stop release of lauded Iranian documentary

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Coup 53, which charts MI6’s role in the shah’s restoration, has been blocked by makers of an 1985 show, who say it sullies their names

Coup 53 was heralded by critics this summer as a “powerful and authoritative” documentary “as gripping as any thriller”, and judged by historians as crucial to understanding Britain’s relationship with the Middle East.

Made over 10 years by Walter Murch, the celebrated editor of Apocalypse Now and The English Patient, in collaboration with the Anglo-Iranian director Taghi Amirani, it tells the story of covert British intervention in Iran after the second world war and stars Ralph Fiennes, left, as an MI6 spy in a reconstruction of a key incident.

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