Amnesty does not apply to dual nationals, prisoners on death sentence or those that do not regret their crimes, say officials
A limited amnesty is to be offered to many of those detained in the recent Iranian protests, the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has agreed.
But the amnesty does not apply to dual nationals, those convicted of offences carrying the death penalty or those that refuse to admit and regret their crimes, the Iranian officials said.
Continue reading...Two teenagers and 31-year-old man were subjected to torture including rape and beatings and denied fair trial, says group
The alleged torture of three young Iranian men facing the death penalty has been detailed in a report by Amnesty International that raises deep concerns about the country’s judicial system.
One of the men, Mehdi Mohammadifard, was raped by prison guards and severely beaten, the rights group said. Amnesty said it had learned that Mohammadifard suffered anal injuries and rectal bleeding that required treatment in a hospital outside the prison where he was being held.
Continue reading...Sahand Noor Mohammadzadeh is accused of damaging public property during anti-government riots and ‘waging war against God’
Iran’s supreme court has accepted a protester’s appeal against his death sentence for allegedly damaging public property during anti-government demonstrations, and sent his case back for review, the judiciary said on Saturday.
Sahand Noor Mohammadzadeh, 25, was arrested on 4 October and sentenced to death two months later on the charge of “waging war against God” for allegedly trying to break a highway guardrail in Tehran and setting a rubbish bin on fire.
Continue reading...Group says Moroccan and Spanish police failed to provide even basic first aid for hours after deadly crush at enclave
The “widespread use of unlawful force” by Moroccan and Spanish authorities contributed to the deaths of at least 37 people who perished during a mass storming of the border fence between Morocco and Spain’s north African enclave of Melilla in June, according to a report.
The Amnesty International report also accuses Moroccan and Spanish police of failing to provide even basic first aid to those injured in the crush as they were left “in the full glare of the sun for up to eight hours”. It says Moroccan authorities prioritised moving corpses and treating security officials above the needs of injured migrants and refugees.
Continue reading...Uncle of Mohsen Shekari, who was convicted of ‘waging war against God’, says family have not been told location of body
Iran has conducted the first known execution in relation to the anti-government protests that have rocked the country, hanging a man who was found guilty by a revolutionary court of “waging war against God”.
Mohsen Shekari was accused of blocking a street and wounding a member of the pro-regime Basij militia on 25 September, during the early phase of the protests triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.
Continue reading...Critics claim latest effort to reduce Channel crossings is ‘throwing good money after bad’
Conservative MPs have joined unions and refugee groups in condemning a £63m deal signed by Suella Braverman with her French counterpart to reduce the number of people attempting to cross the Channel in small boats.
Natalie Elphicke, the member for Dover, and Tim Loughton, a senior home affairs select committee member, questioned whether the bilateral agreement will do enough to address a surge of new arrivals after it failed to establish joint patrols or guarantee that people smugglers are detained.
Continue reading...Video apparently shows crowds marching in Zahedan to condemn 30 September massacre of activists
Thousands of Iranians protested in the restive south-east to mark a 30 September crackdown by security forces known as “Bloody Friday” as the country’s rulers faced persistent nationwide unrest.
Amnesty International said security forces unlawfully killed at least 66 people in September after firing at protesters in Zahedan, capital of flashpoint Sistan and Baluchistan province. Authorities said dissidents had provoked the clashes.
Continue reading...Global spotlight on host country has heightened scrutiny of human rights record, with Biden due to meet Sisi
As Egyptian officials strive to control the narrative and isolate the case of the detained British Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, pressure is mounting on world leaders at Cop27 to acknowledge Egypt’s poor human rights record and raise his case.
The Egyptian authorities have engaged in a sweeping public relations campaign to try to discredit Abd el-Fattah, including a digital campaign depicting him as a threat to national security.
Continue reading...Crowds in Mahabad also fired on during rally held after funeral of protester Ismail Mauludi
Iranian security forces have opened fired on protesters in Zahedan a month after a massacre that killed scores of people in the restive south-eastern city.
Crowds were also fired on in Mahabad, another city with a long history of resistance against the regime, in renewed deadly violence at the end of the sixth week of unrest sparked by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini on 16 September.
Continue reading...Tehran says film-makers, athletes and actors who have backed demonstrations ‘fanned flames of riots’
Iran has stepped up pressure on celebrities and journalists over the wave of women-led protests sparked by outrage over the death of Mahsa Amini, after she was arrested by the Islamic republic’s morality police.
Film-makers, athletes, musicians and actors have backed the demonstrations, and many saw it as a signal when the national football team remained in their black tracksuits when the anthems were played before a match in Vienna against Senegal.
Continue reading...Csaba Vasvári’s claims of ‘overreach’ follow freeze on EU funds over concerns about judicial independence
Viktor Orbán’s government is “constantly overreaching” its authority to sway the courts, a senior judge has said, in an intervention that will deepen alarm about the rule of law in Hungary.
In rare comments that lift the lid on the Hungarian government’s assault on judicial checks and balances, Csaba Vasvári, a senior judge at the Budapest metropolitan court, told the Observer that he and his colleagues on the bench “have been witnessing external and internal influence attempts” for several years. Vasvári, who has worked as a judge for 18 years, is a spokesperson for the National Judicial Council, a self-governing body that has been battling to defend judges’ independence for more than a decade.
Continue reading...Rights group defends allegations that military endangered civilians but says none of them justify Russia’s actions
Amnesty International has said it “deeply regrets the distress and anger” caused after it alleged that Ukrainian forces were flouting international law by exposing civilians to Russian fire.
“We fully stand by our findings,” the rights group said on Sunday, but it stressed that “nothing we documented Ukrainian forces doing in any way justifies Russian violations”.
Continue reading...Ukrainian president and British and US ambassadors criticise report that says soldiers should not be based in empty schools
A report by Amnesty International accusing the Ukrainian army of endangering civilians has drawn criticism from western diplomats, including the British and US ambassadors to Ukraine, as the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, attacked its findings.
The report accused the Ukrainian military of putting civilians at risk by positioning themselves in residential areas, saying that soldiers should not be basing themselves in empty schools or repurposing civilian buildings in urban areas as it meant the Russians would target them and civilians would be caught up in the crossfire.
But critics say the report was poorly researched and put together. They argue that the report ignores Ukraine’s wartime realities and draws moral equivalence between Russia, the aggressor, and Ukraine, the victim.
Continue reading...Ukraine government and international law experts argue report ignores wartime realities
Amnesty International has said the Ukrainian army is endangering the life of civilians by basing themselves in residential areas, in a report rejected by Ukrainian government representatives as placing blame on it for Russia’s invasion.
The human rights group’s researchers found that Ukrainian forces were using some schools and hospitals as bases, firing near houses and sometimes living in residential flats. The report concluded that this meant in some instances Russian forces would respond to an attack or target residential areas – putting civilians at risk and damaging civilian infrastructure.
Continue reading...More than 36,000 people arrested in just over two months in crackdown orchestrated by President Nayib Bukele
Amnesty International has accused El Salvador’s government of committing “massive human rights violations” during an extraordinary security crackdown that has seen more than 36,000 people arrested in just over two months.
The clampdown was orchestrated by the Central American country’s authoritarian-minded president, Nayib Bukele, in late March after a sudden eruption of bloodshed that saw 87 murders in a single weekend.
Continue reading...Amnesty International calls for restoring full tribal control over crimes on Native land to improve enforcement
Amnesty International has called on the US government to fully restore tribal jurisdiction over crimes on Native lands in the face of staggeringly high rates of sexual violence against Native women, according to a report released on Tuesday.
Nearly one in three American Indian and Alaska Native women have been raped – more than twice the average for white women and probably an undercount given gaps in data collection, according to the report.
Continue reading...Award given for the interactive reconstruction of the moment Israeli forces hit a residential tower block in Gaza
The Guardian has won a prestigious Amnesty media award for the interactive reconstruction Countdown to the airstrike: the moment Israeli forces hit al-Jalaa tower, Gaza, showing the race to evacuate residents of a block of flats before their homes were turned to rubble.
The Best Use of Digital Media award was given to the Guardian’s Global Development reporter Kaamil Ahmed and interactive designer Garry Blight, Airwars’ Joe Dyke and the Gaza-based journalist Anas Baba for their use of video, images and audio captured by the residents of al-Jalaa tower in the hour after Israeli forces called to tell them it would be demolished.
Continue reading...Two men convicted of killing Zak Kostopoulos but human rights groups express dismay as officers walk free
A Greek court’s decision to exonerate four police officers involved in the brutal death of an LGBTQ+ activist in Athens has alarmed human rights groups, which deplored the verdict as profoundly unjust.
Two men were found guilty on Tuesday of participating in the killing of Zak Kostopoulos, but the four police officers, also accused of causing fatal bodily harm, were allowed to walk free.
Continue reading...Human Rights Watch-Amnesty report accuses Ethiopian paramilitaries of war crimes and crimes against humanity
Ethiopian paramilitaries have carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Tigray, forcing hundreds of thousands of people from their homes using threats, killings and sexual violence, according to a joint report by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
The rights groups accuse officials and paramilitaries from the neighbouring Amhara region of war crimes and crimes against humanity in western Tigray, in northern Ethiopia.
Continue reading...Justice secretary Dominic Raab’s proposals will ‘slash away’ at rights of ordinary people to challenge government, group says
Amnesty International has criticised plans by the justice secretary Dominic Raab to replace Labour’s Human Rights Act with a British bill of rights.
Raab has argued that the proposal will better protect the press in exposing wrongdoing and said he feared free speech was being “whittled away” by “wokery and political correctness”.
The deputy prime minister told the Daily Mail that under plans being drawn up, there would be only limited restrictions placed on the protections on free speech with checks to stop people abusing it to promote terrorism.
Laura Trevelyan, Amnesty’s human rights in the UK campaign manager, hit out at his plan on Saturday.
“Scrapping the Human Rights Act has long been the intention of Mr Raab and others not because they want to extend any protections, but because they want to slash away at the powers ordinary people have got to challenge the government and its decisions,” she said.
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