Category Archives: Amnesty International

Viktor Orbán’s grip on Hungary’s courts threatens rule of law, warns judge

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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.

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Amnesty regrets ‘distress’ caused by claims in Ukraine report

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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”.

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Zelenskiy rebukes Amnesty for accusing Ukraine of endangering civilians

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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.

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Ukraine ‘endangers civilians’ with army bases in residential areas, says Amnesty

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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.

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El Salvador accused of ‘massive’ human rights violations with 2% of adults in prison

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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.

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‘Jurisdictional maze’ hinders investigation of sexual violence against Native women, report says

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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.

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Guardian wins Amnesty media award for best use of digital media

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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.

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Greek court acquits four police officers over death of LGBT activist

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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.

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Tigray has been the scene of ‘ethnic cleansing’, say human rights groups

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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.

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Amnesty hits out at Tory plans to replace Human Rights Act with bill of rights

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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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Australian man, 83, dies in Iranian prison after being denied healthcare

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Amnesty says Australian-Iranian Shokrollah Jebeli was subjected to ‘more than two years of torture’

An Australian-Iranian man in his eighties jailed over a financial dispute has died in prison in Iran, Amnesty International said, accusing Tehran of subjecting him to torture by denying urgent medical care.

Shokrollah Jebeli,83, who had been incarcerated in Tehran’s Evin prison since January 2020, died on Sunday after being taken from prison to hospital the previous day, Amnesty said.

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Harry and Meghan add voices to fierce critique of west’s Covid vaccine policies

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Pair join Gordon Brown and 126 others in attack on ‘self-defeating nationalism, pharmaceutical monopolies and inequality’

Prince Harry and Meghan, the actor Charlize Theron and the former British prime minister Gordon Brown are among 130 signatories to a letter lambasting wealthy countries’ approach to the Covid-19 pandemic, labelling it “immoral, entirely self-defeating and also an ethical, economic and epidemiological failure”.

In a strongly worded open letter published on Friday, the signatories warned “the pandemic is not over”, and said the failure to vaccinate the world was down to “self-defeating nationalism, pharmaceutical monopolies and inequality”.

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Analysis: what weapons is Russia deploying in Ukraine invasion?

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Fears that use of indiscriminate armaments could amount to war crimes

Footage captured by a CNN crew of the deployment of a T0S-1 heavy flame thrower system which was filmed being transported towards the Ukrainian border on Saturday has focused increased attention on what weapons Russia is beginning to deploy and how indiscriminate they are.

The TOS-1, nicknamed the “Buratino” – the Russian version of Pinocchio – for its big nose, is one of the most feared weapons systems in Russia’s conventional armoury, a multiple launch rocket system mounted on the chassis of a T-72 tank capable of firing thermobaric rockets which use oxygen from the surrounding air to generate a high-temperature explosion.

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Illegal logging threatens Cambodia’s indigenous people, says Amnesty

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Country’s ‘corrupt’ approach to conservation leaves protected forests facing ‘oblivion’, human rights watchdog warns

Rampant illegal logging of protected forests is threatening the cultural survival and livelihoods of indigenous people in Cambodia, according to Amnesty International.

Members of the Kuy people, one of the largest of Cambodia’s 24 indigenous groups, told Amnesty how deforestation in two protected forests, along with government restrictions on access have undermined their way of life and violated their human rights.

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Egyptian researcher’s mother ‘jumping for joy’ after court orders release

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Patrick Zaki was detained last year and still faces charges of ‘spreading false news’

An Egyptian court has ordered the release of researcher Patrick Zaki, whose detention in February last year sparked international condemnation, particularly in Italy where he had been studying, his family said.

“I’m jumping for joy!” his mother, Hala Sobhi, told AFP. “We’re now on our way to the police station in Mansoura,” a city in Egypt’s Nile Delta, where Zaki is from.

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Amnesty UK accused of ‘spreading false information’ about Northern Territory Covid outbreak

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NT Aboriginal health organisation and Amnesty’s Australian arm ‘extremely disappointed’ by UK office’s statement

Amnesty UK has been accused of “spreading false information” about the Northern Territory’s Covid outbreak in an extraordinary joint statement from the territory’s peak Aboriginal health organisation and Amnesty’s own Australian operation.

Disinformation about the Covid outbreak in Aboriginal communities near Katherine, spread by third parties online, was on Thursday described by the NT chief minister as “conspiracy theories” pushed by “tinfoil hat wearing tossers”.

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Amnesty International to close Hong Kong offices due to national security law

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Human rights watchdog cites staff safety among reasons over decision to leave city for first time in 40 years

Amnesty International will close its Hong Kong offices by the end of the year, citing concerns for the safety of staff trying to operate under the national security law.

The decision, announced on Monday, will leave the city without the human rights organisation’s presence for the first time in 40 years.

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Big pharma fuelling human rights crisis over Covid vaccine inequity – Amnesty

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Six companies warned not to put profit before lives as report shows less than 1% of almost 6bn doses have gone to low-income countries

Amnesty International has accused six pharmaceutical companies that have developed Covid-19 vaccines of fuelling a global human rights crisis, citing their refusal to sufficiently waive intellectual property rights, share vaccine technology and boost global vaccine supply.

After assessing the performance of six Covid-19 vaccine developers – Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and Novavax – Amnesty International claims that all are failing to uphold their own human rights commitments and warns they should not be putting profit before the lives of people in the world’s poorest countries.

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Journalist who tracked Viktor Orban’s childhood friend infected with spyware

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Dániel Németh’s phones infected with Pegasus software while reporting on one of Hungary’s richest men

Dániel Németh, a Budapest-based photojournalist, has tried to keep a low profile in his groundbreaking work investigating and documenting the luxury lifestyle of Hungary’s ruling elite.

While his name is not well known, the 46-year-old has managed to use his drone, and public flight and ship tracking data, to find and photograph politicians and pro-government business figures, exposing their hidden luxuries such as yachts in exotic locations.

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Ten women and girls killed every day in Mexico, Amnesty report says

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Families often left to do their investigations into killings amid widespread indifference by authorities, report claims

At least 10 women and girls are murdered every day in Mexico, according to a new report that says victims’ families are often left to carry out their own homicide investigations.

The scathing report, released on Monday by Amnesty International, documents both the scale of the violence and the disturbing lack of interest on the part of Mexican authorities to prevent or solve the murders.

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