President Akufo-Addo has reiterated Ghana’s unwavering commitment to upholding human rights and the rule of law, affirming that the country will not deviate from its longstanding record in this regard.
He made the comment quickly after he revealed concerns raised by countries deemed to be friends of Ghana over the recent passage of the Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, also known as the Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill.
The United Nations has accused the Nicaraguan government of violating people’s rights to an extent that amounts to serious crimes against humanity.This is happening as the government tries to control political opposition.
For many years, President Daniel Ortega’s government has been targeting people who disagree with them. In 2018, huge protests against the government led to a violent crackdown by the authorities.
But in the last year, the government has started to control more and more of society to stop any opposition in the future. This information comes from a group of UN experts who have been looking into the issue since March 2022.
“Nicaragua is in a lot of violence where people who disagree with the government are being targeted and punished,” said Jan Simon, an expert leading the investigation. “The Government has made it difficult for anyone to speak out against them. ”
Ortega’s government keeps saying that the big protests against it in 2018 were actually a failed attempt to take over the government, organized by the United States. And when people criticize the government, it usually responds in the same way.
The government has attacked regular people, such as students, Indigenous and Black Nicaraguans, and members of the Catholic Church. Kids and their families are being targeted just because they are related to people who speak out against the government.
In December, the police accused the director of the Miss Nicaragua competition of planning to manipulate the competition against beauty queens who support the government. In February, the government closed down more social clubs, like the country’s scouting group and a rotary club.
The report said the crackdown has spread to people who have left Nicaragua because of government repression. Many of them have gone to the United States and Costa Rica. Many Nicaraguans have lost their citizenship and are now without a country and cannot access important rights.
The UN report asked the Ortega government to let go of Nicaraguans who were put in jail for no reason and also asked leaders from around the world to put more sanctions on people and organizations that are involved in violations of human rights.
The Western Togoland Governing Council and Defense Council have introduced a specialized task force to execute three pivotal assignments, marking a significant development in the region.
In an official statement, the Council clarified that the task force, inaugurated on January 18, 2024, will undertake a campaign opposing voting in areas encompassed by Western Togoland, scrutinize and compile information on individuals assisting or cooperating with the Ghanaian government in the illegal apprehension and confinement of Western Togoland activists, and observe and document endorsements of the Ghanaian government’s actions.
The leadership of the council has urged the public to stay away from any gatherings related to voting in Western Togoland.
The move comes as the UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has ruled against Ghana and demanded the release of Western Togoland activists, but the Ghanaian government has failed to comply.
The task force’s actions are a response to what the council consider to be violations of human rights and a futureless Union with Ghana.
Traditional rulers were also urged to be diligent in their dealings with the Western Togoland cause and not follow politicians who violate human rights.
The Western Togoland Governing Council and the Defense Council have announced the formation of a special task force to carry out three key assignments.
The task force, launched on January 18, 2024, will implement a campaign against voting in all territories within the borders of Western Togoland, investigate and document individuals aiding or collaborating with the Ghanaian government in the unlawful arrest and detention of Western Togoland activists, and monitor and record comments in support of the Ghanaian government’s actions.
The public is urged to stay away from any gatherings related to voting in Western Togoland.
This development coincides with the UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention ruling against Ghana and demanding the release of Western Togoland activists, which the Ghanaian government has yet to comply with.
The task force’s actions are a response to what the council considers violations of human rights and a perceived undesirable union with Ghana.
The council is urging traditional rulers to be diligent in their dealings with the Western Togoland cause and not to align with politicians who violate human rights.
A court in Bangladesh has sentenced Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus to six months in prison for violating the country’s labor laws.
Professor Yunus harshly criticized Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
His supporters believe the incident was politically motivated. The famous economist and three colleagues of Grameen Telecom – one of the companies he founded – were convicted of not establishing a social protection fund for workers.
All four deny any wrongdoing and have been released on bail pending appeal.
“As my lawyers argued convincingly in court, this judgment against me flies in the face of all legal precedent and logic,” Professor Yunus said in a statement released after the verdict.
“I call on the people of Bangladesh to speak out against injustice and support democracy and human rights for all our citizens.
” Yunus, 83, is known around the world as the “banker for the poor,” credited with establishing a pioneering microfinance lending system that helped millions escape poverty.
Professor Yunus and his Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their pioneering work in 2006.
Bangladesh must end attacks on ‘bankers for the poor’ Discussing the verdict, one of his lawyers, Abdullah Al Mamun, told the media: “It is an unprecedented verdict.
No legal procedures were followed in this case and it was brought to trial hastily”.
“The idea is to damage its international reputation,” Mr. Mamun added We are appealing this verdict.
” Professor Yunus’ lawyers said he faces more than 100 other charges of labor violations and corruption allegations.
Ms Hasina once described Professor Yunus as a “bloodsucker” of the poor and accused Grameen Bank of charging exorbitant interest rates.
Irene Khan, former director of the human rights organization Amnesty International and a special rapporteur for the United Nations, was present at Monday’s trial.
She told AFP news agency that the verdict was a “betrayal of justice”.
In August, more than 170 global figures called on Ms. Hasina to end the “persecution” of Professor Yunus.
The letter, whose signatures include former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Virgin founder Richard Branson and U2 singer Bono, demands that the “continued legal harassment” of Professor Yunus cease.
Ms Hasina said she has invited international experts to evaluate the ongoing legal proceedings against Professor Yunus.
It is unclear what led to the friction between Ms Hasina and Professor Yunus, but the economist’s supporters said the government was trying to discredit him because he had considered forming a political party to compete with the ruling Awami League.
A female politician from Thailand was given a six-year prison sentence for breaking strict laws about criticizing the royal family. She has been let out of jail after paying bail.
Rukchanok “Ice” Srinork was blamed for posting tweets that said bad things about the king. She said she did not do it.
The Move Forward party won the election and wants to change the lese-majeste laws.
However, the senate, which is not voted into their positions, used this as the main reason for stopping the party from forming a government.
People were upset about the lese-majeste laws, which led to big protests in 2020 that went on for many months. Thai Lawyers for Human Rights say that about 260 people have been charged with breaking the lese-majeste law since 2020. Around 2,000 people have been charged with breaking the law for taking part in the protests.
Earlier this week, a 26 year-old man was sent to prison for yelling at a royal motorcade about something he thinks is a problem for society. He is out of jail after paying some money.
Ice from the Move Forward party was found guilty by a Bangkok court on Wednesday for making two posts that insulted the monarch. In one post, she criticized how the country dealt with the pandemic, and in the other post, she shared a tweet that was critical of the monarchy.
The 28-year-old will not be able to keep her job if she goes to jail.
She won a big election in May even though the area usually voted for a powerful family. She didn’t spend a lot of money, but just rode a bike and still won.
She was called “giant-killer” by a Thai news outlet because she won against a very powerful politician.
Many important people in the Move Forward party are also accused of insulting the monarchy. Some of them were activists in the 2020 protests.
The protests started because of a court decision in February 2020 that shut down Future Forward, the old version of Move Forward party. It was the first party to campaign for big changes in Thailand’s institutions.
Future Forward did really well in the 2019 election because a lot of younger voters were really excited about them. This year, Move Forward surprised Thailand’s leaders by doing really well and winning more seats than any other party. Ice’s victory in Bang Bon played a big part in their success.
After King Vajiralongkorn became king in 2016, the lese-majeste law was not used for about two years because the king asked for it.
However, when the protesters in 2020 demanded changes to the royal family, the authorities began to use the law more strictly than ever before in Thailand’s history.
The lese-majeste law is very broad, so it’s hard to defend against it in court.
It is a law that deals with keeping the country safe, and judges don’t often declare defendants as not guilty. Trials are sometimes held in secret, without anyone else watching. Defendants are strongly pressured to admit they are guilty, even if they have a strong case. If they admit guilt, they are likely to get a shorter sentence from the judge.
Legal cases in Thailand usually last for a long time, and the young activists involved in the 2020 protests will have to spend a lot of time in court dealing with serious charges. This will affect their lives for a long time.
This way of making the legal process slow has been very effective at stopping the protest movement. The leaders of the protest are facing many charges and do not have time to plan and organize right now.
A new law will allow the government to move forward with its Rwanda policy by letting ministers ignore certain human rights laws.
The Home Office said the bill, which will be introduced to Parliament on Thursday, states in UK law that Rwanda is a safe country for asylum seekers.
The new agreement was signed by Home Secretary James Cleverly with a country in East Africa.
The treaty and bill aim to tackle the issues raised by the Supreme Court.
The top court in the UK said it was not allowed to send some people seeking asylum to Rwanda.
In April 2022, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a plan to stop people from crossing the Channel in small boats.
Legal issues have caused delays, so no one seeking asylum has been sent to Rwanda from the UK.
The bill needs to be approved by Parliament and it removes certain parts of the Human Rights Act.
However, it doesn’t go as far as some Conservative MPs on the party’s right would have wanted.
Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman and her supporters wanted to get rid of the Human Rights Act and other international laws.
Someone who knows Mrs. Braverman well said the bill has serious problems and will be stuck in the courts for a long time.
“The prime minister has allowed all illegal migrants to make human rights claims if they are being sent back, and they can appeal if their claims are denied,” according to the source.
“It’s another letdown for the Tory voters and the normal patriotic people who want to stop this madness. ”
The new law admits that it might not follow basic human rights rules.
Laws don’t usually come before members of parliament with a legal warning.
This is the second time this year that the government has asked Parliament to vote on laws that might not be legal – the first time was with the Illegal Migration Act.
Lawyers have warned government officials that the new laws in Rwanda could be challenged in court and might not be compatible with human rights obligations.
Rwanda’s foreign minister, Vincent Biruta, said that the country cannot continue with the plan unless the UK behaves according to the law.
He said: “Rwanda and the UK both think it’s really important that our partnership follows international law and requires both countries to act in a lawful way. ”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that with the new emergency law, we will be able to control who comes into our country, stop people from making dangerous trips across the channel, and reduce the number of lawsuits in our courts.
The Queen mother of Sompaa, Nana Akosua Akomah, in the Sunyani Traditional Area, has expressed the view that the human rights enjoyed by girls are contributing to the rise in teenage pregnancy in the country.
Nana Akomah remarked that many girls have become wayward, and parents are losing control over them due to the influence of what she referred to as “the so-called human rights which have eaten into their minds.”
While acknowledging that girls have certain rights, she emphasized the responsibility of parents to ensure their upbringing in a God-fearing and more responsible manner.
She said, “nowadays you can’t even discipline or punish your own daughter because of the so-called human rights. There are excesses in some of these human rights provisions, alien to our culture and tradition and we must re-look and revise them to enable us to discipline our wayward girls in society.”
The Queen mother made these remarks during a stakeholder’s engagement focused on disseminating the National Family Planning (FP) 2030 commitment, which coincided with the launch of FP Day in Sunyani.
With support from its partners, the Bono Regional Directorate of Health organized the engagement, which saw the participation of representatives from various groups including transport unions, market women traders’ associations, disability groups, health workers, and traditional authorities.
One of the key objectives of the meeting was to sensitize participants about the nation’s FP 2030 commitment, protocols, and acceptor rate, among other pertinent topics.
Dr. Prince Quarshie, the Deputy Director of Public Health at the Bono Regional Directorate of Health, has emphasized the importance of parents encouraging their girls to access Family Planning (FP) services to address and control the rising cases of teenage pregnancies in the country.
He dispelled myths surrounding FP services, clarifying that methods such as combined pills, secure, injectables, spermicides, intra-uterine contraceptive devices, implants, and vasectomies are not harmful to human health.
Dr. Quarshie highlighted that despite intensified public education on FP services, the acceptor rate in the Bono Region remains low. The rate decreased from 42.2% in 2021 to 30.2% in 2022 and further to 27.2% in 2023. However, he noted that some districts and municipalities in the region have shown encouraging FP acceptor rates.
The Deputy Director emphasized that individuals or couples, including teenagers, are eligible to choose their preferred FP options. He advised health workers to counsel and provide sexually active individuals with the necessary services.
Furthermore, Dr. Quarshie mentioned that FP services are covered by the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), and those registered with the scheme can use their cards to access these services.
The primary opposition party in Uganda has reported the arrest of its leader, Robert Kyagulanyi, also known as Bobi Wine, upon his arrival at Entebbe International Airport from abroad.
The National Unity Party had intended to organize rallies and condemned Bobi Wine’s arrest as “cowardly.”
A video circulating on social media depicted Bobi Wine being apprehended by a group of individuals as he disembarked from the plane.
Screenshots from another video suggested that the leader was later seen at his residence, accompanied by the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, Mathias Mpuuga.
Before Mr. Kyagulanyi’s return, the police had declared a planned procession from the airport as illegal.
President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, has faced criticism for his growing intolerance of the opposition.
Bobi Wine has been arrested multiple times and has faced various charges, including treason.
Human rights organizations assert that the authorities have routinely used fabricated charges to suppress the opposition.
On Wednesday, the European Court of Human Rights will listen to an exceptional lawsuit filed by six young individuals. They are accusing 32 European countries of not taking sufficient action to address the climate crisis caused by humans.
The young people from Portugal, who are between 11 and 24 years old, believe that they are most affected by climate change. They want to ask the court to make these countries take quick and strong action to combat climate change.
This is the first time a climate case has been brought to the European Court of Human Rights. It is the biggest out of three climate lawsuits that the court is currently handling.
There is a lot to gain or lose. If this case is won, countries would have to quickly increase their efforts to combat climate change. It would also strengthen other climate-related lawsuits globally, especially those claiming that countries have a responsibility to protect people from the effects of climate change.
If the court decides against the people making the claim, it could harm other claims related to climate.
Gearóid Ó Cuinn, the director of Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), who has been supporting the claimants’ case, described it as a David and Goliath situation that is extraordinary in its size and potential consequences.
“He said to CNN that more states than ever before have had to protect themselves in front of any place in the world. ”
The process leading up to Wednesday’s hearing started six years ago. Catarina Mota, one of the people making a claim, said that everything began in 2017 with the fires.
Destructive wildfires burned a large area of land in Portugal, destroying 500,000 hectares, and causing the unfortunate death of over 100 individuals in that year. When the fires started to move closer to where Mota lived, they had to close down her school and other schools nearby. “She said the smoke was all around,” she told CNN.
The disaster caused the lawsuit to happen. Mota began talking to her friend and fellow claimant, Cláudia Duarte Agostinho. Together with the help of GLAN, they found four more people who were also affected by the fires in 2017.
The group argues that climate change, especially the intense heat waves in Portugal, continue to affect people’s lives even after the fires. They say these periods of time make it difficult to go outside, focus on schoolwork, sleep, and even breathe for some people. It also affects their mental health.
We are concerned about what will happen to us in the future. “Why wouldn’t we be afraid. ” said André dos Santos Oliviera, who is 15 years old.
The legal case was started in 2020 and has been financed mainly by many people contributing money online. The European Court of Human Rights moved the case quickly because it was important and involved many people being accused.
This Wednesday, the people making the claim will say that not dealing with the growing climate crisis is violating their basic rights, such as the right to live and have a family, to be treated with dignity, and to not be treated unfairly because of their age.
They want the court to decide that countries that contribute to the climate crisis must not only protect their own citizens but also people in other countries.
They want 32 countries, including 27 European Union countries, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, to greatly reduce the pollution that causes global warming. They also want companies based in these countries to reduce emissions throughout their entire supply chains.
The countries being sued are saying that none of the people making the claims have proven that they have been seriously harmed by climate change.
The Greek government, after a tough summer of extreme heat, fires, and storms, said that they don’t think climate change has directly caused any harm to people or their health.
The court case could have different outcomes.
The court might reject the claim because of procedural issues or because it doesn’t have the authority to hear the case.
If it gets through the legal steps, the court may decide that states are not required to protect human rights in regards to climate change. Gerrard is the director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School.
Or, the court might decide in favor of the people making the claims. Ó Cuinn explained to CNN that the judgment would have a similar impact as a legally binding treaty, making it necessary for all 32 countries to speed up their efforts to address climate change.
Gerrard said to CNN that this decision could be very important and could encourage more climate cases in Europe and other regions.
The lawsuit is the biggest out of three cases that are currently being heard in court. All three cases are about how countries should take care of their people and their responsibilities related to climate change.
In March, the court listened to the other two. Over 2,000 older women from Switzerland said that climate change had made heat waves worse and affected their health and lives. A French mayor also said that France not doing anything about climate change was a violation of his human rights.
We don’t know if the courts will decide all the claims at once, but usually it takes nine to 18 months from the hearing to the judgment, according to Gerry Liston, a senior lawyer at GLAN.
As the weather gets more extreme, more and more people are using lawsuits to try and make the government take action on climate change. This is happening because countries have not been doing enough to reduce pollution and prevent dangerous levels of global warming.
Even if we follow current climate policies, the world will still become more than 2. 5 degrees Celsius warmer by the end of the century compared to before industries were developed. The planet has already gotten hotter by about 1. 2 degrees, and we can see the effects. This year has seen extremely hot weather, very large wildfires, and really bad floods.
Right now, countries are only doing the bare minimum, according to Liston from GLAN. If every nation keeps doing the bare minimum, we will continue on a very disastrous path.
That’s why individuals have been seeking help from the courts. According to the Sabin Center, there are over 2,400 climate lawsuits worldwide, and new ones are being filed every week.
Catherine Higham, who runs the Climate Change Laws of the World project at the London School of Economics, explained that climate litigation is a valuable tool. “But I think it’s just one part of the puzzle,” she told CNN.
Advocacy and attending climate conferences like the upcoming United Nations COP28 summit in Dubai are very important, she said.
The Portuguese claimants will have to wait anxiously for the court’s decision. Even if the claim doesn’t go their way, Mota said, at least it will make people pay attention and take notice.
However, she also said, “We really want things to turn out well. ”
A recent report from the United Nations (UN) states that many people from different parts of the world have been brought to Southeast Asia to carry out online scams.
Around 120,000 individuals in Myanmar and 100,000 in Cambodia have been compelled to participate in these fraudulent schemes.
Many of the people affected are men from Asia, but there are also some from other places like Africa and Latin America.
The UN report is the first study to look at the problem in a detailed way, even though this problem has been around for many years.
The report says that because of the pandemic, many people had to stay at home and use the internet more. This made it easier for online scammers to trick them.
Criminal gangs used to exploit vulnerable, uneducated individuals who needed money quickly. However, they are now focusing on victims with high-level jobs and advanced education, such as college graduates or even those with post-graduate degrees.
According to the report, a lot of the places where people are compelled to commit cyber crime have weak government control, lack proper rules and laws, and have disputed authority.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said that while we keep asking for fairness for those who have been tricked through online crimes, we need to remember that there are two groups of people who are hurt by this problem.
The UN believes that these scam centers make billions of US dollars each year.
Different news sources, like the BBC, have talked a lot with people who have been tricked by these groups of criminals.
Many times, people are tempted by advertisements that offer simple jobs and amazing benefits, but are fooled and end up going to Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand.
After they come, they are locked up and made to work in places where they deceive people on the internet. If people don’t obey, they could be in danger. Many people have been tortured and treated in a cruel and inhumane way.
Some networks also trick people looking for love and romance, which is often called “pig-butchering” scams. Last year, a 25-year-old person from Malaysia went to Bangkok to meet a person they only knew online. Unfortunately, this individual was tortured and killed in a very sad incident.
Instead, he was taken to Myanmar against his will and made to work for companies that are part of fraudulent activities on the internet. In one of his final phone calls to his parents, he told them that he was attacked because people thought he was lying about being sick. He passed away after spending a month in the intensive care unit.
The UN says that regulations in Southeast Asian countries are not as good as international standards. These regulations have not been able to keep up with the changes in online scam operations caused by the pandemic.
Pia Oberoi, someone who gives advice at the UN Human Rights Office, said that there are many more situations of people being taken advantage of that haven’t been reported. This is because the victims feel embarrassed and ashamed about the work they were tricked into doing.
The report said that we shouldn’t only focus on stopping organized crime or controlling the borders when dealing with this issue. Instead, we need to make sure that these victims of trafficking are kept safe and treated fairly.
Mr Türk asked governments to be firm in dealing with these criminal networks.
“He said that all states that are affected need to have the determination to make human rights stronger and improve how they are governed and how laws are followed. This includes making strong and continuous efforts to address and fight against corruption. ”
The Nigerian people, he added, would endure even more hardship as a result of last month’s coup, have drawn the utmost concern of the UN’s human rights chief.
Volker Türk urged the military leaders to reestablish the rule of law right away.
He claimed that with borders closed, trade at a halt, power outages, and rising food costs, the situation in a nation where over half of the population lives in abject poverty was getting worse.
His remarks come as West African army chiefs are gathering in Ghana for a second day to plan potential military action should diplomatic efforts to overthrow the coup prove unsuccessful.
Human Rights Watch (HRW), an advocacy group for human rights, has criticized the Chinese government for failing to “acknowledge and condemn” the pervasive anti-black racism on the Chinese internet.
“The Chinese government likes to tout China-Africa anti-colonial solidarity and unity, but at the same time ignores pervasive hate speech against Black people on the Chinese internet,” said Yaqiu Wang, HRW’s senior China researcher.
In recent years, China has witnessed a surge in the popularity of racist online content, as an increasing number of content creators seek to capitalize on it for profit.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), this type of content frequently perpetuates offensive racial stereotypes by portraying Africans as destitute and inferior compared to the Chinese, who are positioned as “saviors.”
The organization also pointed out that some of this content belittles interracial relationships involving black individuals, especially black men, who are criticized for supposedly tarnishing China’s image.
Furthermore, HRW’s findings revealed instances of accounts impersonating black individuals to disseminate fabricated and hostile information, alongside direct attacks on black individuals that even include calls for violence and harm. These attacks often extend to encompass the associates and advocates of black individuals.
The rights group also criticized both the Chinese government and social media platforms for their inadequate responses to reports of online racism, exemplified by cases like the 2022 BBC Africa Eye investigation titled “Racism for Sale.”
This documentary brought to light the sale of videos in which African children were coached by Chinese individuals to utter derogatory statements about themselves in Mandarin. Subsequently, a Chinese man was sentenced to 12 months in jail in Malawi on charges such as child trafficking and involving children in entertainment through coercive means.
HRW cautioned that if this prevailing trend of anti-black racism on China’s internet remains unchecked, it poses a substantial risk of fueling racial discrimination and even inciting violence against black individuals.
The so-called Islamic State group (IS) carried out an attack that resulted in the deaths of at least 33 soldiers who supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Two army trucks were ambushed overnight on Thursday in the eastern region of Deir el-Zour.
It is among the bloodiest acts of extremism committed this year, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a war monitoring organisation with headquarters in Britain.
There have been 33 deaths in the last two days, up from 23, but there are worries the figure will go up.
There were at least 10 additional victims of injuries, some of whom are still in critical condition.
35 people were killed, according to another activist group that reports on events in the east, and all of the victims were soldiers from the 17th Division of the Syrian army.
Statistics from SOHR show that since the beginning of 2023, 412 people have died during military operations in the Syrian desert.
The ambush was claimed by IS in a message posted on Telegram on Friday night.
Let the entire world know that we show our commitment to our leaders via deeds rather than words and that our jihad will continue till the end of the world.
This occurs a week after the apparent leader of the extreme group, Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurayshi, who had been in charge since November, passed away in Syria.
Since the organization’s founder, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was murdered by US troops in the nation’s northwest in 2019, he was the fourth leader to be assassinated.
In an attack in eastern Syria that IS terrorists are said to have carried out, at least 23 Syrian soldiers are reported to have died.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is located in the UK, the jihadists surrounded a military bus in eastern Deir al-Zour province before opening fire.
Numerous soldiers are reported to be missing, along with more than ten more soldiers who were hurt.
According to IS extremists, the strike was the bloodiest of this year.
Although it lost the majority of its land in 2019, IS continues to operate out of hiding places in the vast Syrian desert, where it conducts ambushes and hit-and-run operations.
According to a military source published by Sana news agency, a “terrorist” group assaulted a military bus on Thursday in the steppe desert on the road from the T2 pumping station, which is located south of the city of Deir al-Zour and near to the Iraqi border. Several soldiers were killed and injured in the attack.
Before being taken over by the Syrian army in 2017, the T2 pumping station served as an IS bastion.
The death toll is probably going to go substantially, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring organisation that depends on a large network of sources on the ground in Syria.
Raqa province claimed the lives of 10 Syrian military and pro-government fighters.
In recent weeks, IS members have upped their attacks in the north and northeast of Syria.
According to the president of Turkey, Abu Hussein al-Qurayshi, a former suspected leader of the IS group in Syria, was killed by Turkish soldiers in April.
IS previously controlled 88,000 square kilometres (34,000 square miles) of land, extending from northern Iraq to northeastern Syria, where it brutally ruled over about eight million people.
The UN has issued a warning that despite the group’s expulsion from its final area of territory in 2019, it still poses a persistent threat.
Over 200 Israeli citizens and Ethiopian Jews were relocated to Addis Abeba, the nation’s capital, using a special flight that Israel stated it had dispatched from two cities in the Amhara and Oromia regions affected by recent unrest.
Jewish residents number in the thousands in the Amhara region.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that he had ordered the evacuees to be removed from fighting zones and that they would travel to Israel.
Despite recent violent clashes between the army and local militias, relative quiet is still being reported in the largest cities in the Amhara region.
The army claimed to have recovered control in important areas, but local militias, according to residents of some smaller cities and rural areas, are still in command.
In the meantime, the US and the UK have joined forces with Japan, Australia, and New Zealand to voice their concerns on the deteriorating security in Ethiopia.
Recent violence in the Amhara and Oromia regions of the country “have resulted in civilian deaths and instability,” according to a joint statement made on Friday.
Prior to this, the UN’s Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia expressed its “deep concern” over the current unrest and urged the government to follow “the principles of necessity, proportionality, and non-discrimination” in enforcing a state of emergency that had been declared in response to the violence.
Gordon Brown has condemned cruel treatment meted out against women by the Taliban.
The former prime minister in an interview told the BBC that the kind of treatment meted out to women and girls in Afghanistan constitutes a “crime against humanity.”
He is therefore urging the International Criminal Court (ICC) to bring charges against those involved for the “vicious” violation of human rights.
Since retaking power in 2021, the Taliban administration has severely limited the liberties of women and girls.
He declared, “This is the systematic brutalization of women and girls.”
They’ve been excluded from education, from employment, and from going to public places, Mr. Brown, who is now the UN’s special envoy for global education, said in an interview with Nick Robinson of BBC Radio 4 Today.
“All of these restrictions constitute discrimination. It is arguably the most vile, vicious, and extensive violation of human rights in existence today.
He called the system “gender apartheid” and said it ought to be treated as a crime against humanity.
Therefore, it is proper for the International Criminal Court, which is in charge of handling crimes against humanity, to look into and pursue those involved.
The former Labour premier expressed dismay that “so little international pressure on the regime” and warned that the Taliban would change their minds under the strain of a probable trial.
Mr. Brown also urged leaders and clergy from nations with a majority of Muslims to act and for the UK to impose sanctions on the Taliban leadership.
Last month, Afghan women staged a rare demonstration against the Taliban’s decision to close female beauty salons.
Women are not allowed to enter universities, and girls are not allowed to attend secondary schools.
The entry of women and girls is also restricted, as is employment in non-governmental organisations.
Women described feeling “invisible, isolated, suffocated, living in prison-like conditions,” with many unable to meet their basic necessities without employment or assistance, according to past UN reports.
The UN’s human rights mission in Kampala will be closing after 18 years of operation, as the Ugandan government has terminated its mandate.
The sub-offices in Gulu and Moroto have already been shut down in northern Uganda.
This decision comes in the wake of Uganda passing some of the world’s toughest anti-LGBT laws, disregarding advice from local and international human rights organizations, including the UN.
In response, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, released a statement on Friday, urging the government to ensure the effective and independent functioning of Uganda’s national human rights body, which is tasked with overseeing human rights in the country.
Mr. Türk expressed concern over the continued closure of the majority of 54 NGOs that were arbitrarily suspended in 2021, as well as the potential further restrictions on free expression due to Uganda’s amended computer misuse law.
Moreover, he raised deep concern about the situation leading up to the 2026 elections, stating that human rights defenders, civil society members, and journalists in Uganda are facing an increasingly hostile environment.
“In the year under review, the company achieved sales of 348 tonnes of coffee compared with 185 tonnes in March 2022,” said the firm.
“The increase was mainly attributed to the favourable weather experienced in the year which enhanced bean development.”
Recently, the coffee sector in Kenya has come to a standstill as the government suspended coffee trading licenses for all traders in an effort to address the issue of cartels. As a result, the auction at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) has been inactive for over four weeks, leaving farmers burdened with unsold coffee beans.
Farmers are becoming increasingly concerned about the accumulation of stockpiles, fearing that when trading eventually resumes, the excess supply will lead to a sharp drop in prices, potentially resulting in financial losses for them.
The halt in coffee trading is not only impacting the farmers but also affecting the government, as coffee exports constitute a significant source of foreign exchange. At a time when the country is facing a rising import bill and increasing foreign debt payment obligations, the suspension poses challenges to the nation’s financial stability.
“The government had promised to extend existing marketing and brokerage permits by three months up to September through a gazette notice but that hasn’t happened,” an industry source told Nation last week.
Explaining its decision to end the mandate of the UN’s human rights office earlier this year, Uganda’s foreign ministry assured the UN of its “commitment to the protection and promotion of human rights”, and the presence of “strong national human rights institutions and a vibrant civil society”.
State media claimed on Sunday that morality police in Iran will start patrols to ensure that women adhere to rigid Islamic dress standards, ten months after the death of a young lady in their care sparked widespread protests.
Police will resume car and foot patrols around the nation starting on Sunday, according to Saeid Montazeralmahdi, a spokeswoman for Iran’s enforcement agency, Faraja, the state-run Fars news agency reported.
Officers would first issue warnings to women who are disobeying before taking legal action against those who “insist on breaking the norms,” the officer stated.
The morality police were cast into the international spotlight in September last year, when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died three days after being arrested by the force for wearing her hijab, or headscarf, incorrectly and taken to a “re-education” center.
Her death sparked nationwide protests that rocked the country, posing one of the biggest domestic threats to Iran’s ruling clerical regime in more than a decade.
Authorities responded violently to suppress the months-long movement, during which witnesses said the morality police had virtually disappeared from the streets of Tehran.
Iran executed at least 582 people last year, a 75% increase on 2021, according to human rights groups who say the rise reflects an effort by Tehran to instill fear among anti-regime protesters.
The morality police have access to power, arms and detention centers and control over “re-education centers,” Human Rights Watch told CNN last year. The group is sanctioned by the United States and the European Union.
The centers act like detention facilities, where women – and sometimes men – are taken into custody for failing to comply with the state’s rules on modesty.
Inside the facilities, detainees are given classes about Islam and the importance of the hijab, and are forced to sign a pledge to abide by the state’s clothing regulations before they are released.
In the aftermath of a Quran-burning stunt in Sweden that sparked protests throughout the Muslim world, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has endorsed a resolution on religious hate and bigotry.
The proposal was approved on Wednesday, but the United States and the European Union opposed it because they claimed it went against their stances on free speech and human rights.
Concerned by the incident last month outside Stockholm’s largest mosque, in which an immigrant from Iraq desecrated the Quran on the festival of Eid al-Adha, Pakistan and other OIC nations obtained an urgent debate at the UN’s highest rights council on Tuesday.
The resolution, among other things, called on countries to take steps to “prevent and prosecute acts and advocacy of religious hatred that constitute incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence”.
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari told the Geneva-based council via video on Tuesday: “We must see this clearly for what it is: incitement to religious hatred, discrimination and attempts to provoke violence.”
He said such acts occurred under “government sanction and with the sense of impunity”.
Bhutto Zardari’s remarks were echoed by ministers from Iran, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.
“Stop abusing freedom of expression,” said Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi. “Silence means complicity.”
UN human rights chief Volker Turk told the UNHRC that inflammatory acts against Muslims, as well as other religions or minorities, are “offensive, irresponsible and wrong”.
Sweden has condemned the Quran burning but maintains the country has a constitutionally-protected right to freedom of assembly, expression and demonstration.
On Tuesday, France’s ambassador Jerome Bonnafont noted that human rights “protect people – not religions, doctrines, beliefs or their symbols … It is neither for the United Nations nor for states to define what is sacred”.
How did your country vote?
UNHRC resolutions are not legally binding but are seen as strong political commitments by states.
Tuesday’s motion called for countries to review their laws and plug gaps that may “impede the prevention and prosecution of acts and advocacy of religious hatred.”
Here is how countries voted:
Yes:
Algeria; Argentina; Bangladesh; Bolivia; Cameroon; China; Cuba; Eritrea; Gabon; Gambia; India; Ivory Coast; Kazakhstan; Kyrgyzstan; Malawi; Malaysia; Maldives; Morocco; Pakistan; Qatar; Senegal; Somalia; South Africa; Sudan; Ukraine; UAE; Uzbekistan; Vietnam
No:
Belgium; Costa Rica; Czech Republic; Finland; France; Germany; Lithuania; Luxembourg; Montenegro; Romania; UK; US
On Friday, it is anticipated that the United States will announce its intention to provide Ukraine with cluster munitions, which are widely banned, as part of a security package worth $800 million.
Ukraine has stated that this move would have an “extraordinary psycho-emotional impact” on the occupying Russian forces. Cluster munitions are prohibited by over 100 countries due to their indiscriminate nature, as they release numerous smaller bomblets that can cause casualties over a wide area.
Unexploded ordnance from cluster munitions can pose a threat for many years after a conflict concludes. While human rights organizations oppose the decision made by Washington, these munitions could potentially bolster Ukraine’s efforts to launch a counteroffensive and regain control over territories that have been seized by Russian forces since their invasion in February 2022.
Human Rights Watch called on Tunisia on Friday to halt what it described as “collective expulsions” of Black African migrants, who are being relocated to a desert area near the Libyan border.
Over the past week, hundreds of migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa have been forced out of the port city of Sfax and left stranded in extremely poor conditions in southern Tunisia.
These expulsions have occurred amidst a backdrop of violence following the funeral of a 41-year-old Tunisian man who was fatally stabbed in Sfax during a clash between Tunisians and migrants.
Sfax, the second-largest city in the North African country, serves as a departure point for many migrants aiming to reach Europe via sea, often with the Italian island of Lampedusa located approximately 130 kilometers (80 miles) away.
“Tunisian security forces have collectively expelled several hundred Black African migrants and asylum seekers, including children and pregnant women, since July 2, to a remote, militarised buffer zone at the Tunisia-Libya border,” HRW said.
“Many reported violence by authorities during arrest or expulsion,” the New York-based watchdog said in a statement.
HRW’s Lauren Seibert urged Tunisia’s government to “halt collective expulsions and urgently enable humanitarian access to the African migrants and asylum seekers already expelled to a dangerous area”.
The group said migrants it interviewed alleged “several people died or were killed at the border area” between Sunday and Wednesday, “some shot, and others beaten” by Tunisian security forces.
“They also said that Libyan men carrying machetes or other weapons had robbed some people and raped several women,” HRW reported, adding it was unable to independently confirm the accounts.
HRW called on the government in Tunis to “investigate and hold to account security forces implicated in abuses”.”African migrants and asylum seekers, including children, are desperate to get out of the dangerous border zone and find food, medical care, and safety,” Seibert said. “There is no time to waste.”
Tunisia has seen a rise in racially motivated attacks after President Kais Saied in February accused “hordes” of undocumented migrants of bringing violence and alleging a “criminal plot” to change the country’s demographic make-up.
The United Nations Human Rights Commissioner has called on the British government to reconsider its proposed policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda.
This comes after the Court of Appeal in London ruled on Thursday that the policy is unlawful.
Commissioner for UN Human Rights, Volker Türk, expressed grave concerns about the British government’s plans, stating that they raise serious issues regarding international human rights and refugee laws.
The UN Refugee Agency also welcomed the court’s decision and suggested that the UK should explore alternative measures, including collaborating with its European counterparts.
Despite the ruling, the British government intends to pursue further appeals, emphasizing its determination to prevent the arrival of migrants via small boats.
In a historic decision that put an end to the possibility of harsher punishment nearly three years after the uncommon calls for reform of the powerful monarchy erupted in the kingdom, a Thai court on Wednesday exonerated five activists who were convicted of blocking the Queen‘s vehicle at a protest in 2020.
According to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, who defended two of the campaigners, a court in Bangkok cleared the defendants of all charges, concluding that they were unaware of the approaching royal procession.
“There was enormous tension in the room as we waited for the presiding judge to finish his verdict,” one of the defendants Bunkueanun “Francis” Paothong, 24, told CNN. “But as soon as he reached his conclusion we all felt relieved that our beliefs and determination have been vindicated.”
If found guilty, the defendants had faced a minimum sentence of 16 years in prison for allegedly “violating the Queen’s liberty and her well-being.” Maximum sentences included life imprisonment or even the death penalty.
The royal institution is regarded by many in Thailand with deity-like reverence and even speaking openly about the monarchy was long considered taboo.
Protesters in 2020 were calling for amendments to Article 112 of the Criminal Code – Thailand’s strict lese majeste law that criminalizes criticism of the monarchy and makes any frank discussion of the subject fraught with risk.
Lese majeste convictions carry long prison terms and currently, anyone can bring a case, even if they aren’t connected to the alleged crime.
Thailand’s Move Forward Party, which won the most votes in Thailand’s May election, has pledged to amend the law.
The incident in October 2020 was a turning point in the youth-led mass demonstrations that had broken out across the country for months. Thousands of people had taken to the streets demanding democratic and military reforms, constitutional change, and – what was unprecedented in Thailand – reform of the monarchy.
On October 14, 2020, dozens of protesters had gathered outside Bangkok’s Government House when Queen’s Suthida’s motorcade drove past.
Video from the scene showed the crowd shouting and holding up the three-finger salute inspired by the Hunger Games movie franchise that became a symbol of the protests. Police were seen pushing back the demonstrators as the car, which also carried King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s youngest son, Prince Dipangkorn, slowly drove past.
The incident with the royal motorcade was cited by the government as one of the reasons for announcing an emergency decree that banned gatherings of more than five people and a nationwide ban on publishing and broadcasting news and information that incites fear among the public.
In defiance of that decree, thousands of demonstrators escalated their protests, with dozens arrested.
The five: Bunkueanun, Ekachai Hongkangwan, Suranat Paenprasert and two others were arrested on three charges for assaulting the Queen’s liberty, inciting chaos and obstructing traffic.
The most serious was Section 110, with those found guilty facing 16 years to a maximum life imprisonment for violence or attempted violence against the Queen, the heir-apparent or regent. If the actions are considered likely to endanger the Queen’s life, then the death penalty could be applied.
Bunkueanun confirmed to CNN that all defendants were cleared of the three charges.
The court in its ruling found that on the day of the incident, police did not manage the route of the royal procession properly and officers at the scene didn’t know which royal procession it was, according to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights.
When the protesters realized it was a royal procession, they allowed it to move through and there were no objects thrown or obstruction of the procession, the court found, according to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights.
Bunkueanun, who is studying International Relations at Mahidol University, said he was “relieved” with the verdict and called the judges “fair handed and very impartial.”
He told CNN the case has not put him off his activism, though he may give future street protests a second thought.
“My determination has not changed since then,” he said.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged Kenyan authorities to conduct an urgent investigation into police brutality after criticizing them for failing to take action in the recent killings of demonstrators.
In March and April riot police were deployed to suppress protests called by the opposition’s Raila Odinga in Nairobi, Kisumu, Migori and Homa Bay.
He has not accepted William Ruto’s election victory last year.
HRW and Amnesty International say excessive force was used, leading to the deaths of at least 12 people.
The police said some protesters were violent or were looting.
The rights groups said most victims were bystanders. They accused the police of firing live bullets in residential areas and inside classrooms.
Female Muslim students from five schools in The Gambia have taken legal action against their schools at the high court in Banjul, after accusing them of “forcefully” removing their veils.
Some of the schools in the lawsuit are Christian but most of their students are Muslims.
The pupils said the alleged actions of their schools caused them emotional distress and embarrassment and are demanding compensation of more than $300,000 (£238,000).
The students added that the alleged incidents violated their fundamental human rights and subjected them to harassment.
They are also demanding authorities pass a law to allow them to wear veils in schools.
The BBC contacted the principal of one of the schools, but they refused to comment.
The Gambia is a majority Muslim country but also has a minority Christian population.
A new website that closely tracks the status of democracy and human rights around the world has been launched on April 27, by the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, or IDEA.
It will provide monthly analysis and data on 173 countries based on over 100 indicators, from holding clean elections to fair access to justice and civil liberties.
Seema Shah, head of the Democracy Assessment team at IDEA, says she thinks it is a valuable tool as it documents what is happening in a country through the lens of democracy, and why and how it is being impacted.
“It’s one thing to say, ‘oh, well, the democratic health of country X is weak right now because they just had a flawed election‘. But it’s another thing to really dig into that election and see what happened that made it flawed. Why should that matter to the overall health of democracy?”
For each country tracked, the website will include basic information such as the population, system of government, and head of state.
But it also includes analysis that aims to give policymakers and others globally the tools to assess and understand the quality of their democracies.
While it doesn’t rank countries, rather compares trends within a nation over time, IDEA’s data shows that democracy in 25 of them is on the decline, while just 11 have shown progress.
“What we’ve seen is that democracy all over the world has been declining for at least the last decade, if not more. And all the interventions that have been created and all the policy recommendations that are circulating out there so far haven’t been able to stem the tide,” said Shah.
She said IDEA thinks having more timely data would be able to help decision-makers to be able to make more strategic decisions using the most up to date information out there.
The data is based on Global State of Democracy indices that are the evidence base for IDEA’s annual Global Report on the State of the Democracy.
The 2022 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices in Ghana have been published by the US State Department.
On the State Department website, the executive summary of the study stated that Ghana would continue to experience significant human rights problems in 2022.
It cited violence against the LGBTQI community in Ghana and the enactment of legislation to criminalise LGBTQI activities as serious human rights issues in the country.
Other human rights issues cited in the report included the unlawful killings of persons, serious restrictions to free expression and media, baseless arrests and prosecutions of journalists as well as restrictions to freedom of assembly.
“Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: arbitrary or unlawful killings including extrajudicial killings; torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment by the government or on behalf of the government; arbitrary arrest or detention; serious restrictions on free expression and media, including violence and threats of violence against journalists, and unjustified arrests or prosecutions of journalists,” parts of the executive summary read.
The other human rights issues include “substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly; serious government corruption; lack of investigation of and accountability for gender-based violence, including domestic or intimate partner violence; crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or intersex persons; laws criminalizing consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults, although not fully enforced; and crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting persons with disabilities”.
The report also indicated that even though the government is taking steps to resolve issues of corruption and human rights abuses by officials, the “impunity remained a problem”.
The success of measures to stop the war in the northern Tigray region, according to the European Union, will determine whether or not relations with the Ethiopian government can be normalized.
After the civil war broke out in November 2020, the EU suspended budgetary support citing human rights abuses.
The EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said progress on ending the conflict was a rare example of good news in the world today.
But he said the gradual normalisation of relations with Ethiopia was dependent on how the peace process develops.
Earlier this year, EU officials said there had to be accountability for widespread abuses committed during the war in Tigray.
The Ugandan parliament just passed comprehensive anti-gay legislation that would outlaw anyone who identifies as LGBTQ and would impose severe new punishments on same-sex partnerships.
The new law approved on Tuesday appears to be the first to outlaw merely identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ), according to Human Rights Watch, even though same-sex relationships are already prohibited in more than 30 African nations, including Uganda.
Parliamentary Speaker Anita Annet Among declared after the last vote that “the ayes have it” and noted that the “law passed in record time.”
Legislators amended significant portions of the original draft law, with all but one speaking against the bill. Supporters of the tough legislation say it is needed to punish a broader array of LGBTQ activities, which they say threaten traditional values in the conservative and religious East African nation.
The legislation will now be sent to President Yoweri Museveni to be signed into law.
Museveni has not commented on the current legislation but has long opposed LGBTQ rights and signed an anti-LGBTQ law in 2013 that Western countries condemned before a domestic court struck it down on procedural grounds. Nevertheless, the 78-year-old leader has consistently signalled he does not view the issue as a priority and would prefer to maintain good relations with Western donors and investors.
Discussion about the bill in parliament was laced with homophobic rhetoric, with politicians conflating child sexual abuse with consensual same-sex activity between adults.
“Our creator God is happy [about] what is happening … I support the bill to protect the future of our children,” legislator David Bahati said during the debate on the bill.
“This is about the sovereignty of our nation, nobody should blackmail us, nobody should intimidate us.”
Ten recommendations and/or proposals have been given for consideration regarding the future of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana by participants at the 2023 edition of the law conference of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA).
On March 14 to 16, 2023, GIMPA hosted the GIMPA Law Conference. “The 1992 Constitution of Ghana @ 30: Taking Stock, Assessing Progress, and Dwelling on The Future” was the conference’s central focus.
reas of focus
The conference had several subthemes. Among them were; 30 Years of Multi-party democracy: Challenges and Prospects; The Economy and Financial Management in Ghana since 1993; Human Rights under the 1992 Constitution and Miscellaneous Constitutional Questions (including the political question doctrine).
Other subthemes of the conference were; Management of Natural Resources under the 1992 Constitution; Women’s Rights and Rights of Persons with Disabilities; Constitutional Review and Amendment of the 1992 Constitution; Interpretation and Enforcement of the 1992 Constitution; Contribution of the Judiciary to Constitutional Development; and finally, the Judiciary under the 1992 Constitution.
Recommendations
The recommendations and/or proposals suggested by participants at the 2023 GIMPA Law Conference, were firstly; “As a nation, we must embrace technology and its created systems as opposed to abandoning the idea of incorporating technology as a part of our governance architecture, due to foreseeable failures or challenges with technology that can be prevented and/or addressed.
Secondly, the conference participants recommended that “private prosecution of corruption related offences should be considered to help the State fight corruption” more effectively.
Thirdly, “Article 181(5) of the 1992 Constitution should be seriously looked at as it seems not to be serving the purposes which it was enacted” and fourthly, “the provision on the prohibition of an unconstitutional overthrow of the Constitution should be amended to explain what would constitute a suspension, an overthrow or an abrogation.
The fifth recommendation on the conference was that “we [Ghana] must consider a cap on the number of constituencies created as well as the number of Members of Parliament as this would help ease the pressure on the public purse.
Their sixth recommendation was that the country “must also consider returning to the 1979 Constitutional provisions on strict separation of powers between the Executive and the Legislature, so that a Member of Parliament cannot be a Minister of State at the same time”. This the conference participants noted; “will help strengthen the institution of Parliament to serve as a check on the Executive”.
“The Legislature in enacting or amending new or old laws regulating natural resources should use as a blueprint, the law regulating the management of petroleum resources” was the seventh recommendation made by the experts who attended the conference.
The eighth recommendation was that “We should urgently take another look at the content of the Affirmative Action Bill to bring its provisions in line with contemporary realities, as well as ratify the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (the Maputo Protocol), and always make provision for persons with disabilities in all our laws”.
The process of enacting Executive instruments should be amended to include a process that reflects the principle of checks and balances and Discretionary powers of administrative bodies such as the Electoral Commission should be carefully circumscribed” constituted the ninth and tenth recommendations of the conference attendees.
Panel discussions
As part of the three-day programme, there were panel discussions on several topics. The first panel looked at the topic; “Thirty Years of Multi-Party Democracy: Challenges and Prospects”.
It was moderated by Dr. Enam Antonio, a Lecturer at the GIMPA Faculty of Law. The panelists included Mr Dennis Adjei Dwommoh, Managing Attorney, Law Plus, Mr Nicholas Lenin Anane, Lawyer, Akufo-Addo, Prempeh & Co. and Mr. Joshua Godwin Kyeremateng, Law Lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the University of Cape Coast.
Panel two and three (concurrent panels) considered the Economy and Financial Management in Ghana since 1993 and the impact of the 1992 Constitution on the Socio-Economic Development of Ghana.
Panel two was moderated by Dr. Dotse Tsikata, Principal Lecturer, GIMPA Faculty of Law and the panel members included Mr Clement Kojo Akapame, Senior Lecturer, GIMPA Faculty of Law, Dr Stephen Amoah, Member of Parliament, Nyiaeso Constituency and Mr Jesse Heymann, Associate, Koranteng & Koranteng Legal Advisors.
Panel three was moderated by Mr. Victor Brobbey, Adjunct Lecturer, GIMPA Faculty of Law with Mr. Reginald Nii Odoi, Assistant State Attorney, Office of the Attorney General & Ministry of Justice, Mr Edmund Nelson Amasah, Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology, Mr Alexander Hackman-Aidoo, Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Cape Coast and Diana Asonaba Dapaah, Deputy Attorney General & Deputy Minister of Justice of Ghana, as members of the panel.
Other experts in various fields joined the discussion to look at other topics such as “Parliament is a Master of its own Rules, but the Constitution is a Master of all Rules: An Examination of the decision in the Justice Abdulai versus The Attorney-General case”, and Management of Natural Resources under the 1992 Constitution.
Other topics that came up for discussion during day two and three of the conference were: Women’s Rights and the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; Constitutional Review and Amendment of the 1992 Constitution; Interpretation and enforcement of the 1992 Constitution; and Contribution of the Judiciary to Constitutional development since 1993.
A vast, brand-new prison in El Salvador has been used to house thousands of tattooed suspects of being part of gangs; there, they will ‘never return.
Since March of last year, more than 65,000 suspected gang members have been detained as a result of a government operation in the Central American nation.
That happened when gang violence erupted, killing more than 60 people on the nation’s worst day since the civil war thirty years ago, including market patrons, bus passengers, and street sellers.
To help the jail system, which is becoming increasingly overburdened, the 40,000-capacity Facility for the Confinement of Terrorists in Tecoluca, San Vicente, was constructed.
The first 2,000 inmates were sent there last month at a time when nearly 2% of the adult population of El Salvador is in jail.
A second group of 2,000 prisoners were moved today to the facility, where human rights group and lawmakers alike have said is 4,000 too many.
But El Salvador president Nayib Bukele boastfully shared photographs today of the lines upon lines of inmates sitting on the grey prison floor today.
‘This day, in a new operation, we moved the second batch of 2000 gangsters to the Terrorism Contention Centre (CECOT),’ he wrote on Facebook.
‘With this, there are now 4,000 gangsters inhabiting the world’s most criticised prison.’
Footage and photographs show thousands of barefoot men being led through the cavernous jail lined by guards in balaclavas.
They sit, seemingly endlessly, side-by-side in only white boxers. Their beds – stacked one on top of another – do not have mattresses.
‘This will be their new house, where they will live for decades, all mixed, unable to do any further harm to the population,’ Bukele, who campaigned on the promise of bringing law and order to El Salvador’s streets, said.
Minister for Justice and Peace Gustavo Villatoro added: ‘They are never going to return to the communities, the neighbourhoods, the barrios, the cities of our beloved El Salvador.’
Though, around 57,000 of those arrested are still awaiting formal charges or a trial. Only 3,500 people captured by the anti-crime dragnet have been released.
Villatoro added: ‘We are eliminating this cancer from society.’
The 2,000 men were transferred there as part of a security operation that started at dawn and involved 1,200 troops and three Air Force helicopters.
According to Public Works Minister Romeo Rodriguez, the Tecoluca prison is made of eight concrete buildings, each packed with 32 100sq m cells containing 80 bunk beds, two sinks and two toilets for between 100 inmates.
The mega-prison also has dining rooms, exercise facilities and table tennis courts inside – for the guards, at least.
The campus is 45 miles east of San Salvador, the country’s capital.
As it has done every month for nearly a year, El Salvador’s Congress today once again suspended some constitutional rights by extending its state of emergency.
The emergency decree loosens conditions for arrest, restricts free assembly and allows the government to listen in on citizens’ communications.
People no longer have to be told why they are being arrested, what rights they have or even be given access to a lawyer.
Bukele first requested emergency powers last March 27 after the explosion of gang activity.
The policy is widely popular among Salvadorans, with hatred for gang violence running deep in the country and killings now at an all-time low.
With an estimated 70,000 members in their ranks, gangs have controlled large swaths of the country for years, extorting and killing with impunity.
But human rights groups have grown increasingly concerned by the government’s heavy-handed treatment of detainees.
They say there have been many instances of prisoner abuse within the dilapidated and overcrowded prisons and even innocent people have been swept up in the raids.
A data leak obtained by Human Rights Watch in January found evidence of violations of due process, little to no hope of justice and even dozens of deaths in custody.
‘The use of these broadly defined crimes opens the door to arbitrary arrests of people with no relevant connection to gangs and does little to ensure justice for
violent gang abuses, such as killings and rape,’ the group said.
Two boats capsized off the coast of Tunisia on Tuesday and Wednesday, resulting in the rescue of 54 persons. Authorities reported 14 deaths on Thursday (Mar. 9).
The National Guard claimed that the migrants were from sub-Saharan Africa but could not revealing their countries,
Notwithstanding the fact that the central Mediterranean is the most perilous migratory route, according to the International Organization for Migration, people fleeing conflict or poverty embark aboard boats from Tunisian ports bound for Europe.
“When sub-Saharans came to Tunisia, it was because of the economic and social situation they were suffering in their country, lawyer Hamida Chaieb explains. “Their main objective is to cross to Europe. Like our (Tunisian) youth who dream of a better life,” the Tunisian League for Human Rights member adds.
Tunisian authorities have stepped up arrests of Africans without residency papers in recent weeks after President linked migrants to crimes. The comments fanned a surge in attacks targeting Black Africans.
“They (the authorities) don’t want to let us go. If it’s like that, (let) us go back to Italy. We have neither our fathers nor our mothers, if that’s the way it is let us go back (to Italy),” an Ivorian migrant says.
In Brussels, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson expressed concern on Thursday about the president’s statements, saying they are “very worrying,” but underlined Tunisia’s role in helping prevent migrants reaching Europe.
“Tunisia is a core country for cooperation when it comes to preventing smuggling but also when it comes to readmission of Tunisian citizens that come here and are not eligible for international protection,” she told reporters.
Tunisians were among the top three nationalities — along with Egyptians and Bangladeshis — to reach Europe last year after crossing from the North African coast.
Last January, Italy’s top diplomat reiterated to his Tunisian counterpart Roma’s objective “to reduce irregular immigration”.
The director of the UN peacekeeping mission’s human rights section, Guillaume Ngefa-Atondoko Andali, has been given 48 hours by Mali’s military government to leave the nation.
In a statement read out on national television, a government spokesman said Guillaume Ngefa-Atondoko Andali had committed “subversive actions” in his selection of witnesses to testify at UN Security Council briefings on Mali.
Last month, a Malian civil society activist who gave evidence at a UN meeting accused the government’s Russian military partners of serious human rights violations.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is due in Mali on Monday for a visit aimed at boosting defence and security ties.
It will be the first official visit to the West African nation by a Russian foreign minister.
Source: BBC
For companies like Apple, decoupling from China can be an opportunity to improve their human rights record.
In late November, protests erupted in a factory manufacturing Apple products in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou amid workers’ discontent about pay. Footage and images from the site showed police beating protesters and arresting them.
The turmoil in Zhengzhou was the latest in a series of challenges that have delayed the manufacturing of Apple products in China and led to the company accelerating its plans to move its production elsewhere.
Other tech giants are seeking to do the same, concerned about tensions between the US and China and COVID-19-related shutdowns imposed by the Chinese authorities.
As these companies start to relocate their operations, they have the chance to account for their human rights record in the communist country. For years, they have bowed to state policies that restrict the fundamental freedoms of Chinese citizens.
These companies have to review their human rights records in authoritarian states and commit not to make the same mistakes in the countries where they will relocate their production or grow their markets. It is time for tech companies to undertake a human rights reset.
Apple, the world’s richest company, has made a significant profit in China, which has also left it vulnerable to pressure from the local authorities to act against its stated human rights commitments. While the size of its production has been politically and economically important to the Chinese government, which in theory would have given the company leverage to oppose such rights abuses, Apple has been seemingly unwilling to push back in meaningful ways.
The company has complied with repressive legislation, such as the Cybersecurity Law and others, which require tech companies, among others, to monitor and report politically sensitive content, store Chinese users’ data in China and provide the authorities with access to it.
Apple has also engaged in censorship, deleting tens of thousands of apps from its Chinese App Store, including encryption and circumvention tools, such as VPNs needed to hop over the Great Firewall of China.
Most recently, in November, Apple limited the parameters for wireless filesharing on its app AirDrop after its use by anti-government protesters in China. The changes allow the option “share with everyone” to be active for just 10 minutes before it switches back to “contacts only”, effectively eliminating its utility during protests.
Apple is not alone. Microsoft, another US-based tech giant, has also been compliant with the repressive policies of the Chinese government.
Following the implementation of the Cybersecurity Law, the company partnered with the state-owned China Electronics Technology Group to develop a version of its Windows operating system specifically for Chinese government users. This has raised concerns about the company giving backdoor access to its software to the Chinese government.
Microsoft is also a member of the Internet Society of China and as such has made a pledge to block websites that offend the Chinese censors.
After most services offered by Google were blocked in China in 2010, Microsoft’s Bing has been the only major foreign search engine that works without a VPN. Surely, compliance with Beijing’s censorship demands helps keep it that way.
Similarly, LinkedIn, which Microsoft acquired in 2016, was the only big foreign social networking site available in China, after Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube were blocked in 2009. In late 2021, LinkedIn had over 57 million users, making China its third largest market after the United States and India. In exchange for access to this sizeable userbase, LinkedIn too was expected to play the censorship game.
The platform geoblocked content belonging to high-profile human rights defenders, such as Zhou Fengsuo, journalists like Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, and corporate investigator Peter Humphrey, along with the posts of millions of Chinese users deemed “sensitive”.
Despite its record of compliance, in March 2021 the Cyberspace Administration of China rebuked LinkedIn for not censoring enough. Finally, in October 2021, Microsoft announced it was shutting down LinkedIn services in China due to a “significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements”.
Clearly, the cost of tech companies doing business in China’s enormous market, whether producing or selling products and services, has long been to abandon their responsibilities to respect human rights. But it shouldn’t be this way.
As big tech companies prepare to reduce their reliance on production in China, they have an opportunity to set new standards for human rights.
Apple is looking to shift its supply chain to India and Vietnam. But both of these countries are known to engage in severe censorship as well.
India leads the world in internet shutdowns, responsible for 106 of 182 shutdowns documented last year by the #KeepItOn Coalition. In recent years, the Indian authorities have enacted legislation that pressures tech companies to over-censor and retain user data to hand over to the government. It now looks to threaten end-to-end encryption.
India has ordered platforms to take down content it didn’t want and warned of severe penalties for noncompliance, including threatening Twitter staff with up to seven years imprisonment. Earlier this year, Twitter sued the government for such “overbroad and arbitrary” regulations.
It is also concerning that Apple is expanding into Vietnam, which ranks among the five worst internet freedom abusers in the world, according to US-based pro-democracy organisation Freedom House.
Like China, Vietnam’s Cybersecurity Law requires tech companies to comply with data localisation, actively censor content, and make user data available to the authorities. In November, its government announced plans for new rules that would require platforms to remove offending content within 24 hours.
Vietnam has also shown that it will hold tech companies financially hostage until they comply with its digital diktats. In 2020, following months of government-backed bandwidth throttling to drastically slow down its services, Facebook, which makes about $1bn a year in the country, agreed to increase censorship of “anti-state” content on its platform.
With such repressive policies in place in both India and Vietnam, Apple faces the risk of repeating the same mistakes it made in China unless it changes its approach to dealing with government pressure.
The company and other tech giants doing business with repressive states should heed their responsibilities under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) to address any adverse human rights impacts their activities may have, including on the rights to privacy, freedom of expression, and access to information online.
They should resist government orders to arbitrarily restrict freedom of expression and implement labour protections in their supply chains.
They should be fully transparent about how they negotiate market access and licensing agreements with governments and make such documents publicly available to empower independent oversight.
Companies should have a robust policy on how they will adhere to their human rights responsibilities in the face of government pressure and hold open consultations with civil society to establish clear benchmarks and red lines.
Companies must commit to independent human rights impact assessments, which should be revised as conditions change, and be publicly available.
Shareholder groups in these companies should also impress upon corporate leadership the importance of compliance with their human rights responsibilities.
Tech companies can and should do business without hurting human rights. Having a positive human rights record could be just as profitable as bowing down to repressive state policies.
DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author’s, and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana
Source: Aljazeera.com
Since General Soeharto’s coup in the middle of the 1960s, there have likely been more than 500,000 violent deaths.
The violent anti-Communist purge of the 1960s and human rights violations like the disappearance of student protesters in the late 1990s are just two examples of “gross human rights violations” that Indonesian President Joko Widodo has apologized for occurring in his nation.
In the middle of the 1960s, after a failed Communist coup, when then-General Soeharto and the military seized power, violence broke out across all of Indonesia, killing more than 500,000 people.
During the bloody episode in Indonesia’s history that ushered in the dictator Soeharto’s decades-long rule, one million or more people were imprisoned on suspicion of being communists.
“With a clear mind and a sincere heart, I as the leader of this country, admit that gross human rights violations have happened in several incidents and I regret they happened very much,” Widodo said in a speech at the state palace in the capital Jakarta on Wednesday.
The president, commonly known as Jokowi, cited 11 other incidents, spanning a period between 1965 and 2003 – prior to his tenure as leader – including the shooting deaths and abduction of students during protests in 1998 that brought down Soeharto.
“I have sympathy and empathy for the victims and their families,” Widodo said.
He said the government was trying to “rehabilitate” the rights of victims “without negating the judicial resolution”, though he did not specify how that would be achieved.
Students leading the protests in 1998 were abducted and disappeared and there were also many victims among the ethnic-Chinese community, a minority in Indonesia, who were resented for their perceived wealth.
Widodo also acknowledged rights abuses in Indonesia’s restive easternmost province of Papua, including a 2003 army and police operation that left dozens of civilians dead and where officers were accused of murder, torture and abduction.
Papua has been the scene of a decades-old rebellion aimed at gaining independence from Indonesia, which took control of the former Dutch colony in the 1960.
Human rights groups said Widodo’s expression of regret, like several other Indonesian leaders before him, did not go far enough as acknowledgement and expression of regret were not sufficient without crimes being legally resolved in court and perpetrators tried.
Indonesia’s late President Abdurrahman Wahid had also apologised for the 1960s bloodshed, while President B.J. Habibie formed a team to investigate the violence in 1998.
Rights activists also noted that cases had been thrown out by the Attorney General’s Office, which is tasked with investigating rights violations.
“The recognition is not enough. It should not have been only regret, but also apology,” Usman Hamid, director of Amnesty International Indonesia told Agence France-Presse.
Any expression of regret must also include a reaffirmation that “serious crimes of the past need to be resolved rightly and justly through judicial means,” he said.
John Philpot, an international human rights attorney from Montreal, Canada, has commended Ghana’s ‘gold-for-oil’ strategy, which Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia recently developed and put into action.
Philpot, who has extensive knowledge of international politics pertaining to the continent and has previously lived in Africa, said Ghana’s decision is a courageous as well as the appropriate step because it would stop currency depreciation and stabilize prices.
He continued by predicting that other other nations would soon adopt a similar policy.
“The U.S dollar is having a lot of inflation so..it has less value because of the inflation…Gold is more of a universal value and they (Ghana) are doing this to internally avoid the devaluation of their currency and I think this is going to be a tendency worldwide,” Philpot said during an interview with Press TV Iran.
Philpot explained that countries in Africa are always on the losing side due to their currencies depreciating against the U.S. dollar, which in turn has an effect on the local economy. This leads to price hikes and makes the local currency worth even less.
“It would appear that [the policy] will avoid poverty and stabilise prices because countries in Africa, their money is pegged to the U.S dollar. Prices go up much faster and the money is much less value for the people working in the salaries of those countries. I lived in Tanzania…people I know living on Tanzanian salaries were having a very hard time. This [gold for oil policy] will stabilise prices,” he said.
He said Ghana’s move is a “return to multilateral approach and obviously having better relations with Russia and China and other countries too…The United Nations was built on the concept of sovereignty. You are not sovereign if the U.S. dollar controls your economy so if they get a form of universal or more democratic trade, it increases your sovereignty.”
Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia announced recently that Ghana would kick off a policy of using gold reserves to purchase refined crude productsfrom the world market from 2023 rather than using the U.S. dollar.
In a speech delivered at the 2022 Ghana Energy Awards held the night of Sunday, November 27th, the Vice President said the move is aimed at stopping the cedi’s depreciation and its attendant effects on the local economy.
“A major source of cedi depreciation has been the demand for foreign exchange to finance the import of oil products…Persistent cedi depreciation increases the cost of living with higher prices for fuel, transportation, utilities, food and so on,” Bawumia said.
““…To address this fundamental challenge of the persistent depreciation and its impact on fuel, utility prices, food and so on, government has decided to implement a policy of using our gold to buy oil products. That is something new and it is the barter of sustainably mined gold for oil and is one of the most important policy changes in Ghana since independence. If we implement it as we have envisioned, it will fundamentally change our balance of payments and significantly reduce the persistent depreciation of our currency with its associated increases in fuel, electricity, water, transport and food prices,” he added.
In a similar move, the reserve bank of Zimbabwe introduced gold coins into the market in July this year amidst rising inflation and rapid depreciation of the local currency.
The introduction of the gold coins was part of the Central Bank’s measures to tackle the country’s currency crisis through exchange rate stabilisation.
A leading human rights organization claims that a domestic abuse law adopted in Tunisia five years ago has not succeeded in protecting women.
In a new report, Human Rights Watch has concluded that poor implementation of what it describes as one of the strongest laws against domestic violence in the Middle East and North Africa has left Tunisian women at risk.
The group alleges that the Tunisian authorities have failed to systematically respond, investigate and provide protection to women who report violence.
Source: BBC
A 20-year-old woman accused of adultery has been sentenced to death by stoning.
However, human rights activists are making all efforts possible to prevent the incident from happening.
According to the BBC, the woman was found guilty in June 2022 by a court in the city of Kosti, in Sudan’s White Nile state.
With the help of her lawyer, Intisar Abdala, the woman has appealed the ruling of the court, and all fingers are crossed to see whether the appellate court will uphold the lower court’s decision or quash it.
Sulaima Ishaq, the head of the Violence Against Women Unit at the Ministry of Social Development described the judgement of the court as unfair.
“We don’t have a minister who can intervene to demand her release,” Ishaq lamented as the Sudanese government was overthrown by a military junta, which resulted in the dissolution of the government.
The BBC reports Mossaad Mohamed Ali, executive director of the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS) as alleging that the woman was not given access to a lawyer while in custody and was not aware of the charges against her.
“We have grounds to believe she was illegally forced into signing a confession by the police,” the ACJPS boss alleged.
It is reported that the woman separated from her husband in 2020 and went to live with her family. A year later the man accused her of adultery, leading to her arrest and prosecution.
Sudan still imposes the death penalty for some hudud crimes – offences specified by Allah in the Quran, including theft and adultery. In Sudanese law, they carry penalties such as flogging, the amputation of hands and feet, hanging and stoning.
Human Rights Watch has called for the Malian security forces and UN peacekeepers to offer more protection in the north of the country following dozens of attacks by Islamist militant groups.
It says tens of thousands of people have been displaced over the last eight months in the Ménaka and Gao regions.
Witnesses described a pattern of heavily armed men on motorbikes and in other vehicles surrounding villages, shooting indiscriminately and summarily executing men.
Community leaders say nearly 1,000 people have been killed.
The rights group says fighters linked to the Islamic State group had mainly targeted Tuareg communities that they saw as loyal to former rebel groups now allied to the Malian government.
Source: BBC
Before hosting the COP27 summit, Egyptian human rights organizations demand that their nation release political prisoners and open civic space.
It comes in response to a study by Amnesty International that claimed Egypt was experiencing a “human rights catastrophe.”
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), Egypt has severely restricted the activities of environmental organizations. Cairo authorities deemed the information to be “misleading.”
The UN Climate Change Conference takes place in Sharm el-Sheikh in November.
More than 100 international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have already signed a petition organized by the Egyptian Human Rights Coalition, which consists of 12 groups.
“We emphasize that effective climate action is not possible without open civic space,” a petition launched by the coalition says. “As host of COP27, Egypt risks compromising the success of the summit if it does not urgently address ongoing arbitrary restrictions on civil society.
“Moreover, we stress the importance of the right to freedom of expression and independent reporting to foster efforts to address the climate crisis.”
In a joint statement in July, three dozen groups expressed concern that Egypt would largely maintain its prohibition on protests during the conference aimed at slowing climate change.
Under Egypt’s President Abdul Fattah al-Sissi, there has been a widespread crackdown on dissent. Rights groups estimate the country has had as many as 60,000 political prisoners, many detained without trial.
They say that activists are routinely intimidated and that new laws make it practically impossible for many civil society groups to function.
“You will have activists from everywhere in the world coming to COP, but Egyptian activists are either blocked from going or they’re in jail,” a leading human rights campaigner in Cairo told the BBC, asking not to be named for fear of reprisal.
“Basically, nobody is safe in Egypt,” the campaigner said.
The Egyptian authorities say they hope to use their presidency of COP27 to urge the international community to act on pledges of support for developing countries to cope with the devastating impacts of climate change.
“They are the most deserving of our support,” Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told the UN General Assembly this month.
After a tumultuous decade since the 2011 uprising that overthrew then-President Hosni Mubarak, the country is also looking to boost its standing on the world stage.
However, critics, such as the Egyptian human rights campaigner, said the government sees the event as a way of “whitewashing its reputation”.
A few hundred less high-profile prisoners have been released in recent months since Mr Sisi unveiled a new pardon committee, in a move that many link to Egypt’s hosting of COP.
Amnesty’s new report focused on how Egyptian authorities have used a National Human Rights strategy launched a year ago “as a PR tool to deflect attention from its real human rights record”.
Meanwhile, HRW researched instances of repression against environmental groups.
Following interviews with academics, scientists and activists, it said that government restrictions amounted to human rights violations and left in doubt Egypt’s ability to meet basic climate commitments.
A spokesperson for the Egyptian foreign ministry dismissed the report as “deplorable and counterproductive” saying it contained “inaccuracies”, and questioned the use of unnamed sources.
Sameh Shoukry, who will act as president of COP, has said that space will be set aside in Sharm el-Sheikh for protests to take place.
This week, Ambassador Wael Abul-Magd, assisting him, told journalists that civil society and environmental groups would be represented at the talks.
“We don’t believe in tokenism,” he said in a virtual briefing. “We are involving these stakeholders across the board in every step of the way.”
However, Egyptian activists told the BBC that many local groups had been unable to register for the conference.
They questioned the independence of those who had been given access in a special process overseen by the government and facilitated by the UN. One called the lack of transparency “a scandal”.
A United Nations human rights team says rape cases are now so frequent in South Sudan that many women choose not to bother reporting frequent sexual assaults.
Even those who have been gang-raped repeatedly during the country’s prolonged conflict lack access to medical and trauma care.
Some women have been raped up to five times in the last nine years, the panel said.
“Just imagine what it means to be raped by multiple armed men, pick yourself up for the sake of your children, and then for it to happen again and again and again,” said Yasmin Sooka, the chairperson of the panel.
She added: “These women are asking us when it will stop – 2013, 2016, 2018, 2021, and now in 2022 – they say they keep telling their stories and nothing changes.”
In several villages in Western Equatoria State and Unity State – where fighting is ongoing – there is no medical care for rape victims, the panel said.
“Women raped by armed forces while collecting firewood are threatened with death if they report it,” said Prof Andrew Clapham, a member of the panel.
The experts have been participating in meetings at the UN General Assembly in New York to speak about the situation in South Sudan.
Myanmar’s military authorities have arrested the UK‘s former ambassador to Myanmar, Vicky Bowman, and her husband.
She has been accused of breaking visa rules, and her husband with helping her to stay in Myanmar – charges that could result in up to five years in jail.
Ms Bowman served as ambassador in Myanmar from 2002-2006. She is married to Htein Lin, a Burmese artist and former political prisoner.
She runs the Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business, based in Yangon.
The pair have been sent to Insein prison in the city, with a trial scheduled for 6 September.
The UK embassy say they are providing consular assistance to her.
The MCRB describes itself as “an initiative to encourage responsible business activities throughout Myanmar”. It co-operates with the Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB) – whose aim is “to make respect for human rights part of everyday business”.
Myanmar’s military regime has been accused of widespread violations of human rights.
Early this month, generals extended their emergency rule until 2023 as the country remains riven by internal fighting.
Source: BBC
Hundreds of children in Haiti are taking refuge at a high school in the capital Port-au-Prince after escaping gang violence that has claimed hundreds of lives this month.
Toddlers to teenagers are sleeping in classrooms at the prestigious Institution Saint-Louis de Gonzague.
A severe wave of violence erupted between two rival gangs in the Cité Soleil area on 7 July.
Around 300 people have reportedly been killed, Human Rights Watch says.
Children joked around in the playground on Friday, playing hide and seek or improvised football games with plastic bottles, Reuters reported from inside the school.
Image source, ReutersBut Sister Rosemiline, a nun with religious community group Kizito Family, said “the kids need a lot of help”.
“The situation is really bad where they are from. We are waiting for food but what we get is not satisfactory to the kids,” she said, adding that she is hoping to relocate them.
A community organiser told Reuters that the children wore school uniforms to convince gang leaders they were on their way to class in order to escape the violence.
Most of the children are alone as their parents were unable to flee the Cité Soleil turf war, he said.
Image source, ReutersBattles between the G9 and G-Pèp gangs erupted on 7 July over control of the neighbourhood.
Human Rights Watch said on Friday that roughly 300 people have been killed, including 21 whose bodies were apparently burned, and 16 people have been reported missing, citing the National Human Rights Defence Network.
“The gangs also burned homes and used heavy machinery to demolish them, the group said, with 125 homes reportedly destroyed,” it said.
The situation has become so dire that earlier this week the UN Security Council voted unanimously to ban some weapon sales to Haiti.
Image source, ReutersGang violence has shot up since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse by mercenaries a year ago.
According to the UN Integrated Office in Haiti, 540 people were kidnapped and more than 780 were killed between January and May 2022. In the last five months of last year, 396 people were kidnapped and 668 killed.
The country has also been hit by chronic fuel and electricity shortages because of the gang violence.
Source: CNN
In our series of letters from African journalists, media and communication trainer Joseph Warungu looks at a recent court ruling that could end some uncomfortable road trips.
We in Kenya have discovered that we have a constitutional right to relieve ourselves in public, at the expense of the government.
Here’s how.
Travelling to and from distant places by road in Kenya, is not something many people look forward to.
But where are the signs for the toilet?
The biggest challenge is to arrive alive at your destination. Over 3,400 people died on Kenyan roads last year, an increase of 13% from 2018.
The main causes are speeding, drunk driving and fatigue.
If you avoid death or serious injury, you still may not escape the discomfort of the terrible roads.
Although there’s been a lot of improvement of Kenya’s infrastructure in recent years, some of the roads are in poor shape and become unusable during rainy season.
As a former British colony, we drive on the left in Kenya, but people are often forced to drive on whatever’s left of the roads due to the numerous potholes which scar many roads, including the central business district of the capital Nairobi.
However, there’s another reason that makes long-distance road travel a nightmare – toilets.
When you’re squashed in a packed bus, and the call of nature comes, you’re in deep trouble.
That’s because when the authorities built these highways, they did not include public toilets along the way.
So, in these instances, drivers stop in the middle of nowhere, and as soon as the door is opened, people dash in different directions, in search of the nearest bush to relieve themselves.
It is not always safe for passengers to relieve themselves by the roadside
It makes for a disturbing picture of men, women and children forced into a communal squat position.
All shame is lost as the multitude that was in a bus focuses on one grave priority – emptying bladders and bowels.
Some students I mentor from a college in the coastal region of Mombasa told me how they recently went on a trip to central Kenya, a distance of about 700km (435 miles).
Before leaving Mombasa, they had a meal, which unfortunately upset their stomachs.
“With no toilets along the way, our bus driver was forced to make several stops near bushes and forests for us to attend to the upheavals in our tummies,” explained one of the students. “It was the most uncomfortable 10-hour journey I’d ever had”.
Lots of new roads have been built in Kenya, now toilets will have to be added too
But now help has come through the actions of one man who went to court to compel the government to bring an end to this kind of suffering.
Adrian Kamotho Njenga sued four public entities arguing they had breached the constitution by failing to provide free toilet facilities along public highways.
The four bodies – the Council of Governors, which brings together the governors of all 47 counties, the Kenya National Highways Authority, the Kenya Rural Roads Authority and the Kenya Urban Roads Authority – all rejected the accusation and turned to a blame game.
Some said Mr Njenga had not shown details of how exactly they had violated the constitution regarding public toilets. Others argued that they do not have a constitutional mandate to provide sanitation services.
But like an impatient man pressed by the call of nature, Mr Njenga continued to push for a solution from the court.
He argued that as a result of the failures of the public entities, road users on public highways had no way of disposing of human waste flowing from human biological functions, and end up relieving themselves in bushes and on the roadside, which is inhuman and degrading.
He even quoted from the Bible’s fifth book, Deuteronomy, in which Moses commands the Israelites who were travelling to the promised land, to designate a place outside their camp where they could go to relieve themselves.
And just in case the court was not persuaded to rely on the Bible as an authority in determining a constitutional matter, Mr Njenga explained the lack of toilets was subjecting commuters to suffer “immense biological, metabolical and physiological torture, when faced with a call of nature while travelling on Kenyan roads”.
Now these are words I don’t think about when answering the call of nature, myself.
But they sound quite serious, and in the end the judge agreed with Mr Njenga, and instructed the authorities concerned to create and implement a policy for the provision of toilets and other sanitation facilities along the Kenyan road network.
So, we’re all looking forward to the day when as commuters, we’ll stop hopping about in the bushes to avoid stepping on human mess in the search for a clear spot, to bring relief to our bodies.
For now, in the absence of the “constitutional” toilets, the beautiful wildlife that can be seen near the roads from Nairobi to Kisumu in the west, or to Mombasa at the coast, will continue to witness some ugly scenes as humans invade their space to dispose of their waste.
Source: myjoyonline.com