Human rights

State Secretary at Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said they expect Myanmar to fully implement the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Read More »

‘The ICJ finds that there is a real and imminent risk’ The International Court of Justice has ordered measures to prevent the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. The decision comes despite de facto leader Aun San Suu Kyi personally defending her country against the accusations last month. Thousands of Rohingya died and more than 700,000 fled to Bangladesh during ... Read More »

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, will deliver its order on the request for the indication of provisional measures made by The Gambia in the case concerning the Genocide Convention against Myanmar. Read More »

The UN Human Rights Committee has determined that countries cannot deport people who have sought asylum due to climate-related threats. Read More »

There were 56 journalists killed in 2019 and most of them were killed outside zones of conflict, a United Nations spokesperson said Monday. Read More »

By Thalif Deen UN, Jan 17 2020 (IPS) – The United States and 18 other UN member states have come under fire for denying a woman’s legitimate right to “bodily autonomy”—the right to self-governance over one’s own body without coercion or external pressure. Read More »

Government Supporters Go On 3-Hour Rampage at University in Delhi New York – Police in India failed to intervene when alleged supporters of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) assaulted university students in Delhi on January 5, 2020, Human Rights Watch said today. Read More »

Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo hoped that India will rethink its decisions about the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 and National Register of Citizens (NRC). Read More »

Dhaka, Dec 29 – The U.N. General Assembly approved a resolution Friday strongly condemning human rights abuses against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims and other minorities, including arbitrary arrests, torture, rape and deaths in detention. Read More »

By IPS World Desk Dec 2019 (IPS) – 2019 will be remembered as the year the climate crisis shook us all. Hopefully, it will also be remembered for the fightback manifested in the spread of mass protests and civic movements against governments and industries failing to respond. Read More »

Joanne Serrieh, Al Arabiya English A mass grave dating back to 2016 has been discovered in Iraq containing the remains of 643 civilians believed to be victims of the Saqlawiyah massacre, about 5 kilometres north of Fallujah, in Anbar Governorate. Read More »

Police have clashed with demonstrators in parts of the Indian capital, Delhi, during protests over a controversial new law on migrants. Read More »

Thousands of university students flooded the streets of India’s capital, while a southern state government led a march and demonstrators held a silent protest in the northeast on Monday to protest a new law giving citizenship to non-Muslims who entered India illegally to flee religious persecution in several neighboring countries. Read More »

By Ramzy Baroud Kafr Qaddum is a small Palestinian village located between Nablus and Qalqilya in the northern West Bank. The inhabitants of the village feel angry and abandoned, with most of their land located under total Israeli military control. Thus, they are subjected to land theft by the ever-expanding nearby illegal Jewish colonies. Protesting the Israeli occupation and the ... Read More »

By Thalif Deen UN, Dec 12 2019 (IPS) – Appearing before 17 judges of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto civilian leader of Myanmar, became a public apologist for the military government of Myanmar which has long been accused of genocide and forcing over 730,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to ... Read More »

New York, Dec 11 2019 (IPS) – Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has arrived at the Hague to defend Myanmar at the International Court of Justice, against charges of genocide of the Rohingya people, as brought on by the Gambia. Read More »

THE HAGUE, December 11, AP/UNB – Myanmar’s former pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on Wednesday denied that her country’s armed forces committed genocide against the Rohingya minority, telling the U.N.’s top court that the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Muslims was the unfortunate result of a battle with insurgents. Read More »

Draft Law Favors Hindus, Other Non-Muslim Immigrants On December 11, India’s upper house of parliament also passed the bill. It will now become law after the president of India gives his assent. New York – The Indian government’s proposed law to grant citizenship based on religion violates India’s international legal obligations, Human Rights Watch said today. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, ... Read More »

The International Human Rights Day is being observed in the country today as elsewhere across the globe.The theme of this year’s day is “Youth Standing Up for Human Rights.” Read More »

by Karin Pettersson on 25th November 2019 @AB_Karin For Karin Pettersson, journalism has never been more challenging—and never more important. The news-media industry has long lamented about how the digital revolution has broken its business models. Today, a majority of digital advertising money goes to Facebook and Google, and media companies are struggling to reinvent themselves through digital subscriptions. But ... Read More »

Dhaka, Nov 16 – Arab film and TV star and World Food Programme (WFP) Goodwill Ambassador Hend Sabry wanted to visit the Rohingya families in the Rohingya camps, what she says, to show that suffering has no borders and humanity has no boundaries. Read More »

By Crystal Orderson Nairobi, Kenya, Nov 13 2019 (IPS) – Young women and girls are still subjected to a range of harmful practices and violence, including early marriage. Every year, an estimated 12 million girls get married before the age of 18. Read More »

Jerusalem – The Israeli Supreme Court on November 5, 2019, upheld the Israeli government’s authority to deport Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director of Human Rights Watch. The decision now shifts back to the Israeli government; if it proceeds with deportation, Shakir will have to leave Israel by November 25. Read More »

Sister Brigitte Queisser walks slowly along the decaying remains of the Berlin Wall, its rusty rebar reinforcement exposed where the concrete has crumbled away. Read More »

People responsible for killing journalists from 2006-18 not convicted, says Unesco UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said societies as a whole pay a price when journalists are targeted. Read More »

Disband All Irregular Paramilitary Forces, Cooperate With Independent Investigations New York – United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-backed Afghan forces have committed summary executions and other grave abuses without accountability, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. These strike forces have unlawfully killed civilians during night raids, forcibly disappeared detainees, and attacked healthcare facilities for allegedly treating insurgent ... Read More »

Repeal or Amend Laws Criminalizing Speech, Assembly London – Thai authorities over five years of military rule prosecuted numerous peaceful critics of the government to stay in power, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Concerned governments should press Thailand to protect the rights to expression and assembly, and reform laws penalizing peaceful speech to bring them in ... Read More »

The European Union awarded its top human rights prize to economist Ilham Tohti for his work defending China’s Uighur minority and urged Beijing to release him from jail. Read More »

By Ed Holt Rising populism, anti-media rhetoric from politicians, cyber-harassment of journalists and physical attacks are among the reasons why press freedom in Europe is on the decline, according to the global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Read More »

London, Oct 21 (AP/UNB) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appeared in court Monday to fight extradition to the United States on charges of conspiring to hack into a Pentagon computer, with his legal team saying it needs more time to prepare its case. Read More »