South Africa's Navi Pillay takes up the post of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in September.

China lashed out on Thursday at the US for interfering in its affairs and insisted it would maintain restrictions on internet use during the Games.

The UN General Assembly has approved by consensus the appointment of SA Judge Navanethem Pillay as the UN's new high commissioner for human rights.

The army is accused of terrorising people in the Ogaden region and the government won't let outsiders go in to investigate

Though advocacy groups and helplines in recent years have given homosexuals a voice and some solace, they are still largely a hidden community.

Nosimilo Ndlovu and Vicky Hill report on a UN study on human rights

A leading US congressman said on Tuesday that China was carrying out a tragic crackdown to smother dissent during the Olympics.

The United Nations's top human rights official on Wednesday issued a strong condemnation of the killing of opposition political activists in Zimbabwe. "It is hard to get a very precise picture of the full range of the violence, or the exact number of politically motivated extra-judicial killings," said Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Zimbabwe's main rights group accused the government on Tuesday of unleashing violence to help President Robert Mugabe cling to power as the wait for election results stretched into a second month. While the United Nations prepared to meet in New York to discuss the post-election crisis, Mugabe's regime warned it would crack down on violence.