A Paris court on Thursday hands down its verdict in the closely watched trial of a satirical French weekly sued by two Muslim groups for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Two influential Muslim groups took the editor of Charlie Hebdo, Philippe Val, to court for reprinting the cartoons in February last year.
A vigilant mass culture is essential to prevent the degeneration of human rights as seen in Zimbabwe, said the South African Communist Party on Wednesday, Human Rights Day, while the Pan Africanist Congress’s president called for the spirit of volunteerism that swept South Africa in the 1950s and 1960s to be resuscitated.
Ten members of the Movement for Democratic Change were arrested on Wednesday after staging a sit-in protest at the Zimbabwean embassy in London, the Metropolitan Police said. ”There have been a total of 10 arrests for trespass on a diplomatic premises: seven men and three women,” a spokesman said.
A rebel leader from Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region said in an interview in Paris that the United Nations must either protect the area’s residents or arm them so they can defend themselves. "Either UN forces come to protect our people or the international community has to arm us to defend our people from genocide," Abdul Wahid Mohammed Nur said in an interview.
Human Rights Day should be used to assess rights accorded to the youth, as well as the acceleration of youth development in the country, the Young Communist League said on Wednesday. ”For the working class and the poor youth, Human Rights Day must mean food, free and equal compulsory education … and a better life,” spokesperson Castro Ngobese said.
Lecturers at Zimbabwe’s three state universities have called off a three-week pay strike after being ordered back to work by the country’s labour court, their union said on Wednesday. The lecturers are to go immediately into fresh negotiations with their employers, hoping to resolve an ongoing salary dispute.
Worshippers in India’s remote Andaman islands are rushing for a glimpse of a picture of Jesus Christ amid reports that it was oozing blood, witnesses said on Wednesday. Thousands of people, mostly Christians, mobbed the home of a bishop in Port Blair, capital of the Indian Ocean chain, to pray before the framed print.
South Africa’s foreign policy has shown an eagerness to abandon democratic and human rights values in order to shield oppressive regimes, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said. In a Human Rights Day statement, Leon said South Africa can rightfully and proudly proclaim that there will never be another Sharpeville.
The Australian government said on Wednesday it wants a planned cricket tour to Zimbabwe in September cancelled in the wake of violence and human rights abuses in the Southern African nation. A final decision would, however, be left to the sport’s governing body, Cricket Australia.
Tribesmen loyal to the Pakistani government fought fierce battles with foreign al-Qaeda militants for a third day on Wednesday, leaving more than 100 people dead, officials said. Pakistani troops also shelled the Uzbek militants sheltering in the mountainous tribal area of South Waziristan, security officials and residents said, although a military spokesperson denied the army was involved.