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/ 12 December 2008
Amnesty International called on Friday on the United Nations’ peacekeeping force in eastern DRC to do a better job of protecting civilians.
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/ 11 December 2008
Rights groups on Wednesday denounced President Robert Mugabe over a wave of abductions of activists.
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/ 19 November 2008
cPolitical prisoners and criminal detainees are systemically tortured in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, a United Nations investigator said on Wednesday.
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/ 21 October 2008
Amnesty International called on Nigeria’s government on Tuesday to declare a moratorium on capital punishment.
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/ 14 October 2008
Poor foreign workers bear the brunt of ”the stark horror” of Saudi Arabia’s secretive death penalty system, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.
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/ 10 October 2008
The world is moving closer to the abolition of the death penalty, according to figures published to coincide with World Day against the Death Penalty.
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/ 29 September 2008
Freed child soldiers in the DRC are being re-recruited for their valuable fighting experience, Amnesty International said on Monday.
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/ 6 September 2008
A human rights group on Friday appealed to Somali authorities to help free scores of hostages seized by pirates.
Amnesty International on Monday denounced as a ”sham” Sudanese anti-terror trials in which 38 people have been sentenced to death.
Tunisia routinely uses torture, illegal detention and unfair trials in the name of fighting terrorism and should be held to accepted standards.
Burma is forcing weak and hungry survivors of Cyclone Nargis to move back to flattened villages and in some cases refusing aid unless rebuilding work is done, Amnesty International said.
The aid group Care International said on Tuesday the Zimbabwean government has halted its operations in the country for allegedly campaigning for the opposition
Civil and human rights groups predicted more chaos after Zimbabwe’s presidential run-off takes place, saying on Tuesday they do not believe President Robert Mugabe will step down if he loses. However, it is ”critical” for the election to go ahead so a winner can emerge, said Gorden Moyo, from Bulawayo Agenda.
The senior leader of Somalia’s Islamist opposition vowed on Wednesday to expel United States-backed Ethiopian troops by force and create an Islamic republic in the war-torn country. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who led Somalia’s Islamic Courts movement, said Mogadishu’s Western-backed Transitional Federal Government was run by ”traitors”.
The number of conflicts in which child soldiers were involved dropped sharply from 27 in 2004 to 17 at the end of 2007, according to a report on Tuesday by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers. But despite the decline, the report said tens of thousands of children remain in the ranks of militias and other armed groups in at least 24 countries.
Egyptian police shot and wounded a Sudanese man to prevent him from crossing the border illegally to Israel from the Sinai peninsula on Monday, a security official said. The official, who asked not to be named, said police opened fire on the 24-year-old after he refused to comply with orders to stop.
Opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai will not return to Zimbabwe on Saturday, fearing an assassination attempt, an MDC spokesperson said. Tsvangirai had been expected to return home on Saturday ahead of a run-off election scheduled for June 27.
Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was to return home on Saturday bidding to deliver a knockout blow to weakened President Robert Mugabe in a run-off election scheduled for June 27. Mugabe acknowledged on Friday that he had suffered an electoral disaster in losing a first-round poll against Tsvangirai on March 29.
Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai vowed on Friday to lift his country out of the ”darkness” under President Robert Mugabe and voiced confidence he will win a run-off presidential poll. The comments came shortly after his party said Tsvangirai would go home on Saturday after more than a month away following disputed elections.
Soldiers, insurgents and bandits are routinely attacking Somalian civilians, carrying out murder, rape, and robbery on villagers, and destroying entire districts, Amnesty International said on Tuesday. Gang rape and throat cutting — referred to locally as ”killing like goats” — is prevalent.
All parties in Somalia’s conflict have carried out rights abuses including executions, rape and torture, Amnesty International said on Tuesday, adding there were reports Ethiopian soldiers had slit civilians’ throats. Mogadishu’s whole population is scarred from witnessing or suffering such abuses, it said in its 32-page report.
Mozambican police on Wednesday denied recent accusations by Amnesty International of having a ”mandate to kill” in regard to policing the country. Police spokesperson First Deputy Police Commissioner Carlos Rungo said that accusations of the police killing and torturing citizens with near total impunity were completely untrue.
Police in Mozambique are killing and torturing people with near total impunity, according to a report by Amnesty International released on Tuesday. "Police in Mozambique seem to think they have a licence to kill, and the weak police accountability system allows for this," Michelle Kagari, deputy director of Amnesty International’s Africa Programme, said.
Crowds of Chinese students waving red flags and signs such as ”One World, One Dream, One China” scuffled with pro-Tibet protesters in the latest leg of the Olympic torch relay in Japan on Saturday. Commenting on the turmoil that has bedevilled the global relay, International Olympics Committee president Jacques Rogge urged the West to stop hectoring China over human rights.
Ethiopia criticised Amnesty International on Thursday and said the group’s accusations that Ethiopian soldiers killed 21 people at a Mogadishu mosque were ”lies” and ”propaganda”. Amnesty said on Wednesday the soldiers, who are stationed in Somalia to bolster the interim government, had also captured dozens of children.
Amnesty International accused Ethiopian soldiers on Wednesday of killing 21 people, including an imam and several Islamic scholars, at a Mogadishu mosque and said seven of the victims had their throats slit. The rights group said the soldiers had also captured dozens of children during the raid on the al-Hidaaya mosque.
An Egyptian military court notorious for its harsh verdicts convicted on Tuesday 25 key members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood and sentenced them to up to 10 years in jail, a security official said. The charges against members of Egypt’s largest opposition group included money laundering and terrorism.
South African President Thabo Mbeki was to hold talks on Saturday with Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe in Harare before heading on to Lusaka for a summit on Zimbabwe’s post-election crisis, an official said. Mugabe has chosen not to attend the gathering of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community.
Police have banned political rallies and the opposition has accused the authorities of waging a violent crackdown as Zimbabwe’s political crisis deepens nearly two weeks after a presidential election that produced no official winner. Zimbabwe’s neighbours hope to find a resolution on Saturday at an emergency summit in Zambia.
Zimbabwe raised doubts on Friday over whether President Robert Mugabe would attend an emergency regional summit on the weekend to discuss deepening concern over a post-election deadlock in the country. Officials had earlier said Mugabe was expected to attend the Lusaka summit on Saturday of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community.
President Thabo Mbeki is blatantly violating human rights, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) claimed in a document handed to Amnesty International on Friday. The party’s chief whip, Koos van der Merwe, handed a written complaint against Mbeki to a representative of Amnesty International in Pretoria.
Thousands of protesters were expected to line the route of the latest leg of the Olympic torch’s ”Journey of Harmony” on Wednesday as officials in San Francisco braced themselves for a repetition of the tumultuous scenes in Paris and London. A broad coalition of protest groups has converged on the city.