A coalition of lawyers, academics and NGOs has begun openly to criticise the competence of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
Hundreds of thousands of the migrant workers who built Olympic venues and beautified the city have already been sent home.
An estimated 60 000 civilians are still homeless two months after fleeing violence in the oil town of Abyei in south Sudan, according to HRW.
Six months after a peace accord, human rights in the DRC’s eastern province of Nord-Kivu have not improved, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.
The army is accused of terrorising people in the Ogaden region and the government won’t let outsiders go in to investigate
The University of Massachusetts on Thursday rescinded an honorary law degree awarded 22 years ago to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
The United States and European Union plan a joint call for United Nations monitors to be sent to Zimbabwe after a human rights group alleged systematic government murder and brutality.
A decision by Turkey’s top court to annul a government reform which lifted a ban on Muslim headscarves at universities is a blow to freedom of religion and other fundamental rights, Human Rights Watch said on Saturday.
President Robert Mugabe’s government is using food as a weapon ahead of Zimbabwe’s June 27 presidential run-off election, United States-based group Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.
A New York-based human rights watchdog urged China on Tuesday to honour its commitment to improve its rights record before the Beijing Olympics by freeing some 130 Tiananmen-era prisoners. Human Rights Watch made the call on the eve of the 19th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army’s crushing of student-led demonstrations.
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe made a surprise appearance on Monday at a world food summit in Rome, drawing fierce criticism from the British government. In his first official trip abroad since elections in March, Mugabe attended the summit organised by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation.
Burma’s junta on Saturday came under renewed international pressure from rights groups and the United States defence chief, who said its slow response to the cyclone disaster had cost "tens of thousands of lives". US Defence Secretary Robert Gates criticised the delay in allowing in foreign aid, saying US ships could have swiftly brought relief.
An agreement banning cluster bombs has cheered human rights campaigners, but powerful military states are refusing to join it and experts say the treaty is riddled with holes and could prove unworkable. The agreement commits 111 countries to banning the use of cluster munitions.
Kenya must stop forcibly returning internal refugees displaced by post-election violence that saw hundreds of thousands flee their homes, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Friday. More than 1Â 200 people were killed and 300Â 000 left their homes after ethnic clashes hit swathes of the country following a disputed election in December.
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.
A leading human rights group accused the international community on Monday of not doing enough to deter Sudan from new attacks in Darfur, where it cited a return to ”scorched-earth” policies. Human Rights Watch said the United Nations Security Council should impose sanctions on Sudanese officials behind attacks on civilians in Darfur in February.
Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army rebels have abducted at least 100 children from neighbouring countries to use as sex slaves and porters, an international human rights group said on Monday. Peace talks between Uganda and the rebels appeared to stall last month when LRA leader Joseph Kony failed to appear at a signing ceremony.
Burma is forcing homeless cyclone survivors out of the nation’s monasteries, monks from the disaster zone said on Thursday, as the junta rebuffed international pressure to allow in foreign aid workers. The reports from the monasteries came as the regime announced overwhelming public support in its recent national vote.
The editor of an independent newspaper and a prominent human rights lawyer have been arrested, and Zimbabwe’s largest farm union said on Thursday that 40Â 000 farm workers have been displaced in post-election violence. Davison Maruziva, editor of the Standard newspaper, was taken by police from the newspaper’s offices on Thursday.
Pressure mounted on the Zimbabwe government on Thursday to admit foreign observers to oversee a presidential election run-off amid fresh claims that pro-government militias were instilling terror in communities in the countryside. Meanwhile, there was still no word on when a second round should take place.
This week Switzerland will become ground zero for the future of health policy in Africa. The World Health Organisation’s intergovernmental working group is meeting in Geneva to discuss public health, medical innovation and intellectual property. Many participants are expected to express their support for efforts to undermine patent protections for drugs.
Zimbabwe’s ruling party has said that a second round of presidential elections could be delayed by up to a year in a move that would extend Robert Mugabe’s rule even though he admits to having lost the first round of voting five weeks ago. The election commission is expected to meet soon to set a date for the run-off vote between Mugabe and the opposition candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai.
Zimbabweans are bracing for a bloody second round of elections after government sources on Wednesday said a recount of the presidential vote held a month ago showed that President Robert Mugabe lost to Morgan Tsvangirai, but that neither won an outright majority.
The Zimbabwe government savoured a rare diplomatic victory on Wednesday after the United Nations Security Council failed to agree on how to respond to the country’s post-election crisis. Western countries such as former colonial power Britain had been trying to steer the council to adopt a common strategy on the situation in Zimbabwe.
A special unit of Burundi’s police arbitrarily detained and tortured civilians last year, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) group said in a report released on Wednesday. In a 42-page report entitled Every Morning They Beat Me: Police Abuses in Burundi, HRW documented 21 cases of beatings and torture carried out in October 2007.
Zimbabwe’s army is supplying militants with weapons to intimidate voters to ensure that Robert Mugabe wins a possible run-off in the presidential election, Human Rights Watch said. In a statement released late on Tuesday, it said military forces had equipped war veterans with weapons and trucks to scare Zimbabweans into backing Mugabe.
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.
Kenyan security forces have tortured more than 4 000 people in an indiscriminate offensive against rebels in the remote Mount Elgon area, local rights groups said on Sunday. Activists said the systematic abuses — including crawling on barbed wire — was the worst wave of torture in Kenya under the government of President Mwai Kibaki.
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court warned Sudan on Saturday he will move against more officials soon if Khartoum fails to arrest suspects he has sought for a year over crimes in Darfur. Luis Moreno Ocampo told Reuters in an interview he planned to present evidence against new suspects to ICC judges before the end of the year.
President Robert Mugabe’s party has failed to secure control of Zimbabwe’s Parliament in a partial recount of the March 29 election, results showed on Saturday, handing the ruling party its first defeat in 28 years. Results of a parallel presidential poll have not been released and Mugabe has been preparing for a run-off against Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition.
President Robert Mugabe appeared unlikely on Saturday to win back control of Parliament in a partial vote recount after a police crackdown on members of the opposition, which accuses him of stealing the poll. About 13 seats have been recounted so far. Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF must win nine of 10 remaining constituencies to take back control of Parliament.
A shipment of Chinese arms bound for Zimbabwe will be recalled after South African workers refused to unload the vessel and other neighbouring countries barred it from their ports, China said on Thursday. The recall came in addition to Western pressure over Zimbabwe’s election crisis.