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/ 5 August 2008

Pillay faces a political minefield

Mary Robinson, a former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (HCHR), who faulted countries such as the United States, China and Israel for transgressions of humanitarian law and civil liberties, was forced to retire because of intense lobbying against an extended tenure for her, writes Thalif Deen. A former president of Ireland, Robinson was […]

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/ 28 May 2008

UN condemns killing of Zim opposition activists

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.

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/ 29 April 2008

Violence fears grow as UN mulls Zim crisis

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.

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/ 4 April 2008

SA urged to ratify torture treaty

The South African government needs to ratify an international treaty on preventing torture, South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) chief executive Tseliso Thipanyane said on Friday. Thipanyane said he is concerned about the government’s ”terrible attitude” towards the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture.

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/ 29 March 2008

Muslim nations condemn Dutch Qur’an film

Muslim nations on Friday condemned a film by a Dutch lawmaker that accuses the Qur’an of inciting violence, and Dutch Muslim leaders urged restraint. Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigration Freedom Party, launched his short video on the internet on Thursday evening, prompting an al-Qaeda-linked website to call for his death.