Tag: Amnesty International

Amnesty condemns ‘forced’ returns of Afghan asylum seekers

KABUL, Afghanistan (AFP) – A surge of failed Afghan asylum seekers “forcibly” returned from Europe are at risk of torture, kidnapping and death in war-torn Afghanistan, Amnesty International said Thursday. Almost 9,500 Afghans went back to their homeland in 2016 after their applications for asylum in Europe were rejected, compared with nearly 3,300 a year earlier, the human rights group said. The figure covers asylum seekers who were detained and then deported from European countries, and those […]

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Amnesty calls for commission to probe Mosul crimes

LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) – Amnesty International on Tuesday called for a commission to investigate crimes against civilians in Mosul by all sides in the battle to liberate the Iraqi city from jihadists. “The horrors that the people of Mosul have witnessed and the disregard for human life by all parties to this conflict must not go unpunished,” said Lynn Maalouf, director of Middle East research at Amnesty International. “An independent commission must immediately be […]

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China remains world’s biggest executioner: Amnesty

BEIJING, China (AFP) — China executed more people in 2016 than all other nations combined, Amnesty International said Tuesday, as death penalties in the world decreased overall. The human rights organisation estimates the Asian giant alone killed “thousands” of people, a figure based on examinations of court records and news reports. All other countries together executed at least 1,032 people last year — a decline of 37 percent compared to 2015. China was one of […]

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Coalition falling short of protecting Mosul civilians: Amnesty

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AFP) — Amnesty International said Tuesday the United States-led coalition was not doing enough to protect civilians in the battle to retake Iraq’s Mosul with cases of entire families killed in their homes. Iraqi authorities launched the battle to retake the second city from the Islamic State group in October with support from coalition air strikes, recapturing its eastern side from the jihadists in January. Amnesty’s Donatella Rovera said field research in east […]

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Cops paid assassins to kill drug suspects, says Amnesty Int’l report on police abuses in drug war

(Eagle News) — Amnesty International has revealed incidents where policemen in the Philippines pay officers and assassins to kill drug suspects, plant evidence and even set up an alleged racket with funeral homes who pay for each dead body sent to them. The international rights group investigated 33 incidents of drug-related killings in 20 cities and towns across the Philippines in which 59 people were killed, mostly poor people. The Amnesty report, which followed an […]

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Families of those killed in Duterte’s drug war hope for justice ahead of Human Rights Day

  (Reuters) — Grace Fonollera sat beside the coffin of her 18-year-old son, Ace Bacorro, at a funeral set up across their shanty home in Manila. Her son, along with his friend Rondolph Droyon, were killed on December 6 when unidentified gunmen shot them while they were out drinking. Closed circuit television footage by the local village showed men riding on two motorcycles firing at the group in the early morning. Fonollera said her son […]

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Thai authorities bar Amnesty International talk on torture

BANGKOK, Thailand  (AFP) — Thai authorities blocked an Amnesty International news conference on torture in the kingdom Wednesday, the watchdog said, the latest move to silence rights groups in the army-run country. Two foreign Amnesty International staff were scheduled to speak at the Bangkok launch of a report detailing 74 cases of alleged torture at the hands of Thai soldiers and police. But the advocacy group was told Wednesday morning that speaking at the event would be […]

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EU arms exports to Egypt fuel killings, torture: Amnesty

  NICOSIA, Cyprus (AFP) – Amnesty International has accused nearly half of the European Union’s members of fuelling killings and torture among other abuses in Egypt through arms exports, in a report issued on Wednesday. International organisations have accused Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of running an ultra-authoritarian and repressive regime since he deposed his democratically elected Islamist predecessor Mohamed Morsi in 2013. In its report, Amnesty said “12 out of 28 EU member states […]

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Qatar is unfit to host the 2022 World Cup, says Amnesty International

DOHA, Qatar (Reuters) — Migrant workers in Qatar renovating a 2022 World Cup stadium have been subjected to human rights abuses, in some cases forced labor, two years after the tournament’s organizers introduced worker welfare standards in the wake of widespread criticism, according to a report by Amnesty International. Dozens of construction workers from Nepal and India rebuilding the Khalifa stadium, a vast sporting complex in Doha that will host a World Cup quarter-final in […]

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Global rights are in jeopardy, Amnesty warns in annual report

LONDON, ENGLAND, United Kingdom (Reuters) — International protection of human rights is in danger of unravelling as governments focus more on short-term national self interests and implement security crackdowns, Amnesty International warns in it’s annual report released on Wednesday (February 24). The State of the World’s Human Rights said there had been a wholesale assault on basic freedoms and rights. “The system to protect human rights is itself under threat and needs protection. The system […]

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Amnesty says satellite images show five possible Burundi mass graves

Satellite images show five possible mass graves on the outskirts of Burundi’s capital at sites consistent with testimony by witnesses who accused security forces of killing dozens of people in December, Amnesty International said on Friday (January 29). Witnesses said graves were dug on the afternoon of Dec. 11, and before and after images and video footage show disturbed earth at five sites in the Buringa area on the edge of Bujumbura, rights group Amnesty […]

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Amnesty International says abducted women and girls forced to join Boko Haram attacks

  AT least 2,000 women and girls have been abducted by Boko Haram since the start of 2014 and many have been forced into sexual slavery and trained to fight, said Amnesty International in a report released on Tuesday (April 14) to coincide with the first anniversary of the abduction of the Chibok school girls. Based on nearly 200 witness accounts, including 28 with abducted women and girls who escaped captivity, a new 90-page report, […]

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