Tag: Rights

UN chief calls on Tunisia to end migrant expulsions

UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called Tuesday for Tunisia to stop expelling migrants into desert border areas, and demanded those already stranded in the harsh environment be relocated, a spokesperson said. “We are deeply concerned about the expulsion of migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers from Tunisia to the borders with Libya and also Algeria,” deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said. He warned that “several have died” at Tunisia’s border with Libya, while […]

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US trafficking report highlights forced labor, exploited boys

WASHINGTON, June 15, 2023 (AFP) – The United States on Thursday denounced the scourge of human trafficking, calling out forced labor and the little-known but growing problem of boys and young men caught up the trade. The condemnation came as Secretary of State Antony Blinken presented a report on what he called “concerning trends” in human trafficking. Blinken blasted the rise in forced labor as worldwide supply chains were disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. “Exploitative […]

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6,000 Myanmar civilians killed in 20 months post coup: report

OSLO, June 13, 2023 (AFP) – More than 6,000 civilians were killed in Myanmar in the first 20 months after the February 2021 military coup, a report published Tuesday by the Peace Research Institute of Oslo said. “Our data shows that the human toll of the conflict is higher than previously reported, and while the junta is clearly the main killer, anti-junta forces also have large amounts of blood on their hands,” Stein Tonnesson, one […]

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World ‘failing’ to protect civilians in combat zones, UN chief says

UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — The world is failing to protect civilians as the number of people caught up in conflicts and their humanitarian aftershocks skyrocketed last year, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday. In 2022, the United Nations tallied a 53 percent increase in civilian deaths compared to the year prior, with nearly 17,000 civilian deaths recorded across 12 conflicts. Citing civilian deaths in Ukraine and Sudan, schools destroyed in Ethiopia and damage […]

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Leaders of wider Europe unite against Russia

By Marc BURLEIGH Agence France-Presse REYKJAVIK, Iceland, May 16, 2023 (AFP) – A year after kicking Russia out of the Council of Europe (CoE), the leaders of the 46-nation pan-continental rights body gather Tuesday in Iceland to show a united face against Moscow. Firming up ways to hold Russia legally responsible for the death and destruction it has wrought in Ukraine will dominate the summit in Reykjavik, only the fourth to be held in the […]

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Press freedoms shrink, journalists targeted: UN and media

By Amélie BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS Agence France-Presse UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — Press freedom is under attack in every corner of the globe, with journalists continually harassed, jailed and killed, UN officials and media outlets warned Tuesday. Speaking ahead of World Press Freedom Day on Wednesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a rallying cry for journalists and media worldwide. “All our freedom depends on press freedom,” he said in a video message, calling it the “foundation […]

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Over a dozen alleged gang members stoned, burned alive in Haiti

UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — More than a dozen suspected gang members were stoned and burned alive on Monday by residents in Port-au-Prince, police and witnesses said, as the UN warned that insecurity in the Haitian capital has reached levels similar to countries at war. “During a search of a minibus in which there were armed individuals, the police confiscated weapons and other equipment. In addition, more than a dozen individuals traveling in this […]

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HRW accuses Vietnam of abducting blogger from Thailand

Human Rights Watch on Friday accused Vietnam of kidnapping a blogger critical of the communist government who was living as a refugee in Thailand. Thai Van Duong, who fled to Thailand in 2019 to escape Vietnamese authorities and was subsequently given refugee status, disappeared last week. According to Vietnamese state media, the 41-year-old is now in custody in Vietnam after being detained for “illegally entering” the country through an unofficial border crossing close to Laos […]

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‘I was born here’: Thousands in limbo in Dominican Republic

by Javier Tovar Agence France-Presse SANTA CRUZ DE EL SEIBO, Dominican Republic (AFP) — When Andres was 12, his Dominican Republic citizenship — his only possession of any real value — was snatched from him by a court ruling targeting people with foreign-born parents. Ten years later, Andres is still undocumented in the country where he was born, working a backbreaking, low-paying job in the sugarcane fields with little hope of bettering himself. Andres’s mother […]

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Iran orders arrest of women allegedly attacked for not wearing hijab

  Tehran, Iran | AFP | Iranian authorities ordered the arrest of two women, the judiciary said Saturday, after a viral video appeared to show them being attacked by a man for not wearing the hijab. Video footage widely shared on social media in Iran appeared to show the two female customers, who were not wearing the mandatory hijab or headscarf, in a shop being assaulted by a man after a verbal altercation. The footage […]

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Saudi releases US citizen imprisoned for critical tweets: son

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AFP) — A US citizen sentenced to 19 years in a Saudi prison for social media posts criticising the kingdom’s rulers has been released, his son told AFP on Tuesday. Saad Ibrahim Almadi, a 72-year-old of Saudi origin, was arrested in 2021 for what his son, Ibrahim, described as “mild” Twitter posts on topics including the war in Yemen and the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Last October, a court […]

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Hong Kong rights activist Albert Ho arrested by national security police

HONG KONG, China (AFP) — One of Hong Kong’s best-known rights activists was arrested by the city’s national security police on Tuesday over alleged witness tampering, a police source told AFP. Albert Ho, 71, formerly led the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance, which organized an annual candlelight vigil for more than three decades to mourn the victims of China’s bloody crackdown at Tiananmen Square in 1989. The lawyer is already facing up to a decade in […]

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