UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk raised a range of concerns that several sets of proposed legislative changes that Israel’s parliament is considering would pose serious risks to the effectiveness of the judiciary to defend the rule of law, human rights, and judicial independence. Human rights at risk “If passed, these changes risk…
Matilda Bogner, Head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU), told journalists in Geneva that the civilian death toll in the southern city of Mariupol – besieged and bombarded by Russian missiles – had been particularly high. “My colleagues interviewed a former prisoner of war, and he was from Mariupol and he…
“The suffering across the country remains immense,” Commissioner Barney Afako said at a press conference in Juba, the capital. “South Sudanese women and girls continue to face unspeakable sexual violence.” On the penultimate day of a five-day visit, the Commission took stock of reports from civil society and stakeholders in Juba and Upper Nile state,…
“More people in distress will be made to suffer and more lives risk being lost because timely help is not available, if this law is passed,” he said in a statement. Mr. Türk expressed his serious concerns a day after the Italian Parliament approved legislation that imposes stricter requirements on humanitarian ships which are attempting…
“Leprosy is hidden beneath multiple layers of systemic exclusion, structural discrimination, and institutional neglect,” said UN Special Rapporteur on discrimination against persons with leprosy, Alice Cruz, following an eight-day visit to Bangladesh. Currently, people from 120 countries are affected by leprosy, known as Hansen’s disease, with more than 200,000 new cases reported worldwide yearly. The…
Spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said that since Saturday, at least nine people have been reportedly arrested and some detained, on security and graft charges. Among those arrested were two former judges, a lawyer, a prominent businessman, the head of a radio station and the leader of the Islamist Ennahdha political party, according to media reports. Concern…
The development would represent a key measure to tackle past injustices and create a more inclusive society, said UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, José Francisco Cali Tzay, in a statement at the end of a 10-day visit to the two countries. Inuit people comprise nearly 90 per cent of the population…
“The findings of this report are horrifying,” said Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, during a visit to Haiti this week. “It paints a picture of how people are being harassed and terrorized by criminal gangs for months without the State being able to stop it. It can only be described as…
Keenan Anderson died in Los Angeles after being repeatedly tased by police following a chase resulting from a traffic stop, according to news reports, and Tyre Nichols in Memphis, died after being severely beaten as he lay on the ground, by five officers in Memphis, Tennessee, who have since been charged with murder and other…
Preliminary criminal proceedings opened last May in Sicily against 21 people charged with aiding and abetting illegal immigration in connection with several search-and-rescue missions conducted between 2016 and 2017. Those accused include four crew members of the Iuventa, a former fishing trawler credited with saving some 14,000 migrant lives in the Mediterranean Sea, and human…
