“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…
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…
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…
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…
The transitional Government of Mali had made the announcement on Sunday, in effect, barring the Director of the Human Rights Division of the UN Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) from staying in the country, who is the top representative of the UN human rights office (OHCHR) there. Critical need to protect rights In the context…
“I deeply regret the decision by the Malian authorities to declare my representative, Guillaume Ngefa, as persona non grata and to order him to leave the country in 48 hours,” Volker Türk said. Mr. Ngefa, Director of the Human Rights Division of the UN Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and Representative of the High Commissioner…
“We are very disturbed that in recent years the residential school system for Tibetan children appears to act as a mandatory large-scale programme intended to assimilate Tibetans into majority Han culture, contrary to international human rights standards,” they said in a statement. Erosion of identity Residential schools provide educational content and an environment centred around…
