Singapore: Rights experts call for moratorium on the death penalty

Singapore: Rights experts call for moratorium on the death penalty

They strongly condemned the execution this week of Tangaraju s/o Suppiah, who was convicted of conspiring to traffic cannabis from Malaysia to the country in 2013.  Fair trial concerns  Mr. Suppiah, a 46-year-old Tamil from Singapore, was hanged on Tuesday despite claims that he had not been provided with adequate interpretation during police interrogations. “The…

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Background to a crisis: In Sudan, the stakes are high for the whole of Africa 

Background to a crisis: In Sudan, the stakes are high for the whole of Africa 

A turbulent transition to civilian rule has been underway in Sudan since the ouster of former President Omar Hassan El-Bashir in April 2019. The civilian-led transitional Government put in place later that year, through a power-sharing agreement between military and civilian leaders, was toppled by a military coup in October 2021. PNP Deskpnp.com.pk

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Stop deporting Haitians: Rights experts’ appeal to countries in Americas

Stop deporting Haitians: Rights experts’ appeal to countries in Americas

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) sounded the alarm after 36,000 people of Haitian origin were deported during the first three months of the year, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Some 90 per cent were deported from the Dominican Republic. Violations and abuses against Haitians The…

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Transitional justice hinges on ‘equal footing’, say UN peacebuilders

Transitional justice hinges on ‘equal footing’, say UN peacebuilders

“A society can only succeed on its path towards sustainable peace and development when all its constituencies can participate on an equal footing,” Ilze Brands Kehris, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, said ahead of progress reports delivered by high-level representatives of Colombia, The Gambia, and Timor-Leste. The preventive potential of transitional justice can only be…

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First Person: Journeys of resilience across war-torn Ukraine

UN condemns ‘inexcusable’ deadly airstrikes in Ukraine

Dozens of civilians across the country were killed and injured, and homes and other vital infrastructure, destroyed.  More than 20 people were killed in the small central city of Uman alone, when their apartment building collapsed after it was hit, according to international media reports.  ‘Inexcusable’ attacks  “It is just inexcusable that in places like…

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UN humanitarians will return to Khartoum ‘as quickly as possible’: UN aid coordinator

UN humanitarians will return to Khartoum ‘as quickly as possible’: UN aid coordinator

Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Abdou Dieng, speaking from Port Sudan, told reporters in the briefing room in New York that senior leadership would be returning to the Sudanese capital, as soon as the situation allows. The needs are urgent, and widespread, he said, as the final few hours of a US-brokered 72-hour ceasefire neared, with…

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Afghanistan: Security Council condemns Taliban’s ban on women working for UN

Afghanistan: Security Council condemns Taliban’s ban on women working for UN

The resolution passed unanimously by the 15-member body in New York, calls for the “full, equal, meaningful and safe participation of women and girls in Afghanistan”, and urges all countries and organisations with influence on the fundamentalist rulers of the country, “to promote an urgent reversal” of policies which have in effect erased women from public…

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China: 'Vocational training' programmes for Tibetans carry risk of forced labour

China: ‘Vocational training’ programmes for Tibetans carry risk of forced labour

“Hundreds of thousands of Tibetans have reportedly been ‘transferred’ from their traditional rural lives to low-skilled and low-paid employment since 2015, through a programme described as voluntary, but in practice their participation has reportedly been coerced,” they said in a statement.  ‘Cultural and political indoctrination’  They noted that the labour transfer programme is facilitated by…

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