Category: Human Rights

“I want to commemorate Syrian victims and remember Syrian suffering and resilience in the face of unimaginable violence and indignities that… have faced over ten long years”, Special Envoy Geir Pedersen said, reciting a litany of “countless” violations of international law, including “the unspeakable horrors of chemical weapons”.  Gruesome snapshot  On this grim anniversary, I want to commemorate Syrian victims… Read More

“The Holocaust did not start with the gas chambers, it started with hate speech against a minority”, warned Fernand de Varennes, the UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues. “Dehumanizing language, even reducing minorities to pests, normalizes violence against them and makes their persecution and eventual elimination acceptable”, he added. A slippery slope The UN rights envoy pointed out that in some countries,… Read More

The Secretary-General’s official spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, said in a statement released on Sunday, that the UN chief’s call was in relation to the recent legal action taken against former government officials and authorities in Bolivia. Bolivia fell into crisis in 2019, after President Evo Morales declared victory in disputed elections that would have granted him a fourth term, prompting mass protests. Dozens… Read More

The initiative underscores the need for global solidarity to ensure vaccines are accessible in all countries, initially targeting healthcare workers and the most vulnerable.   Tidal wave of suffering  “The virus has killed more than 2.5 million people, and left millions more with debilitating long-term health effects”, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a video message to launch the campaign.  “Over the past year, we’ve all missed out on doing the things… Read More

The call comes after a resumption of federal executions in the US in the last year of Donald Trump’s Presidency, in which 13 people were put to death. In their appeal to the White House, the rights experts insisted that the death penalty served “no deterrent value and cannot be reconciled with the right to life”. ‘Inherently flawed’ The punishment… Read More

Latest available data from the World Health Organization (WHO) and partners revealed that violence against women remains “devastatingly pervasive and starts alarmingly young”.  Some 736 million women – that translates to a third of all women – have been subjected to physical or sexual violence across their lifetimes.  ?data shows that violence against women remains devastatingly pervasive & starts alarmingly… Read More

Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on torture, made the charge on Monday in presenting his latest report, which evaluates States’ response to his official communications and requests for country visits.  “While the reactions of governments to allegations and requests transmitted to them, range from complete silence to aggressive rejection, unsubstantiated denial, bureaucratic obstruction and even sophisticated forms of pretence, the… Read More

Mary Lawlor, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, was presenting her latest report to the UN Human Rights Council, which is based in Geneva.  “It is shocking that between 2015 and 2019, at least 1,323 defenders were killed in 64 countries”, she said. “The pattern of killings is widespread, with human rights defenders having been killed in… Read More

In a report to the Council, he cited European surveys in 2018 and 2019 that showed that nearly four in 10 people held unfavourable views about Muslims. In 2017, 30 per cent of Americans viewed Muslims “in a negative light”, the Special Rapporteur added. He said that States had responded to security threats “by adopting measures which disproportionately target Muslims… Read More

Five UN rights experts called Saudi Arabia’ decision to re-sentence to 10 years, the imprisonment of Ali al-Nimr, Dawood al-Marhoon and Abdullah al-Zaher “an important step towards compliance with the country’s international human rights obligations”, particularly under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits executions for crimes committed by persons under the age of 18.  They highlighted… Read More