Category: Human Rights

Speaking at the end of the second Global Summit on Religion, Peace and Security, at UN headquarters in Geneva, Adama Dieng noted that in the wake of dozens killed inside Sri Lanka churches, a synagogue attack in California, and killings inside a church in Burkina Faso, the threat of another genocide somewhere, was only growing larger. “We are speaking about… Read More

“Such incidents have become all-too-familiar” said António Guterres, citing “Muslims gunned down in mosques, their religious sites vandalized; Jews murdered in synagogues, their gravestones defaced with swastikas” and Christians “killed at prayer, their churches often torched.” Instead of being safe havens, houses of worship have become targets, he warned, noting that “beyond the murders, there is loathsome rhetoric: xenophobia aimed… Read More

According to news reports, on Saturday, a gunman armed with a semiautomatic rifle entered a synagogue in Poway, California, some 40 kilometres north of San Diego, yelling anti-Semitic slurs, and opened fire. The attack left one woman dead, the rabbi and two others wounded. This incident comes in the wake of a series of attacks against mosques, synagogues and other places… Read More

The polite but passionate plea came from 20-year-old wheelchair-bound Syrian refugee, Nujeen Mustafa, who briefed members in a soft but commanding voice, on the acute vulnerabilities of people with disabilities in conflict, describing how once war began in her home city of Aleppo, she lived with the intense fear that she would be responsible for her own family dying in an airstrike. … Read More

“I strongly condemn these shocking mass executions across six cities in Saudi Arabia yesterday in spite of grave concerns raised about these cases by numerous UN Special Rapporteurs, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and others,” she said in a statement. Amid allegations that confessions were obtained through torture, she voiced concern over a lack of due… Read More

At the meeting marking the 10th anniversary of the adoption of resolution 1888, which created the mandate of the Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, the Council passed a German-drafted resolution to reduce sexual violence in conflict and end rape as a weapon of war, with 13 in favour, and two countries, Russia and China, abstaining. “Local civil society organizations,… Read More

Anne Nuorgam, who is a member of Finland’s Saami Parliament and head of the Saami Council’s Human Rights Unit, described the Forum as an opportunity to share innovations and practices, developed in indigenous communities “over centuries and millennia”. Indigenous peoples make up less than six per cent of the world’s population, but account for 15 per cent of the poorest… Read More

Stress, overtime, disease, contribute to 2.8 million workers’ deaths per year, reports UN labour agency Stress, excessively-long working hours and disease, contribute to the deaths of nearly 2.8 million workers every year, while an additional 374 million people get injured or fall ill because of their jobs, the UN labour agency, ILO, said on Thursday. In a new report underlining… Read More

Based on interviews with more than 600 detainees and published jointly by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR), their latest report on the treatment of prisoners in 77 facilities in 28 out of 34 provinces indicates that an average of nearly one in three, provided “credible and reliable” accounts of suffering.  In… Read More

Echoing concerns from the UN’s human rights office, OHCHR, and others about the deteriorating situation in the Central American country, UNHCR said that families with young children are now taking extreme measures to cross the border. “The kinds of reasons that people have been giving for fleeing are the fear of losing their lives, being attacked or kidnapped by paramilitary… Read More