Tag: Europe News

In a news release on Tuesday, Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on torture, noted that such conditions would almost certainly cause Mr. Assange to commit suicide.  #UK: UN expert @NilsMelzer welcomes British court’s refusal to extradite Wikileaks founder #JulianAssange to US on basis that he would be exposed to “oppressive” conditions of imprisonment that would almost certainly cause him to… Read More

In Sary-Mogol in Kyrgyzstan, breeding animals, like yaks, is one of the few traditional ways to make a living. , by UNDP/Danil Usmanov In 2019, more than 1,300 tourists passed through Sary-Mogol to enjoy amongst other attractions the village’s horse and yak games festival and fair; in 2020, the number dwindled to less than a dozen. According to the UN… Read More

“The right to nationality ensures concrete protection for individuals, in particular children”, said Committee member Shuichi Furuya.  In what they called “a ground-breaking decision”, the Committee’s first on the right of a child to acquire a nationality, the members referred to a petition by a boy named Denny, who in 2010 was born in the Dutch city of Utrecht to… Read More

The migrants and asylum seekers lost shelter after the Lipa Emergency Tent Camp, located in the country’s north-west, was closed and subsequently destroyed in a fire on 23 December.  “With the recent heavy snowfalls and temperatures below freezing, up to 500 people currently stranded at the location of the former Lipa camp are at immediate safety, health and protection risk,”… Read More

Nearly all infrastructure at the Lipa Emergency Tent Camp, which housed about 1,400 migrants, has been destroyed or badly damaged. This number is in addition to some 1,500 migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees – including women and children – stranded in squats and forest camps nearby.  With the devastation, the overall number of people in dire need of assistance has swelled… Read More

“Mr. Assange has been arbitrarily deprived of his liberty for the past ten years”,  wrote Nils Melzer, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. “This is a high price to pay for the courage to publish true information about government misconduct throughout the world”.  Incarcerated since the authorities arrested him inside London’s Ecuadorian Embassy… Read More

The COVID-19 pandemic, a generational global economic crisis, and faltering progress on sustainable development and gender equality were some of the challenges the Secretary-General outlined in a speech, delivered in German.  “It is clear that the way to win the future is through an openness to the world. Yet in too many places, we see a closing of minds,” said… Read More

During a joint press conference with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas at the Bundestag, Secretary-General António Guterres recalled a global UN survey of some 1.5 million participants, in which 99 per cent of Germans “affirmed their commitment to multilateralism, and international cooperation, to solve the problems of today’s world…by far, the largest percentage” of any one nation.  I am very… Read More

“Mr. Assange is not a criminal convict and poses no threat to anyone, so his prolonged solitary confinement in a high security prison is neither necessary nor proportionate and clearly lacks any legal basis”, said Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on torture.  The WikiLeaks founder has been detained since 2010 after his site published classified diplomatic information. A decision on… Read More

A ceasefire was agreed through a joint statement by the President of Azerbaijan, Prime Minister of Armenia, and Russia’s President, on 9 November, leading to the deployment of several thousand Russian peacekeepers to the enclave and border regions, after six weeks of escalating conflict over Nagorno-Karabkh. Thousands were reportedly killed and more than 100,000 displaced. “The Secretary-General takes note of the… Read More