Alberto Fujimori has been sentenced to 25 years' gaol for 'human rights crimes'.
The former President of Peru was yesterday found guilty of ordering 2 massacres of civilians in 1991 and 1992, during the 'dirty war' with violent Maoist rebel movement Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) that saw more than 70,000 Peruvians disappeared or killed.
A […]
For all the high-profile anti-poverty advocacy of its frontman, Bono, Irish rock band U2 has copped a hiding from compatriots for tax evasion in their homeland.
Though all four band members live in Ireland, the band's publishing arm relocated to the Netherlands in 2006, after Ireland capped tax-free earnings for artists at €250,000. Meanwhile, ordinary Irish […]
Amnesty International called it "shocking and preventable." On 27 January 2008, Australian indigenous leader and land rights activist Ian Ward — "one of the last nomads born in the Gibson Desert" — died in custody.
The Warburton man was being driven 915km from Laverton in the Western Desert to Kalgoorlie for a mention in relation to […]
Three Bosnian Serbs were arrested last week accused of crimes against humanity committed in 1992. Veljko Basic, 82, Predrag Bastah, 55, and Goran Viskovic, 54, are being questioned by Bosnian authorities regarding crimes committed in Susica camp in the town of Vlasenica in northeastern Bosnia.
Some 8,000 local civilians, mostly Muslims, were held in the prison […]
"The scale of maternal mortality is catastrophic. Every minute a woman dies in childbirth or from complications of pregnancy. . . well over 500,000 women a year. 95% are in Africa and Asia. . . This is global health inequality on a shocking scale. For every woman who dies, as many as 30 others suffer […]
Recruiting child soldiers under the age of 18 is a crime under international law. Recruiting children under the age of 15 is a war crime. The International Criminal Court’s first trial will be that of DRC warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, charged with recruiting child soldiers as young as 10.
The term ‘child soldier’ refers to any […]
Advancing the global campaign against explosive remnants of war, Belgium has taken the unprecedented step of banning investment in companies that manufacture cluster bombs. Belgium banned the weapon itself a year ago.
Cluster munitions spread ‘bomblets’ — hundreds or thousands at a time — over wide areas from 1 to 20 square kilometres. Unlike landmines, a […]
It’s 40 years since Australia executed anyone. Forty years ago today a flock of pigeons took flight from the roof of Pentridge Gaol in Melbourne when the gallows trap crashed open under Ronald Ryan’s feet. He was, and may he remain, the last person executed in Australia.
On this bleak anniversary Lex Lasry QC reminds us […]
Ethnic-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink has been shot dead in broad daylight outside his newspaper office in Istanbul. Turkish authorities have condemned the killing.
Respected editor and columnist, 52 year-old Dink had faced death threats and legal action for his views on the 1915-18 genocide of Armenians under the Ottoman empire. And yet he was an advocate […]
Nearly 35,000 civilians were killed in Iraq last year, according to the UN. It’s an astonishing but unsurprising figure, given the daily reports of carnage. As the United States mourns the death of over 3,000 of its troops sent to Iraq since the 2003 invasion, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq reports 34,452 civilians were […]