When people like Desmond Tutu describe the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories as apartheid, it's not mere hyperbole.
Israel's self-proclaimed 'policy of separation' seeks to segregate Palestinians and Jews in the West Bank, writes Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard.
Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning literally, separateness. It's hard to see how Israel's policy […]
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 […]
The "villains' charter" debate has reached Australia, it would seem.
Reviewing Victoria's Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities 12 months after it came into effect, the Sunday Herald-Sun's 'star political reporter' Ellen Whinnett wrote last month that the Charter had been "hijacked by criminals."
Her view echoes Britain's Daily Mail which attacks the UK's 'disastrous' Human Rights […]
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 United Nations has sharpened its focus on combating violence against children with the creation last month of a new Special Procedure. This independent world expert will be called Special Representative to the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children.
The job of this Special Representative, for an initial term of 3 years, will include […]
Last week retired academic Peter McGregor was arrested in the Australian parliament for attempting to arrest Prime Minister John Howard, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock and Defence Minister Brendan Nelson, accusing the four of war crimes.
This was not McGregor’s first attempt to arrest the Attorney-General. In a public statement McGregor accused "groups like […]
Some 700 people were arrested in the South Pacific nation of Tonga last year following riots on 16 November. Arson and looting on the main island of Tongatapu caused extensive damage to the capital Nuku’alofa and beyond.
A preliminary human rights report issued shortly after the crisis documented violence and other abuses by police and soldiers […]
The highest international authority on civil and political rights has found Australia is violating the rights of a Bangladeshi asylum seeker detained for nearly seven-and-a-half years.
Danyal Shafiq, 34, was raised in an orphanage in Bangladesh. Fearing torture, harsh imprisonment or death at the hands of either Bangladeshi police or the Sharbahara Party, he fled to […]
Charles Taylor, former President of Liberia wanted on 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, made headlines last year when he was finally arrested in Nigeria and handed over to be tried by the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone. Now the law has caught up with his son, Charles ‘Chuckie’ Taylor, a […]