Human Rights Glance
— The annual rate of Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians has almost quadrupled in eight years, U.N. figures show, buttressing claims that Israeli security forces have largely failed to stem the so-called "price tag" campaign in which thugs cut down trees, deface mosques and beat Palestinian farmers.
Israeli leaders have repeatedly denounced such attacks — the defense minister last week branded them "outright terrorism" — and the military says soldiers are under strict orders to stop them. Still, critics say Israeli governments stacked with pro-settler politicians have often been reluctant to confront settlers, even those seen as a hardline fringe.
UN says pace of Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians up 4-fold
Dozens arrested for being gay in north Nigeria
Local and international groups fighting AIDS warned on Tuesday that a new Nigerian law criminalizing same-sex marriage and gay organizations will jeopardize the fight against the deadly disease.
Human rights activists reported that dozens of gay men were being arrested in northern Nigeria in an apparent response to the law. The United States, Britain and Canada condemned the law, with Secretary of State John Kerry saying Monday that it "dangerously restricts freedom" of expression and association of all Nigerians.
11 of first 20 captives to arrive at Guantánamo remain there
Twelve years ago, U.S. troops shuffled 20 men in chains and orange jumpsuits off a cargo plane at Guantánamo — dubbed “the worst of the worst” of America’s captives in the nascent war on terror — to launch an experiment in interrogation and detention unbounded by geography or the U.S. courts.
No one knew what would become of them. Not the U.S. military. Not President George W. Bush. Not them. Nine of them are gone now. The rest includes three men who are cleared to go, committed hunger strikers, three Taliban and a war criminal serving a life sentence on a questionable conspiracy conviction for peddling al-Qaida propaganda.
Bin Laden bodyguard cleared for release from Guantanamo
A former bodyguard for Osama bin Laden has been cleared for release from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Pentagon said.
Mahmoud Abd Al Aziz Al Mujahid, 33, of Yemen, was cleared for release by a review board and is now eligible for transfer to any country that agrees to take him, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Guantánamo review board declares detainee eligible for transfer
A man held at Guantánamo Bay who was previously deemed too dangerous to release has been re-evaluated by a US government panel, which is reviewing cases as part of an effort to close the prison, officials said Thursday.
The six-member board decided that Mahmud Mujahid, who has been held at Guantánamo since January 2002, no longer poses a "continuing significant threat" to the United States and is eligible for transfer out of the US base in Cuba, the Pentagon said in a statement.
African Refugees Protest Israeli Migrant Laws
Thousands of African migrants are marching for a second-straight day in Tel Aviv to protest what they say is harsh treatment from the Israeli government.
The march Monday includes stops at the embassies of the United States and several European countries, as the migrants try to draw attention to their desire for asylum and an end to laws that could place them in detention or forbid them to work.
US ambassador to Honduras offers tacit support of brutal crackdown
In remarks last month, U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Lisa Kubiske decried pervasive impunity in Honduras as the single biggest threat to human rights during an International Human Rights Day commemoration. In a country already plagued by grinding poverty and unrelenting violence, entrenched impunity does present a terrifying threat to justice.
However, despite her own admission that the Honduran legal system is dysfunctional, Kubiske blamed those being oppressed by that impunity for taking the law into their own hands to defend their rights.
Kubiske specifically reproached peasant farmers in the fertile lands of the Lower Aguan Valley, who are engaged in a desperate struggle with local wealthy landowners and the government for control over their lands, which has left 113 members of their campesino community dead since the 2009 coup that overthrew democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya.
More Articles...
Page 5 of 170
