On the second anniversary of the launch of the Campaign for Equality on 27 August, Amnesty International is renewing its demand that the Iranian authorities cease harassing and imprisoning women’s rights defenders and to restrict their campaigning activities for the repeal of laws and policies which discriminate against women in Iran.
The Campaign for Equality is [...]

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CHRD learned today that imprisoned human rights defender Hu Jia (胡佳), who suffers from liver cirrhosis, has been made to perform manual labor under the hot sun for seven hours every day. Meanwhile, prison authorities have confiscated Hu’s letters to his family and a book on human rights sent by his wife.
Hu has been ordered [...]

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On August 12, Wang Xiaoqiao (王小巧), an AIDS activist from Xincai County in Henan Province, was convicted of “extortion” and sentenced to one year in prison by Xincai County Court, Chinese Human Rights Defenders learned today.
“Due to international attention to Wang’s case, the authorities had been detaining Wang for a long time without trial to [...]

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Iran Executes Sixth Juvenile Offender This Year, 26th Since 2005
Calling Iran’s execution on August 26, 2008 of juvenile offender Behnam Zare abhorrent, Human Rights Watch urged the Iranian judiciary to immediately commute the sentences of more than 130 other prisoners facing death for crimes committed while children.
Zare is the sixth juvenile offender Iran has executed [...]

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Under a 20-month-long State of Emergency, which began on January 11, 2007, Bangladesh has been plunged into a period in which human rights have been severely undermined and serious violations have increased significantly. These include widespread and massive arbitrary arrests and detentions, estimated at numbering over 500,000, as well as rampant ill-treatment and torture, and [...]

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The sister organisation of the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC), the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), and the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA), conducted a joint fact-finding mission in Seoul, South Korea, from July 21 to 24, 2008. The primary purposes of the mission were to examine the situation of human rights [...]

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Most Deaths From Suicides or in Botched Escapes
The high death toll of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon, from unnatural causes, shows the urgent need to improve their working conditions, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch called on the official steering committee tasked with improving the situation of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon to [...]

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As the Beijing Olympics ended, Amnesty International today accused the Chinese authorities of prioritizing image over substance as it continued to persecute and punish activists and journalists during the Games.
The organization also criticised the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for tarnishing the human rights legacy of the Olympics by turning a blind eye to the abuses.
“The [...]

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Tens of thousands of civilians who have already suffered from the renewal of violence in Mindanao could be at even greater risk, if the Philippine government supports the creation of untrained and unaccountable civilian militias, Amnesty International said on Thursday 21 August.
Armed conflict in Mindanao escalated after 4 August, when the Supreme Court suspended a [...]

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This interview was conducted in Tbilisi, Georgia on 22 August 2008, with John Dalhuisen, one of Amnesty International’s delegates, who is on a fact-finding mission there. Delegates have been in Georgia since 17 August.
The interview summarizes some of the findings of the fact-finding mission, based on testimonies of injured civilians and soldiers, as well as [...]

Tags: Georgia

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