A bill before Nigeria’s National Assembly to ban “same gender marriage” would expand Nigeria’s already draconian punishments for homosexual conduct and threaten all Nigerians’ rights to privacy, free expression, and association, Human Rights Watch said today.
In a letter to President Umaru Yar’Adua, leaders of the House of Representatives and Senate, the Nigerian National Human Rights [...]

Tags: LGBT, Nigeria

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Sri Lankan authorities must ensure that the country’s media are allowed to work without restriction and in safety, Amnesty International said today.
“The Sri Lankan authorities are doing little to ensure the safety of the country’s media, or to prosecute those responsible for murdering or attacking them. They are also directly responsible for subjecting journalists to [...]

Tags: Sri Lanka

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Amnesty International’s Secretary General Irene Khan today said President Obama’s Executive Orders on interrogations and the end of CIA’s secret detention programme is an “historic decision” and “one of the major steps needed towards bringing the USA back in line with international human rights standards.”
“The importance of President Obama’s executive orders should not be underestimated,” [...]

Tags: USA

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Further details have been discovered in the case of Ms. Zarina Marri, a 23-year-old schoolteacher from Balochistan province, who has been held incommunicado in an army torture cell at Karachi, the capital of Sindh province and used as a sex slave.
The officials of the education department of Kahan have disclosed that Ms. Marri was a [...]

Tags: Pakistan

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Six US ambassadors have written in their personal capacities to the President of Sri Lanka expressing their concern over the deterioration of the situation in the country and urged him to take steps to re-establish accountability and the rule of law, by ensuring investigations into assassinations and human rights abuses.
The letter, according to the authors, [...]

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Georgian, Russian and South Ossetian forces committed numerous violations of the laws of war in the conflict in August 2008 over South Ossetia and its aftermath, causing many civilian deaths and injuries and widespread destruction of civilian property according to a Human Rights Watch report released today.
The 200-page report, “Up in Flames: Humanitarian Law Violations [...]

Tags: Georgia, Russia

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The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) trial of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo is scheduled to begin on January 26, 2009 in The Hague. Another Congolese warlord sought by the ICC, Bosco Ntaganda, remains at large.
Lubanga, the former leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) militia who operated in the district of Ituri in northeastern Congo, is [...]

Tags: DR Congo, ICC

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President Mahinda Rajapakse should order prosecutors to drop all charges against journalists held on politically motivated charges, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the president today. J.S. Tissainayagam, a journalist, and N. Jashiharan, a publisher, and his wife, V.
The letter identified serious violations of due process and the right to a fair trial [...]

Tags: Sri Lanka

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The Malaysian authorities must initiate an independent, impartial, prompt and effective investigation into the death of 22-year-old Kugan Ananthan.
Kugan died died on 20 January after being held for five days in the Taipan Police station in Subang Jaya in west Malaysia on suspicion of stealing cars. State Police Chief Datuk Khalid Abu Bakar has said [...]

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US President Barack Obama’s executive order to end the use of torture sets a new course for US counter-terrorism policy, Human Rights Watch said today. Obama’s decision to issue this order within two days of becoming president signals the high priority the new president places on establishing legal and effective counter-terrorism policies.
An executive order on [...]

Tags: USA

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