Full Coverage: Human rights

30.03.2005 A governing principle of the ASEAN group of nations is that they should not interfere with each other's internal affairs. This permits Burma not only to be a member but also to Chair the group in 2006. Should the EU accept invitations?

29.03.2005 WASHINGTON, D.C., Mar 29 (OneWorld) - The State Department has hailed U.S. efforts to promote human rights and democracy overseas amid criticism of the Bush administration's track record and claims that U.S. involvement in rights violations in key countries has been deeper than previously thought.

29.03.2005 Il a été arrêté parce qu’il portait la voix des 70 000 nigériens qui sont descendus pacifiquement dans la rue le 15 mars dernier pour protester contre une loi de finance aux effets catastrophique pour la grande majorité de la population.

28.03.2005 The danger to make ethnic cleansing and war crimes an important factor of the new Serb national identity is very real. After DjindjicÂ’s assassination, we have witnessed an open retreat to the ethno-nationalist policies and refusal to truly face the past and cooperate with the Hague Tribunal, says Sonja Biserko, President of the Serbian Helsinki Committee.

26.03.2005 BANGKOK, Mar 25 (IPS) - A month after it was spurned by Burma's military regime, the U.N. labour agency has come down hard on that South-east Asian nation's junta, declaring that sanctions may have to be imposed due to continued labour rights violations.

24.03.2005 Yet another country is permitting the reaction to terrorism to spill over into abuse of the human rights of its citizens. Amnesty accuses Kenya of treating the war against terror a a "license to torture".

23.03.2005 RSF reste plus que jamais mobilisée en faveur des 21 journalistes cubains encore emprisonnés depuis la vague de répression de mars 2003. Cuba est toujours la deuxième plus grande prison du monde pour les journalistes après la Chine. Deux ans après le "printemps noir" à Cuba, et l'arrestation, le 18 mars 2003, de 75 dissidents et journalistes, RSF appelle à la solidarité la plus large à l'égard de ces prisonniers d'opinion.

23.03.2005 Sitting with her head bowed, Abayenesh Mekonnen snapped her razor blade. It was a symbolic gesture meaning she would no longer practise female genital mutilation (FGM) - an arcane custom shrouded in secrecy, still performed in 28 African countries.

22.03.2005 WASHINGTON, D.C., Mar. 22 (OneWorld) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Monday for sweeping changes at the United Nations, saying the world body needed to keep up to date with threats to global peace and security. Diplomats greeted the plan cautiously but a new global poll said his ideas enjoyed widespread public support.

21.03.2005 It's impossible to determine exactly how many people are transported across borders against their will or under false pretenses each year, but human rights groups call the trafficking problem an "epidemic," resulting in hundreds of thousands being forced into labor, prostitution, or even slavery. Ending the practice will require more complex solutions than raiding brothels and putting the victims on the street, reports journalist Cheryl Dahle.

18.03.2005 Civil society groups and citizens from Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia participated in a unique demonstration of regional solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe on 12 March 2005.

17.03.2005 Peter Benenson did not invent the cause of human rights. What he did in a stroke of genius was to popularize it and give it a political impact it had never possessed before, says political commentator Jonathan Power. The idea of Amnesty International was the simplest of all ideas.

17.03.2005 While the U.S. government has assisted investigations into cases of U.S. citizens killed by Palestinian armed groups, it has failed to do so in cases involving Israeli forces, said Amnesty International Wednesday on the second anniversary of the death of Rachel Corrie, a U.S. peace activist crushed by a bulldozer while trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home.

17.03.2005 For politicians HIV/AIDS continues to be seen as a health problem of people seen to be ‘morally corrupt’. The social, economic and political dimensions of the issue are still not beginning to get clear to these people.

16.03.2005 As the 61st session of the UN Human Rights Commission convenes in Geneva this month, Amnesty International calls on member nations 'to reaffirm unequivocally that the absolute prohibition of torture and ill-treatment applies in all circumstances, including the war on terror.'

16.03.2005 Over 700 Nepalese were detained on Monday for protesting King Gyanendra's illegal imposition of military rule in nationwide demonstrations arranged to coincide with the UN Human Rights Conference in Geneva.

16.03.2005 Representatives of 41 civil society organizations from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo/a, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, constituting the Civil Society Forum for the Access to Rights Project under the MARRI regional Initiative of the Stability Pact, gathered in Tirana on March 10 to 12, 2005 to accelerate the improvement of access to rights for people in the region.

16.03.2005 When Argentina's economy collapsed in late 2001, workers discovered a novel way to keep their jobs--they just kept working even though the bosses had skipped town. The worker-managed companies turned out to be quite successful, but now their leaders are facing death threats, kidnappings, and other intimidation from those who don't like their new economic model.

16.03.2005 Nepalese human rights groups are asking U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to press for an end to on-going human rights abuses in Nepal. They're asking for the international community's support for their campaign.

15.03.2005 President Bush surprised some by positing that the U.S. should abide by a recent decision of the International Court of Justice in The Hague that 51 death sentences for Mexicans in the U.S. should be reviewed. Bush then followed-up by pulling the U.S. out of the part of the 1969 treaty that makes the court's decisions binding.