Full Coverage: Human rights

31.08.2006

Dalit Aid

International NGOs (INGOs) vary greatly in size, approach and focus. For the majority, India continues to be a priority area for their activities, where they use a variety of working strategies. There are many different approaches the INGOs follow with regard to Dalit programmes in India. We need to learn from each other where there is an impact and where there are problems. We need to analyse the nature and context of caste discrimination, soical exclusion of dalits, caste conflicts and solutions to such conflicts, assess the political dimensions of Dalit empowerment, assess the different models and ways of working on Dalit issues.

30.08.2006 The jury of the 12th Sarajevo Film Festival awarded the Human Rights Award for promotion of human rights to “Vukovar – Final Cut”, a film by Croatian journalist Drago Hedl and Belgrade director Janko Baljak.

30.08.2006 Floods in India have devastated many parts of the country bringing misery to millions of people. Four hundred people are confirmed dead, but relief organisations fear that the final figure will run into thousands. With many communities still cut off, ActionAid is providing relief supplies and medicines to victims as well as helping to evacuate those still in danger.

30.08.2006 The Saharias - an ancient tribe of the north Indian desert state of Rajasthan - who have been discriminated against and denied government food security programmes have fought with the help of NGOs to seek justice. After a fact-finding mission by the government ration cards have been given to people and ration shops have been opened for them.

30.08.2006 Suicides by farmers in the west Indian state of Maharashtra have been on the rise despite a relief package announced by the Indian Prime Minister. In northern Maharashtra the number of farmer suicides in 2006 has inched close to the cumulative figure for the past four years.

30.08.2006 The House of Representatives instructed the government to endorse the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples. If its backers maintain pressure on the government, ratification should happen in the next session of parliament in a couple of months, said parliamentarian Bijaya Subba, who piloted the recommendation through the house.

30.08.2006

Balochistan Province

It was reported that fighter jets and helicopters attacked the south western province of Balochistan, killing some 37 government opponents, including a former governor and chief minister of the province, Sardar Akbar Khan Bugti.

29.08.2006 NEW DELHI (IPS) - As more details emerge of the events that led to the detention of 12 Indian Muslims travelling aboard an aborted Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam last week, it becomes apparent that they were victims of racial and religious prejudice. It also becomes equally clear that the Netherlands is unlikely to apologise to or compensate the victims unless the Indian government takes a tough stand on the issue.

28.08.2006 Local authorities on Thursday appealed for emergency relief for thousands of families displaced by recent fighting and drought in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. Fierce fighting between government forces and the ousted Taliban militia, coupled with this yearÂ’s particularly hash drought, have forced nearly 4,000 families to leave their homes.

25.08.2006 SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 25 (OneWorld) - A chief prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg has said George W. Bush should be tried for war crimes along with Saddam Hussein. Benjamin Ferencz, who secured convictions for 22 Nazi officers for their work in orchestrating the death squads that killed more than 1 million people, told OneWorld both Bush and Saddam should be tried for starting "aggressive" wars--Saddam for his 1990 attack on Kuwait and Bush for his 2003 invasion of Iraq.

25.08.2006 Amnesty International India has expressed its deep concern at the demolitions of the protest-huts at Azad Maidan, Mumbai on August 24, 2006, under High Court orders. The human rights organisation has said evictions have made nearly 350,000 people homeless since 2004 and the government has failed to rehabilitate them till now. This has resulted in not only the loss of homes but also of livelihoods.

24.08.2006 Domestic violence against Afghan women appears endemic, and attacks against them usually take place with impunity, according to a disturbing new report by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

24.08.2006 In a bold move India is backing moves to promote a national needle exchange and drug substitution programme for intravenous drug users in order to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS in this high-risk and vulnerable group.

23.08.2006 KARACHI, August 10 2006: A press release by Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) and the All Pakistan Newspapers Employees Confederation (Apnec) has blamed intelligence agencies for the rising incidents of violence against journalists.

18.08.2006 Even as the countryÂ’s highest rights body recommends that political leaders and civil servants should be punished if they do not address the problems related to hunger and starvation, rights groups have alleged that official neglect caused two recent starvation deaths in hunger-endemic areas of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh

18.08.2006 The reliability and safety of oral polio vaccine (OPV) has been put under scrutiny in Pakistan after wild rumours that it causes impotency snowballed into a writ petition in a high court.

17.08.2006 Throughout the past week gunmen of have opened fire on members of the PeopleÂ’s Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO for its initials in Spanish) killing four and wounding at least 10.

17.08.2006 Uma das indagações mais freqüentes sobre a capacidade do governo estadunidense de legitimar suas intervenções militares ou de seus aliados, como Israel, é como grande parte da opinião pública permanece apática, mesmo diante de evidentes crimes de guerra.

17.08.2006 NEW YORK, Aug 16 (OneWorld) - Rights advocacy groups here are calling for the United Nations to support human rights defenders in Iran.

14.08.2006 In nepal the narrow trails carved into the steep, emerald hills that plunge into the winding Karnali River hundreds of metres below, villagers have one thing on their minds: emergency rice.