The US State Department did not evaluate risks of civilian casualties and implement measures to reduce them when it approved $8.1 billion arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in May 2019, according to an Office of Inspector General (OIG) report released Tuesday. The unredacted version obtained by Politico raises doubts over Secretary of State [...]
An Algerian court on Monday sentenced journalist Khaled Drareni to three years in prison for speaking out against the government. Drareni, who is well known in Algeria and has a twitter account of roughly 150,000 followers, reported on the Hirak protest movement, where Algerians are speaking out against the rule of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and [...]
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said Monday that the draft legislation introduced by parliamentarians in Somalia must not be enacted as it violates international human rights norms, including legitimizing child marriage. “This new draft legislation would represent a serious step backward for the rights of victims of sexual violence in Somalia, in [...]
Mexico’s Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero announced Tuesday that prosecutors were opening a corruption investigation against former president Enrique Peña Nieto, who was in office from 2012 to 2018. This announcement follows accusations made against Peña Nieto by the former head of the oil company Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex). Emilio Lozoya, the former head of Pemex, [...]
Britain’s Court of Appeals held Tuesday that the South Wales Police Force’s use of facial recognition technology violates human rights and data protection laws. The South Wales Police Force (SWP) uses automated facial recognition technology (AFR) to determine whether two facial images show the same person. AFR Locate automatically takes faces from live camera feed [...]
In a press briefing on Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijan announced sanctions on 11 US citizens. This decision comes in response to the sanctions imposed by the US on Hong Kong and Chinese officials accused of curtailing political freedoms in Hong Kong. On Friday the US imposed sanctions on 11 Hong Kong and [...]
A 72–year–old Canadian man has died while in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody at Farmville Detention Center in Virginia after he yielded a positive COVID–19 test result. James Thomas Hill tested positive for COVID–19 on July 11 following a mass detention center outbreak. Though Hill’s official cause of death is unknown, staff report [...]
Hong Kong police arrested 10 people on Monday under the new national security law for suspected collusion with foreign forces. Jimmy Lai Chee-Ying and senior officials of Apple Daily newspaper were detained over suspected collusion with foreign forces. Two hundred police officials raided the offices of Apple Daily. The police also arrested Agnes Chow Ting, [...]
Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab announced on public television Monday that his cabinet was resigning following three days of protests over the Beirut explosion and alleged government corruption. On August 4 an explosion at Beirut’s shipping port, believed to have been caused by 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, killed at least 220 people and injured [...]
The French Constitutional Council, France’s highest constitutional authority, has rejected as unconstitutional legislation that included special parole conditions and electronic tracking for those who served prison terms for terrorist offenses. The Constitutional Council found Friday that the legislation unfairly discriminated against former detainees who had served full sentences. The law prohibited former detainees from changing [...]
