News on Human Rights Abuses Worldwide

On 21 January 2020, the Turkey Tribunal held a webinar in collaboration with the International Observatory of Human Rights (IOHR) to consider the state of impunity in Turkey. The speakers included political and legal figures Marie Arena, MEP (Belgium), Michael Polak, Barrister (UK) and Orsola Casagrande, Co-author of “Fight Impunity” report (Italy), and Turkish activists Emre Turkut, co-author of “Impunity in Turkey Today”, and Natali Avazyan, a Turkish human rights activist. Finally, a video statement was given by Ercan Kurkut, brother of Kemal Kurkut, a university student who was killed by Turkish police in 2017. … Read more →

David Isaac, the former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has called on the government to ensure its review of the Human Rights Act is “independent-minded on potentially political issues and “should not mean turning our back on European human rights.” In December 2020, it was announced that former … Read more →

As the Biden administration takes up its position in the White House, the new president has passed 17 Executive Orders; quickly undoing some of Donald Trump’s most contentious policies and potentially advancing the position of US human rights in the process. In one of President Biden’s first Executive Orders, he imposed a total ban on… … Read more →

The UK Government narrowly avoided defeat in the House of Commons yesterday (19 January 2020) after 34 members of the ruling Conservative party defied the whip to vote in favour of an amendment to the Trade Bill. … Read more →

The Turkish government has introduced new counter-terrorism measures that severely threaten the capabilities of NGOs in the region.

The law, which received rushed parliamentary approval “without consultation with the … Read more →

July 2020’s controversial revisions to the “Internet Law of Turkey” (Law No. 5651) have now taken effect, likely accelerating the ongoing deterioration of freedom of expression in the region. The amendments to Law No.5651 which present the greatest … Read more →

Iran has sentenced an American businessman to ten years in prison, despite him initially having been acquitted by an Iranian court over a year ago. Emad Shargi, aged 56, is the latest dual national to find himself victim to the Iranian regime’s hostage diplomacy – whereby innocent foreign and dual nationals are detained for use… … Read more →

The Turkish regime has been lambasted in Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2021 for using the COVID-19 pandemic to continue its assault on human rights and the rule of law. … Read more →

The French government has repatriated a group of seven “particularly vulnerable” children from refugee camps in north-eastern Syria. The children, reportedly aged between 2 and 11, had been living in the Kurdish run al-Roj and al-Hol camps, where many relatives of I.S fighters and sympathisers … Read more →

The British Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, has announced a set of business measures that intend to ensure that British firms are “not complicit in, nor profiting from” human rights violations in China’s Xinjiang province.  … Read more →