Mar 03,2023:A Belarusian court has sentenced Ales Bialiatski, Belarus’s top human rights advocate and one of the winners of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, to 10 years in prison.
Bialiatski and three other top figures of the Viasna Human Rights Centre he founded were charged with financing protests and smuggling money on Friday.
Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said Bialiatski and other activists sentenced in the same trial had been unfairly convicted, calling the verdict “appalling”.
“We must do everything to fight against this shameful injustice & free them,” she said on Twitter.
Prosecutors had asked the Minsk court to give Bialiatski, who denied the charges, a 12-year sentence.
Belarusian state news agency Belta confirmed the sentences.
Poland’s prime minister denounced the sentencing.
“Today’s verdict is yet another outrageous decision of a Belarusian court recently,” Mateusz Morawiecki said in a Facebook post.
“The (Belarusian) authorities have repeatedly tried to silence him, but Ales Bialiatski never conceded in his fight for human rights and democracy in Belarus.”
Berit Reiss-Andersen, leader of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told Reuters: “The case, the verdict against him, is a tragedy for him personally.”
London/Boscombe Down, June 15,2022: Britain’s first flight to take asylum seekers to Rwanda did not take off as scheduled on Tuesday after the European human rights court issued last-minute injunctions to stop the deportation of the handful of migrants on board.
The British government’s plan to send some migrants to the East African country has been criticized by opponents, charities, and religious leaders who say it is inhumane. It has been forced to fight a series of legal challenges in London courts aiming to stop it going ahead.
In the last few days, at least 30 individuals earmarked to be on the first flight successfully argued that they should not be deported to Rwanda on health or human rights grounds.
Just a handful of migrants were set to fly from an air force base in southwest England on Tuesday. Shortly before the plane was due to leave, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) granted injunctions to prevent their deportations.
“I have always said this policy will not be easy to deliver and am disappointed that legal challenge and last-minute claims have meant today’s flight was unable to depart,” Home Secretary Priti Patel said.
“It is very surprising that the European Court of Human Rights has intervened despite repeated earlier success in our domestic courts.”
She said the government would not be deterred and would prepare for the next flight.
The flight was cancelled after the plane’s engines had been started and cabin crew was seen boarding.
The ECHR’s ruling relating to one of the men, an Iraqi, stated he “should not be removed until the expiry of a period of three weeks following the delivery of the final domestic decision in the ongoing judicial review proceedings.” The High Court in London is due to hold this judicial review in July to decide on the legality of the scheme.
Britain says the 120-million-pound ($148 million) deal struck with Rwanda will stem the flow of dangerous cross-Channel trips and smash the business model of people-smuggling networks.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who said his government would not be put off by criticism, “some of it from slightly unexpected quarters,” had earlier commented that legal bids were undermining attempts to support safe routes for asylum seekers.
Asked if Britain might withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, he said: “It is certainly the case that… the legal world is very good at picking up ways of trying to stop the government from upholding what we think is a sensible law.
Washington [US], December 9,2021: The US House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill by a vote of 428 to 1 banning imports from China’s Xinjiang made with forced labour and threatening sanctions against Chinese officials responsible for persecuting the minority community.
The bill come days after the US announced a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics over rights abuses in Xinjiang.
The bill, passed on Wednesday, intends to ensure that “goods made with forced labour in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China do not enter the US market.”
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, requires corporations to prove with “clear and convincing evidence” that imports from Xinjiang are not made with forced labour, American news website Axios reported.
The bill must now pass the Senate and be signed by US President for it to take effect.
The legislation targets “goods, wares, articles, and merchandise imported directly from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region or made by Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Tibetans, or members of other persecuted groups in China.”
The bill requires the American president to impose sanctions on officials responsible for persecuting minorities and facilitating the use of involuntary labour.
The legislative text highlights the poor conditions of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and members of other Muslim minority groups in a system of extrajudicial mass internment camps.
The prisoners are forced to produce “textiles, electronics, food products, shoes, tea, and handicrafts” at a network of government-subsidized factories in Xinjiang and elsewhere in China, according to legislation.
Back in July, the Senate passed its version of the bill with a unanimous vote.
Earlier this year, US President Joe Biden had warned businesses who are involved in Xinjiang to run a “high risk” that they are in conflict with US laws on forced labour.
New York [US], November 18,2021: The United Nations calls for a more inclusive government in Afghanistan as the country has seen a curtailment of the fundamental rights of women and girls under the Taliban rule, a special UN envoy said on Wednesday.
Deborah Lyons, UN Special Representative and Head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), said “These range from limiting the right to work to the absence of women from major decision-making fora and from senior echelons of the civil service.”
“We continue to call for a more inclusive administration in which government institutions reflect Afghanistan’s broad diversity. We have seen limited progress on this issue,” the envoy said.
Lyons said in her interactions with the Taliban, the de-facto authorities recognized that they have made mistakes on women’s rights and inclusivity and are now trying to address them. However, the Taliban made it clear that there are limits to concessions they are willing to make on some issues, she added.
“On girls education, the de-facto authorities have indicated they are working on a nationwide policy so that the right to girls’ education can be exercised across the country. But they state that they need more time to clarify the policy and its implementation,” Lyons said.
The Taliban took over Afghanistan in mid-August after a decades-long war, which plunged the country into a prolonged humanitarian, security and economic crisis.
Going against all promises of the inclusive government, the Taliban have appointed an all-male cabinet.
They abolished the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and handed over the women’s ministry building to the reinstated Ministry of Vice and Virtue, which was responsible for some of the worst abuses against women during the Taliban’s previous period in power from 1996-2001.