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  • News
  • Malaysia
  • Freedom of Association

Malaysia: PM’s resignation must restore respect for freedom of expression and assembly

The resignation of Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin follows months of political turmoil, economic hardship and a dramatic deterioration in human rights, including the rights to freedom of expression and assembly, Amnesty International said today. On 16 August 2021, after a tumultuous 17 months in office, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin resigned, yet will stay on as interim leader until a successor is appointed.

Date:
17 August 2021
  • News
  • Somalia
  • COVID-19

Somalia: Wholly inadequate Covid-19 response highlights need to use debt relief to invest in healthcare

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to urgently address the serious and longstanding issues facing Somalia’s healthcare system following years of underinvestment and against a backdrop of crippling debt, Amnesty International said in a new report published today. The report entitled “We Just Watched Covid-19 Patients Die” - Covid-19 Exposed Somalia’s Weak Healthcare System But Debt Relief Can Transform It, shows how Covid-19 has exposed a range of pre-existing weaknesses in Somalia’s healthcare system.

Date:
17 August 2021
  • News
  • Afghanistan
  • Armed Conflict

Afghanistan: International community must act decisively to avert further tragedy

Responding to the collapse of the Afghan government following the seizure of power by the Taliban and the chaotic scenes at Kabul airport as thousands of people attempt to leave the country, Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, said: “What we are witnessing in Afghanistan is a tragedy that should have been foreseen and averted. It will only be compounded further without swift and decisive action from the international community.

Date:
16 August 2021
  • News
  • Hong Kong

Hong Kong: Closure of prominent rights group signals worrying domino effect

Responding to today’s disbandment of the Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF), a prominent coalition of Hong Kong rights groups and organizer of many large-scale protests in the city over the past two decades, the head of Amnesty International’s China team, Joshua Rosenzweig, said: “Days after Hong Kong lost its biggest teachers’ union, the city’s leading civil society voice has also been forced out – disbanding in the face of a long-running campaign to discredit and disable it through a combination of harassment by police and pro-Beijing media.

Date:
15 August 2021
  • News
  • Middle East and North Africa
  • Death Penalty

Egypt: Twelve dissidents face execution while security forces enjoy impunity over Rabaa massacre

The Egyptian authorities have failed to hold to account a single member of security forces for killing at least 900 people during their violent dispersal of sit-ins in Rabaa al-Adawiya and al-Nahda squares, Amnesty International said today on the eve of the eighth anniversary of the massacre. Twelve men are facing imminent execution and hundreds of others are serving lengthy prison terms over their involvement in the protests, demonstrating the warped priorities of Egypt’s so-called justice system.

Date:
13 August 2021
  • News
  • Middle East and North Africa
  • Censorship and Freedom of Expression

Lebanon: Parliament police take part in vicious attack on families of Beirut Blast victims and journalists

Lebanese security forces stood by last night as members of the parliamentary police and unidentified men armed with batons launched a brutal attack against relatives of the Beirut port explosion victims, who were holding an overnight sit-in ahead of a key parliamentary session on the investigation, said Amnesty International. Witnesses told the organization that members of Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces (ISF) who were present at the site failed to intervene to stop the attack, in which parliamentary police joined men dressed in black who beat and verbally abused the families and journalists.

Date:
12 August 2021
  • News
  • Russian Federation
  • Human Rights Defenders and Activists

Russia: End of the road for those seeking to exercise their right to protest

Authorities in Russia have eroded the right to freedom of peaceful assembly by using increasingly restrictive laws, and heavy-handed police tactics and criminal prosecutions to silence peaceful dissent -- to the point where it is almost impossible for Russians to protest in any meaningful way, Amnesty International said in a new briefing today. In “Russia: No Place for Protest”, the organization documents how the clampdown on peaceful protests, which began with the 2004 Federal Law on Assemblies, has accelerated in recent years via a succession of legislative amendments and their ever more selective and restrictive application.

Date:
12 August 2021
  • News
  • Middle East and North Africa
  • Censorship and Freedom of Expression

Iran: Security forces use ruthless force, mass arrests and torture to crush peaceful protests

Iranian security forces resorted to unlawful use of force, including birdhsot, and mass arrests to ruthlessly crack down on predominately peaceful protests that have erupted in various locations across Iran in recent weeks, said Amnesty International. Activists, protesters and bystanders swept up in the wave of arrests, including, children have been subjected to enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment.

Date:
11 August 2021
  • News
  • Ethiopia
  • Women and Girls

Ethiopia: Troops and militia rape, abduct women and girls in Tigray conflict – new report

Forces aligned to the Ethiopian government subjected hundreds of women and girls to sexual violence Rape and sexual slavery constitute war crimes, and may amount to crimes against humanity Women and girls in Tigray were targeted for rape and other sexual violence by fighting forces aligned to the Ethiopian government, Amnesty International said today in a new report into the ongoing Tigray conflict.

Date:
10 August 2021
  • News
  • Hong Kong

Hong Kong: Disbandment of teachers’ union signals intensifying crackdown on independent labour organizations

Responding to the disbandment of the Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union (HKPTU), which cited “enormous pressure” from the authorities as a factor in its decision, the head of Amnesty International’s China team, Joshua Rosenzweig, said: “The rapid demise of Hong Kong’s biggest teachers’ union in the face of increasing hostility from the Hong Kong and central Chinese governments illustrates the level of fear permeating the city’s education sector and wider civil society amid a relentless crackdown on dissent.

Date:
10 August 2021
  • News
  • Europe and Central Asia
  • Refugees

Malta: The teenagers pulled from the sea and accused of terrorism

Lamin squints at the sun as he points across the harbour. "This place reminds me of the worst day of my life," he says. It is where he was handcuffed by Maltese soldiers and led away to a maximum-security prison. He was only 15 at the time and, unknown to him, a suspected terrorist. It was just a misunderstanding, he thought. Once everyone realised what had happened, he would be freed. But that was two years ago.

Date:
10 August 2021
  • News
  • Europe and Central Asia
  • Detention

USA/UK: US authorities must drop politically motivated charges against Assange

Ahead of the preliminary appeal hearing in London’s High Court tomorrow on the decision not to extradite Julian Assange to the US, Amnesty International has renewed its call on US authorities to drop the charges against him. The organisation’s Europe Director, Nils Muižnieks, said: “This attempt by the US government to get the court to reverse its decision not to allow Julian Assange’s extradition on the basis of new diplomatic assurances is a blatant legal sleight of hand.

Date:
10 August 2021
  • News
  • South Korea
  • Discrimination

South Korea: Lawmakers must seize chance to pass landmark anti-discrimination act

Responding to the introduction of yet another bill that seeks to forbid discrimination across South Korean society, including on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity, Suki Chung, East Asia Campaigner at Amnesty International, said: “The introduction of this anti-discrimination bill, combined with existing draft laws on the matter, represents a historic opportunity for South Korea to finally broadcast to the world that violations of the right to equality will no longer be tolerated anywhere in society.

Date:
9 August 2021
  • News
  • Nepal
  • Indigenous People

Nepal: Indigenous peoples the silent victims of country’s conservation ‘success story’

Nepal’s Indigenous peoples have suffered a litany of human rights violations over the past five decades as a result of abusive conservation policies, said Amnesty International and the Community Self-Reliance Centre (CSRC), in a new report published today. The report, Violations in the name of conservation, documents how the establishment of National Parks and other “protected areas” has resulted in tens of thousands of Indigenous peoples being forcibly evicted from their ancestral lands and denied access to areas they depend on for subsistence.

Date:
9 August 2021
  • News
  • Pakistan
  • Religious Groups

Pakistan: Drop ludicrous blasphemy charges against eight-year-old boy

Responding to reports that an eight-year-old Hindu boy in Bhong village in Rahim Yar Khan, Punjab has been charged with blasphemy – which can carry a mandatory death penalty – after he was alleged to have urinated in the library of a madrasa (religious school) where religious texts were kept, prompting a mob attack on a local Hindu temple, Rimmel Mohydin, Amnesty International’s South Asia Campaigner, said: “Pakistan’s blasphemy laws have long been abused to target minority groups, but this case marks a shocking and extreme departure.

Date:
9 August 2021
  • News
  • Americas
  • Detention

Honduras: Prosecutor Óscar Chinchilla must drop the charges against Jhony Salgado Fuentes

Amnesty International's Americas Director, Erika Guevara Rosas, sent an open letter to the Attorney General of Honduras, Oscar Fernando Chinchilla, today expressing concern about the situation of Jhony Salgado Fuentes –a victim of arbitrary detention and abuse of authority by members of the Preventive Police in the context of the 2017 post-election protests – and calling for the criminal charges against him to be dismissed.

Date:
9 August 2021