Page 3 - Human Rights Violations

24 out of 33 jails in Chhattisgarh overcrowded, govt figures reveal

Jails in Chhattisgarh are overcrowded as more than 18,000 inmates are lodged there against the existing capacity of 14,383, as per the figures shared by the state government. The state has five central, 20 district and eight sub jails, Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sharma, who also holds the home portfolio, stated in a written reply in the assembly on Thursday to a query from BJP MLA Sampat Agrawal. Twenty four of these jails, including all five central, 14 district and five sub jails, are overcrowded. In the remaining nine jails, inmates are less than their capacities, according to the figures. "As against the capacity of 14,383, there are 18,442 inmates lodged in the central, district and sub jails as on January 31 this year," the deputy CM said. The central jail in Raipur has 3,076 prisoners as against the capacity of 1,586, while the central jail in Durg has 2,031 inmates compared to the capacity of 2,006. Similarly, the central jail in Bilaspur has 2,870 prisoners though it has

UK announces new sanctions on Israeli settlers over 'human rights abuses'

The United Kingdom on Monday announced new sanctions on the four extremist Israeli settlers, who committed alleged human rights abuses against Palestinian communities in the West Bank

Foreign aid drops sharply as Taliban abuses jeopardise Afghan health system

Human Rights Watch said on Monday that Afghanistan's public health system has been hit hard following a sharp reduction in foreign assistance, coupled with serious Taliban abuses against women and girls, jeopardising the right to healthcare of millions of Afghans. In a new report, the New York-based watchdog said this has left the Afghan population increasingly vulnerable to severe malnutrition and illness among other effects of inadequate medical care. The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021 drove millions into poverty and hunger after foreign aid stopped almost overnight. Sanctions against the Taliban rulers, a halt on bank transfers and frozen billions in Afghanistan's currency reserves, have cut off access to global institutions and the outside money that supported the aid-dependent economy before the withdrawal of US and NATO forces. In 2023, the World Food Programme warned that malnutrition rates in Afghanistan were at a record high with half the country suffering

Biden asks Israel to not press into Rafah without plan to protect civilians

Israel shouldn't go ahead with a military operation in the densely populated Gaza border town of Rafah without a credible plan to protect civilians, President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, the White House said. They spoke after two Egyptian officials and a Western diplomat said Egypt threatened to suspend its peace treaty with Israel if Israeli troops are sent into Rafah, where Egypt fears fighting could force the closure of the besieged territory's main aid supply route. The threat to suspend the Camp David Accords, a cornerstone of regional stability for nearly a half-century, came after Netanyahu said sending troops into Rafah was necessary to win the four-month war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas. He asserted that Hamas still has four battalions there. Over half of Gaza's population of 2.3 million have fled to Rafah to escape fighting in other areas, and they are packed into sprawling tent camps and UN-run shelters near the border. Egyp

ED exempted from RTI but can inform on human right violations: Delhi HC

The Enforcement Directorate is exempted from the scope of the Right to Information (RTI) Act but it can be directed to supply information concerning human rights violations, which includes allegations of sexual harassment, the Delhi High Court has held. The court passed the order while dealing with two petitions by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) challenging two orders of the Central Information Commission (CIC) directing disclosure of certain information to RTI applicants. While one of the applicants sought administrative information pertaining to recruitment rules, the other -- a legal adviser to the ED--wanted information related to allegations of sexual harassment made by her. Justice Prathiba M Singh set aside the CIC order passed in the first instance but directed the agency to disclose the information sought by the RTI Applicant in the second case within eight weeks. "The ED is exempted under Section 24 of the RTI Act, 2005 from disclosing the said information (on recruitme

SC recommends setting up commission to probe human rights violations in J&K

Article 370 case verdict: In a ruling, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul recommended setting up a commission on the lines of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Taliban must embrace and uphold human rights obligations in Afghanistan: UN

The Taliban must embrace and uphold human rights obligations in Afghanistan, the UN mission in the country said on Sunday on Human Rights Day and the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Since seizing power in 2021, the Taliban have erased basic rights and freedoms, with women and girls deeply affected. They are excluded from most public spaces and daily life, and the restrictions have sparked global condemnation. The UN mission, highlighting the Taliban's failures in upholding rights' obligations, said it continues to document extrajudicial killings, torture and ill-treatment, corporal punishment, arbitrary arrest and detention, and other violations of detainees' rights. People who speak out in defense of human rights face arbitrary arrest and detention, threats and censorship, the mission said. We pay tribute to and express our solidarity with Afghan human rights defenders, many of whom are paying a heavy price for seeking to uphold the fundamental tenet

Taliban's education policies harm boys as well as girls in Afghanistan: Rpt

The Taliban's abusive educational policies are harming boys as well as girls in Afghanistan, according to a Human Rights Watch report published Wednesday. The Taliban have been globally condemned for banning girls and women from secondary school and university, but the rights group says there has been less attention to the deep harm inflicted on boys' education. The departure of qualified teachers including women, regressive curriculum changes and the increase in corporal punishment have led to greater fear of going to school and falling attendance. Because the Taliban have dismissed all female teachers from boys' schools, many boys are taught by unqualified people or sit in classrooms with no teachers at all. Boys and parents told the rights group about a spike in the use of corporal punishment, including officials beating boys before the whole school for haircut or clothing infractions or for having a mobile phone. The group interviewed 22 boys along with five parents in Kabul, .

Violence against women a horrific violation of human rights, says Guterres

November 25 is observed as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

'China expanding its crackdown on mosques to regions outside Xinjiang'

The Chinese government has expanded its campaign of closing mosques to regions other than Xinjiang, where for years it has been blamed for persecuting Muslim minorities, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Wednesday. Authorities have closed mosques in the northern Ningxia region as well as Gansu province, which are home to large populations of Hui Muslims, as part of a process known officially as consolidation, according to the report, which draws on public documents, satellite images and witness testimonies. Local authorities also have been removing architectural features of mosques to make them look more Chinese," part of a campaign by the ruling Communist Party to tighten control over religion and reduce the risk of possible challenges to its rule. President Xi Jinping in 2016 called for the Sinicization of religions, initiating a crackdown that has largely concentrated on the western region of Xinjiang, home to more than 11 million Uyghurs and other Muslim ...

Israel to enable humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza: US Secy Blinken

Blinken noted that Biden will receive a comprehensive brief on Israel's war aims and strategy

No 'gross violation' of human rights in India, says NHRC chief Mishra

The NHRC chairperson was referring to some foreign agencies taking up Human Rights violations in India at the international level

Saudi Aramco targeted in UN human rights probe tied to climate change

The probe follows a 2021 request to the UN Special Procedures human rights system by the environmental advocacy group ClientEarth to investigate Aramco

N Korea denounces US plans for open UNSC meet on its human rights record

North Korea on Tuesday denounced US-led plans for an open Security Council meeting on its human rights record as despicable and only aimed at achieving Washington's geopolitical ambitions. Vice Foreign Minister Kim Son Gyong called the United States a declining power and said if the council dealt with any country's human rights, the US should be the first as it is the anti-people empire of evils, totally depraved due to all sorts of social evils. The United States, which holds the Security Council presidency this month, scheduled the meeting on human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name, for Thursday. It will be the first open council meeting on the DPRK rights issue since 2017. US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters last week that UN human rights chief Volker Trk and Elizabeth Salmon, the UN's independent investigator on human rights in the reclusive northeast Asia country, would brief council members. The Security Council

Uganda gets harsh anti-LGBT law, Biden calls it 'violation of human rights'

The new law mandates a 20-year term for "promoting" homosexuality and also prescribes for death penalty for certain behaviour including engaging in gay sex when HIV positive

India has 'unparalleled mechanism' to address human rights violations: NHRC

India has an "unparalleled institutional mechanism" to address the issues of human rights violations, with the rights panel having an overarching jurisdiction to look into grievances of specific vulnerable sections of the society, NHRC chairperson justice (retd) Arun Kumar Mishra on Tuesday said. He said while addressing members of various international human rights forums, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said in a statement. India "cannot be ignored for its overall progress", and advancement "along with its democratic values, which are the best in the world", it said. India has an "unparalleled institutional mechanism" to address the issues of human rights violations with the NHRC having overarching jurisdiction in addition to seven other national commissions and its deemed members to look into the rights-based grievances of specific vulnerable sections of the society, he was quoted as saying in the statement. No doubt certain improvements may be required, but the ...

S Korea co-sponsors UN resolution on Pyongyang rights after 5-yr hiatus

South Korea has co-sponsored a UN draft resolution on North Korea's human rights violations for the first time in five years, a diplomatic source said on Thursday.

Australia adds $300 mn funding to improve lives of Aus original inhabitants

Fifteen years after the Australian Parliament's historic apology to its Indigenous people for past wrongs, the government on Monday announced 424 million Australian dollars (USD 293 million) in new funding to improve the lives of Australia's original inhabitants. In 2008, a newly elected centre-left Labour Party government apologized to the Indigenous population for "laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians. The focus of the apology was the so-called Stolen Generations 100,000 children who were taken from Indigenous mothers under assimilation policies throughout most of the 20th century. The apology was accompanied by the ambitious pledge to close the gap in life expectancies between Indigenous Australians and the wider population within a generation. Key measures of disparities between the Indigenous population and others have been tracked annually in Closing the Gap Reports

US slaps sanctions against Indian national, others on behalf of N Korea

The US has slapped sanctions on two individuals, including an Indian national, and seven entities for providing material support to, acting on behalf of, or being owned by North Korea's government-run animation studio, which utilised its workers to provide low-cost labour. The US took this action on Friday on the occasion of the International Anti-Corruption Day and on the eve of International Human Rights Day as part of its actions to promote accountability for corruption and human rights abuse around the world. According to the State Department, the US imposed sanctions on two individuals and seven entities for providing material support to, acting on behalf of, or being owned by the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) government-run animation studio, SEK Studio. The targets are: Kim Myong Chol, based in France; Everlasting Empire Limited, based in Hong Kong; Tian Fang (Hong Kong) Holding Limited, based in Hong Kong; Fujian Nan'an Import and Export Company, based in China

NHRC issues notices to Bihar, TN on alleged abuse of orphaned children

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued notices to the governments of Bihar and Tamil Nadu over the alleged abuse of 12 orphaned children in a madrassa in the southern state. The commission has taken suo motu cognisance of a media report that said two persons have been arrested in Chennai for housing and abusing orphaned juveniles from Bihar. Twelve children were rescued from the madrassa located at Ponniammanmedu, the NHRC said. The commission has issued notices to the chief secretaries of Tamil Nadu and Bihar and the Chennai police commissioner calling for a detailed report in the matter within four weeks. The media report published on December 1 claimed that police had got information through the '1098' helpline that some children are being subjected to harassment and physical abuse in a madrassa at Ponniammanmedu near Madhavaram in Chennai, the NHRC said. It was reported that a criminal case has been registered under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Coder a