Human Rights Watch (HRW) has reported that Israel’s policies constitute apartheid; with the intention to “maintain the domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians and grave abuses committed against Palestinians living in the occupied territory, including East Jerusalem. HRW highlights that currently, Israel presents a single authority “ruling primarily over the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, populated by two groups of roughly equal size, and methodologically privileging Jewish Israelis while repressing Palestinians, most severely in the occupied territory”. In...
Over 100 Palestinians and 20 Israeli police were injured in a far-right Israeli protest in occupied East Jerusalem. Israeli demonstrators were seen chanting “death to Arabs” and carrying banners that read “death to terrorists”. Sky News reports that this was the worst incident of violence in 2015 with Israel’s police responding by arresting over 50 protesters, both Israelis and Palestinians. The Palestinian Red Cross has reported having treated 105 protesters with over 20 needs to be hospitalised. Watch: the events around Damascus gate in East Jerusalem last night #Jerusalem #Israel #...
A group of UK charities and Human Rights Watch joined Palestine in condemning British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s letter to the Conservative Friends of Israel, in which he expressed the UK’s opposition to the ICC decision to investigate alleged war crimes in Palestine since June 2014. In the letter sent on 9 April, Britain's Prime Minister undermined the international court’s independence and jurisdiction to hold the relevant and alleged Israeli perpetrators liable. Last month, the ICC prosecutor initiated the investigation, which was welcomed by Palestinians and numerous rights groups as...
Joe Biden is the first US President to formally recognise the systematic killing of over a million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, as genocide. In a statement marking Armenian Remembrance Day, Biden wrote: "We remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring." "Beginning on April 24, 1915, with the arrest of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople by Ottoman authorities, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or...
The European Union (EU) imposed sanctions on eight Iranian militia officers and police chiefs over a deadly crackdown of protests in November 2019 by the Islamic Republic. Hossein Salami, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was amongst those who were sanctioned. “Hossein Salami took part in the sessions that resulted in the orders to use lethal force to suppress the November 2019 protests. Hossein Salami therefore bears responsibility for serious human rights violations in Iran,” the EU said. Three Iranian prisons also had their assests frozen by the EU for deliberately...
Photo of US troop in Afghanistan Following the announcement of US President, Joe Biden, that America would withdraw its forces from Afghanistan by 11 th September, Britain has similarly stated that it will withdraw nearly all of its approximately 750 soldiers. The withdrawal of US forces would mark the end to a 20-year conflict that followed the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon. Under the Doha Agreement, US troops were set to have left Afghanistan by 1 May. Taliban leaders have stated that they will not participate in peace negotiations “until all foreign forces completely...
The British House of Lords has voted down the government’s proposed overseas operation bill which would establish “a presumption against prosecution” for service personnel accused of committing crimes overseas, except for sexual offences, if more than five years had passed since the alleged offence took place. In leading opposition to the bill, Labour peer George Robertson condemned the “naivety” of the government which had faced “almost universal and expert opposition”. He was able to successfully introduce an amendment that would ensure that the presumption against prosecution does not...
A Turkish court has jailed for life 22 former soldiers for their involvement in a coup attempt that sought to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. A mass trial which concluded on Wednesday investigated nearly 500 soldiers and identified the ex-military personnel as guilty. The putsch attempt in 2016 involved a raid on the chief state media broadcaster in which the newscaster was forced to read out a statement from the military junta leaders. The failed coup attempt gave rise to a harsh crackdown by Erdogan against opposition and dissent in Turkey. “Critics accuse the government of using...
Addressing the media today, Former Myanmar ambassador, Kyaw Zwar Minn, said that staff were forced to leave Myanmar’s embassy and he was dismissed as the country’s representative by Myanmar’s military attaché. This follows the violent coup in Myanmar in which the military junta claimed power on 1 February and has since brutally suppressed peaceful protesters and continued the detention of the elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. An estimated 600 people, including dozens of children, have been killed so far in pro-democracy protests. Addressing the media, Zwar Minn stated; "There was a coup in...
Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, has announced further sanctions on Myanmar, targeting the military-linked conglomerate Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) following the military coup on the 1 February. In addition to this Raab announced a further half a million pounds of funding to “collect, investigate and preserve evidence of serious human rights violations” as part of an Independent Investigative Mechanism (IIM). Evidence gathered may be used in criminal proceedings. Responding to the ongoing suppression of dissent by Myanmar’s military, Raab stated: “Two months on from the start...