Prosecutors in Germany have indicted a Wehrmacht soldier who manned watchtowers in a prisoner of war camp in the Second World War in what could be the start of a new series of prosecutions for Nazi war crimes after the focus has previously been on concentration camps. The Berlin state prosecutor’s office has charged the 98-year-old Berlin man with alleged complicity in the murder of 809 Soviet prisoners at the “Stalag 365” POW camp in the city of Volodymyr-Volynskyy in what is now western Ukraine. The POWs were among the 3 million Soviets who died by execution, forced labour, starvation,...
A British Sikh is facing a possible death sentence after the UK intelligence services passed information about him to Indian authorities. Lawyers for Jagtar Singh Johal from Dumbarton, Scotland, say he was tortured, including being given electric shocks, after his unlawful arrest in Punjab in 2017 where he was travelling for his wedding. Successive British prime ministers have raised his case but India's government denies he was tortured or mistreated. Mr Johal is currently being held in a Delhi prison. He has alleged that, following his arrest, he was held incommunicado, was brutally...
Indonesian authorities should drop politically motivated treason charges and release Papuans detained for the peaceful exercise of their rights, Human Rights Watch said. Human Rights Watch, reported that in 2019 "racist security forces" and members of militant groups attacked students at a West Papuan University, firing tear gas into dormitories across the campus. They then arrested 43 indigenous Papuan students for allegedly failing to raise the Indonesian flag outside the dorm to celebrate Indonesian Independence day. Widespread protest ensured in at least 30 cities following the police...
China has sanctioned senior Taiwanese officials and staged a new round of military drills following a brief visit to the island by a delegation of US lawmakers. The bipartisan delegation visited after US House speaker Nancy Pelosi's controversial visit to the island. On Monday, Chnese state media announced seven individuals had been sanctioned for allegedly supporting Taiwan independence. This includes Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to the US, Hsiao Bi-khim, the head of Taiwan’s national security council, Wellington Koo, and Lin Fe-fan, the deputy secretary general of the governing Democratic...
Police in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown lifted a curfew imposed last Wednesday after anti-government protests left 16 civilians dead. The government imposed a nationwide curfew after protests erupted against the rising cost of living in the country. At least 16 civilians were killed and many more injured in the capital Freetown and the city of Makeni in central Sierra Leone. At least six police officers were killed, according to a statement released by Police inspector general. William Fayia Sellu. Demonstrators demanded the departure of President Julius Maada Bio, who was elected in 2018...
Paraguay Vice President Hugo Velázquez Moreno who was included on a U.S. corruption list for his alleged involvement in offering bribes to a public official has said he will resign next week. U.S. Ambassador Marc Ostfield, said Secretary of State Antony Blinken “received credible information” that showed how “at the request of Vice President Velázquez, Duarte, his close personal and professional partner, offered a bribe of more than $1 million to a public official.” This offering of a bribe was “consistent with an apparent pattern of corrupt activity” and in this case it was carried out to “...
Colombia President, Gustavo Petro has named commanders for the military and police, saying he chose the officials as they have not been accused of human rights violations or corruption. Petro, a critic of Colombia's military establishment has promised to change the security forces and instil officials who respect human rights. The criteria for selecting the new commanders was "zero corruption, zero violation of fundamental rights," Petro said during a news conference. "The concept of human security means that success lies not in the number of dead, but in substantially reducing deaths,...
India’s opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, has accused the government of forcing people entitled to free food at government ration shops to buy flags in return for provisions in the run-up to Independence Day celebrations on 15 August. India will celebrate 75 years of independence from the Raj on Tuesday, and the streets of cities across the country are full of flags for sale. But Gandhi claimed that in some cases patriotic fervour was being forced on people, referring to a widely circulated video showing a shopkeeper in Haryana state scolding a customer who came in for free grain and did not...
Guastavo Petro, Colombia's new president and former M-19 guerrilla has announced his government's 10-point plan to tackle inequality. Petro also noted that the decades-long war on drugs had failed and called for developed nations to change their drug policies which often filed violent conflicts across Colombia and Latin America. "It is time for a new international convention that accepts that the war on drugs has failed—and failed resoundingly. That it has led to the murder of a million Latin Americans—the majority of them Colombian — over the past 40 years, and that it causes 70,000...
The Head of Amnesty International in Ukraine resigned after the organisation issued a report that accused Ukraine's military of endangering civilians. Oksana Pokalchuk , who had led the organisation for almost 7 years in Ukraine stating that the conduct of the organisation in delivering and consulting on the report has led to this report becoming a "tool of Russian propaganda". Amnesty International said on Sunday that “We fully stand by our findings,”, but it stressed that “nothing we documented Ukrainian forces doing in any way justifies Russian violations”. Pokalchuk has said the report...