International Human Rights News: Weekly Roundup

By  Tola Akindipe,  Giulia Carlini, Elizabeth Mangenje,  Tommaso Poli,  Udita Sharma

Each week students at the University of Essex Human Rights Centre prepare an overview of the past week’s human rights related news stories from around the world.

• Africa

Uganda: Arrests of Dozens Attending Peaceful Meetings is Absurd – Amnesty International

Children Increasingly Targeted for Murder, Rape in Central African Republic – UN News

Boko Haram suspects tortured in Cameroon, Amnesty says   – BBC Africa

Zim man set free over anti-Mugabe slur– Zimbabwe Situation

Somali spike but global piracy still declining– Maritime Journal

International Human Rights News: Weekly Roundup

By Udita Sharma, Elizabeth Mangenje, Tola Akindipe, and Giulia Carlini

Each week students at the University of Essex Human Rights Centre prepare an overview of the past week’s human rights related news stories from around the world.

• International

New refugee framework “dead in the water” without more international support-IRIN

Environmental defenders being killed in record numbers globally, new research reveals –The Guardian

“People just don’t get it” an interview with Kade Crockford of the ACLU of Massachusetts about why surveillance issues aren’t getting the attention they deserve

By Ajay Sandhu 

The precarious state of privacy often fails to stir public attention. For example, the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA), a piece of legislation granting police and intelligence agencies sweeping surveillance powers in the UK, is said to have passed into law “with barely a whimper.” What explains this lukewarm response? How does the US install bulk surveillance programs like Total Information Awareness (TIA) or the UK pass privacy threatening bills like the IPA (sometimes called the “snooper’s charter”) without receiving the level of attention that one might expect from a society which claims to value privacy rights?

To help answer this question, I spoke to Kade Crockford, the director of the Technology for Liberty Program at the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts (ACLUM). I spoke to Crockford because of her expert knowledge on issues related to privacy, security, and surveillance as well as her recent experience leading a campaign against the Boston Police Departments’ plan to buy social media spying software. Crockford played a central role in the pro-privacy advocacy which likely encouraged the Boston PD to scrap their plans. I thought that Crockford could offer insights into why surveillance practices aren’t earning a critical response and how to reverse this trend.

International Human Rights News: Weekly Roundup

By Luiza Drummond Veado and Cecilia Grillo

Each week students at the University of Essex Human Rights Centre prepare an overview of the past week’s human rights related news stories from around the world.

• International

‘A human right, not a bonus’: readers on campaigning for disability rights – The Guardian

• Africa

Tanzania: Stop Threatening Rights Groups – Human Rights Watch

Reconsider charges against Palestinian human rights defender, UN experts urge Israel – UNNews

Ghana: People with Disabilities Freed from Chains – Human Rights Watch

Bahrain: Woman human rights defender at high risk of torture, including sexual assault – Amnesty International

Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Yezidi Fighters’ Families Expelled – Human Rights Watch

Central African Republic: Civilians Targeted in War – Human Rights Watch

International Human Rights News: Weekly Roundup

By Luiza Drummond Veado and Cecilia Grillo

Each week students at the University of Essex Human Rights Centre prepare an overview of the past week’s human rights related news stories from around the world.

• International

‘Inclusive, equitable and quality education’ at the heart of high-level UN event – UN News Centre

UN experts call for resistance as battle over women’s rights intensifies – OHCHR

15 years of ICC: international criminal justice is working and needs strong support – Huffington Post

HRBDT Weekly News Circular

By Baekkwan Park

Each week the Human Rights, Big Data & Technology Project, based at the University of Essex Human Rights Centre, prepares an overview of related news stories from the week. This summary contains news articles from 24 to 30 June 2017.

You can follow the HRBDT Project on twitter: @hrbdtNews.

Issues that Malawi Human Rights Commission must consider in its national inquiry on LGBT Rights

By Alan Msosa

It has been reported  that this July the Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC) will conduct a survey to establish the views of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and  transgender (LGBT) Malawians. This survey follows an instruction by the Ministry of Justice, issued in November 2016, for MHRC to hold a national public inquiry to seek peoples’ views about homosexuality in order to inform the government’s decision  to decriminalise or not anti-gay laws. According to MHRC Chairperson, Justin Dzonzi, a report of the survey will be submitted to the Ministry of Justice by the end of October. In this article, I discuss the importance of the survey and propose how MHRC can use the national inquiry to bridge the gap between opposing views in the debate about homosexuality in Malawi.

International Human Rights News: Weekly Roundup

By Luiza Drummond Veado and Cecilia Grillo

Each week students at the University of Essex Human Rights Centre prepare an overview of the past week’s human rights related news stories from around the world.

• International

Human Rights Watch Country Profiles: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity – Human Rights Watch

Many aid groups unable to manage war zone risks, says UN-backed report – UN News Centre

As crises multiply, UN revises annual aid appeal to assist over 100 million around the world – UN News Centre

Violence and persecution uprooted record 65.6 million people in 2016, UN agency reports – UN News Centre

Human Rights: an interdisciplinary perspective

Michael Freeman

 Have you noticed the weird titles of some recent books and articles about human rights?

In 1999 Michael Ignatieff, formerly Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, published an article in The New York Review of Books under the title, `Human Rights: the midlife crisis’. If human rights were experiencing a mid-life crisis in 1999, they must, presumably, be approaching their death by now – but they aren’t.

In 2010 Samuel Moyn, Professor of Law and History at Harvard University, published a book entitled The Last Utopia: human rights in history. He didn’t, however, say why he thought human rights was a `utopia’, let alone the last one: the book contains no analysis of utopias.

HRBDT Weekly News Circular

By Baekkwan Park

Each week the Human Rights, Big Data & Technology Project, based at the University of Essex Human Rights Centre, prepares an overview of related news stories from the week. This summary contains news articles from 16 to 24 June 2017.

You can follow the HRBDT Project on twitter: @hrbdtNews.