human rights violations

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UN Honcho: We Must Investigate North Korea

Navi Pillay: Nuke worries overshadowing human-rights crisis

(Newser) - As the world keeps a vigilant eye on North Korea's nuclear program, the country's long list of human rights violations continue to slip under the radar, charges the United Nation's human rights head. The offenses, which have shown no sign of abating under Kim Jong Un, have...

Putin: Ban on US Adoptions to Become Law

Opponents say law only a response to human rights criticisms

(Newser) - Vladimir Putin says he will sign a controversial bill banning Americans from adopting Russian children. Putin said in a televised meeting today that he "doesn't see any reasons" to object to the bill and "intends to sign it" into law. The president said US authorities deny access...

China to US: Fix Your Own Human Rights Problems

American criticism just a 'political tool,' says Beijing

(Newser) - The US should take a hard look in the mirror before it criticizes other countries over human rights, China says. “The United States ignores its own severe human rights problems,” said a Chinese report, “treating human rights as a political tool to vilify other countries and to...

Nicholas Kristof: Libya Intervention Could Teach Us It's OK to Stop Genocide
 Libya's Lesson: 
 It's OK to Stop 
 Genocide 



NICHOLAS KRISTOF
Apr 3, 2011 8:00 AM CDT

Libya's Lesson: It's OK to Stop Genocide

Stopping atrocities is most important, even if inconsistent

(Newser) - The US intervention into the bloody unrest in Libya has drawn a wide range of criticisms—President Obama has not explained US objectives, there's no exit strategy, it's inconsistent to get involved in Libya and not elsewhere—and "those critics are all right," writes Nicholas Kristof in the...

Egyptian Protesters Leak Govt. Secrets on Facebook

After storming State Security, WikiLeaks-like page set up

(Newser) - Hundreds of Egyptians stormed the State Security headquarters this weekend, and now they’re posting the damning documents they found WikiLeaks-style on a Facebook page, Fast Company reports. Amn Dawla Leaks , or State Security Leaks, already has more than 13,000 fans. Egyptians have posted files there, and to other...

Pakistan 'Disappearing' Thousands of Separatists

US fears some may have been tortured, killed

(Newser) - In Pakistan, thousands are missing—and the US fears the country may be using the war as an excuse to round up and disappear political separatists. For years, human rights groups have reported on Pakistan’s security forces holding prisoners incommunicado, without charges; there are also concerns that some have...

Dem Lobbyist Defends Work for Ivory Coast Leader

Lanny Davis questions media reports of his client's brutality

(Newser) - As reports of human rights violations in the Ivory Coast swirl, a Democratic lobbyist and PR expert continues to work for the incumbent president who refuses to step down despite having lost last month’s election. Why does Lanny Davis stay on the payroll of Laurent Gbagbo, despite “reports...

Chinese Complainers Kidnapped
Chinese Complainers Kidnapped
Nov 12, 2009 4:44 AM CST

Chinese Complainers Kidnapped

People routinely held in 'black jails,' journalists beaten

(Newser) - Chinese citizens en route to Beijing to lodge complaints with China's central government are routinely nabbed by thugs and tossed into makeshift "black jails" where they are illegally detained for days or months, deprived of food and water, beaten and threatened—then sent back home without filing their complaints....

Obama Puts Human Rights on Back Burner, Activists Say

Sometimes confrontation isn't best tactic, administration suggests

(Newser) - Human-rights workers had high hopes for the Obama administration after President Bush’s inconsistent, too-hot-too-cold policies—but so far, the Washington Post reports, activists think President Obama has let rights take a back seat to more pressing concerns. For example, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said pushing China on human...

Mexico Protests Chinese Quarantine of 70 Travelers

Quarantines in China of Mexicans prompt speech by Calderon

(Newser) - Mexico is sending a charter plane to China today to rescue more than 70 Mexican travelers who have been quarantined by the Chinese government regardless of whether they had symptoms of the swine flu. President Felipe Calderon protested what he called "repressive and discriminatory measures," AP reports. Other...

Zimbabwe Activist Kidnapped in Mugabe Crackdown

Human rights activist was gathering abuse testimonials

(Newser) - A prominent Zimbabwe activist collecting evidence of human rights violations by President Robert Mugabe's regime has been kidnapped from her home by 15 armed men claiming to be police officers, reports the Guardian. Jestina Mukoko, director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, was the best-known of 20 activists and dissidents to...

US Slammed for Secret 'Floating Prisons'

Prisoners held far from courts and scrutiny, human rights group charges

(Newser) - The US has detained terror suspects on some 17 naval ships that have been used as secret "floating prisons" around the world since 2001, according to a study by the human rights organization Reprieve. At least 50 prisoners were held on a single ship and delivered to unknown locations,...

Amnesty Again Demands Gitmo Closure

'World leaders are in a state of denial' on human-rights abuses, group charges

(Newser) - The US has “distinguished itself in recent years through defiance of international law,”  says human-rights advocate Amnesty International in its annual reports, released today. The group called for the closure of Guantanamo Bay and other secret detention centers , the New York Times reports, and the prosecution of...

South Korea to Back UN on North Korea

Seoul shifts gears to join in criticism of human rights record

(Newser) - South Korea is set to vote in favor of a United Nations resolution that criticizes the "systematic, widespread, and grave violations" of human rights in North Korea, the AP reports. The South's new president, Lee Myung-bak, is changing a decade of precedent: earlier administrations have either abstained or been...

China Off US Rights Blacklist
 China Off US Rights Blacklist 
Mar 12, 2008 10:26 AM CDT

China Off US Rights Blacklist

State Dept. report drops China from top 10 worst abusers despite poor record

(Newser) - The State Department has taken China off its list of the world's 10 worst human rights abusers, the New York Times reports. China's human rights record "remained poor," the department's annual report said, with abuses including "extrajudicial killings, torture, and coerced confessions of prisoners." Officials declined...

'Urine Stew' Vid Sparks Furor in S. Africa

Anti-integration students force-fed black workers vile soup

(Newser) - South Africans have reacted with outrage and violence to a homemade video showing white college students forcing black employees to eat dirty meat and soup mixed with urine. The four Afrikaners, who don't disguise their faces, made the video to protest racial integration at the formerly all-white University of the...

US Multinational Faces Human Rights Trial

Mining company accused of playing role in Colombian murders

(Newser) - A landmark trial addressing corporate culpability for human-rights violations committed on foreign soil gets under way this week, testing whether an 18th-century antipiracy law applies to modern business practices. At issue is the 2001 murder of three Colombian mining-union leaders, the Wall Street Journal reports, and under scrutiny is the...

Afghan Prison Is as Bad as Gitmo
Afghan Prison Is as Bad as Gitmo
May 3, 2007 3:15 PM CDT

Afghan Prison Is as Bad as Gitmo

(Newser) - The U.S. prison at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan is as bad as Guantanamo, reports Eliza Griswold in the New Republic. Prisoners are kept in barbed-wire cages, beaten, tortured, raped, and held without promise of trial. But unlike Gitmo, Bagram has no visiting congressional delegations.

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