Human Rights

With Egypt’s parliamentary elections drawing closer, the Hosni Mubarak government has begun cracking down on the media. The moves include clamping down on broadcasts of live shows and the manipulated sacking of a prominent newspaper editor. Egypt’s High Committee for Elections has not yet announced an exact date, but the elections are expected to be held in November. Mubarak, 82, has not yet announced his intention to contest, but speculation is rife that he would prop up his son Gamal. The...

The debate over the death penalty resurfaces in India every time a judgment on a murder is delivered. There is however very little to the debate, and it is more about mass hysteria with people all around screaming for blood. It is as if this is the only form of salvation. All voices and reasoning against the death penalty is drowned in this shrill, rabid cries for blood. There is, indeed, very little debate over the issue in India. It is not debated hotly in Parliament by representatives most of...

Comments posted on Facebook about a female mathematics teacher has resulted in 16 students of a leading private school suspended from their school in the Indian city of Chandigarh. The students, all from Class 12 of Vivek High School, have been suspended for three months, according to the Times of India. Asaf Parvez, son of a high-ranking government official, recently got low marks in his mathematics exam. He then posted his answer sheet on Facebook with rude and abusive comments about the...

Morocco's topselling Arabic language weekly Nichane, which had taken up in the past taboo subjects like monarchy and Islam, closed shop last week blaming "the highest circles of power" for organising a boycott of advertisers. The trouble for the magazine began last year after Nichane, its French-language sister publication TelQuel and France's Le Monde newspaper conducted an opinion poll on the monarchy. The poll, which found that King Mohammed VI had done a good overall job in the first decade...

A Brazilian student of tourism who was expelled from her university for wearing a minidress that was deemed too short has won $23,800 as compensation from her university. Geisy Arruda, now 21, was thrown out of Bandeirante University in Sao Paulo last year for wearing the short, pink dress to class. She was expelled for her lack of "ethical principles, academic dignity and morality" by wearing provocative and "inadequate clothing," the Associated Press has reported. Arruda was jeered by male...

On December 24, 2008, Adama Kamara was six months pregnant and went into premature labour. By the next day it became clear she was suffering prolonged labour. The family observed her for one day before transporting her to a government hospital in Kambia, Sierra Leone. Transporting her to the hospital cost Le40,000 (US$13), which her husband borrowed from his neighbours. When they arrived at the hospital, Abu Kamara had to pay Le2,000 (US$0.67) for registration and Le10,000 (US$3.30) for a...

It has taken the UN three months to react to street demonstrations in Kashmir which have left over 100 people dead. UN secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday called for an immediate end to violence in Kashmir after recent deadly clashes there. “The Secretary-General regrets the latest loss of life,” his spokesperson Martin Nesirky told reporters. “He calls for an immediate end to violence and urges calm and restraint by all concerned.” The UN reaction came a day after an Indian all-party...

The Omar Abdullah government knows how to instill faith among the people of Kashmir. By heaping insult upon injury, of course. It has shamelessly been doing so for the past so many months, and it has done so again by reinstating four police officials who had been suspended after the sensational killing and rapes of two women in Shopian last year. The suspension period of the four police officials has been treated as on-duty and they have been absolved of all charges. They have been reinstated on...

The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA, for short) is very much in the news. And so are a host of officers of the Armed Forces, both retired and serving, who have voiced their desire for the Act to continue. It needs to be seen why they are being strident about an Act that has been repeatedly called “draconian” by many who are knowledgeable about it. What also needs to be exposed are the deceptive arguments they have been dinning into our ears. The Chief of Army Staff, Gen VK Singh...

A young Muslim girl in the Indian state of Kerala has been receiving death threats for not wearing the burqa, and instead often opting for jeans. She is an aeronautical engineer by qualification striving to get into the country's civil services. For Rayana R Khasi, a resident of Kasargode, 600 km from state capital Thiruvananthapuram, her problems began after she returned from Chennai city last year after completing her engineering studies and coaching classes for the civil services exam...