News

30/6/2014

EIPR shocked by continued detention of 23 defendants including an awarded human rights defender

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights is shocked by today's decision by the Heliopolis Misdemeanor Court to keep the organization's transitional justice officer, Yara Sallam, and 22 others behind bars, while their trial on charges of breaching the draconian protest law and other accusations including damaging property and displaying force continues. The charges relate to a peaceful protest on 21 June in the neighborhood of Heliopolis, which was forcibly dispersed by security forces aided by unknown assailants in civilian dress.

30/6/2014

JOGINI/DEVADASI TEMPLE "SLAVE" GIRLS & WOMEN - LOWER CASTE - SEXUAL EXPLOITATION - ILLEGAL BUT NOT ENFORCED

At 32, Nalluri Poshani looks like an old woman. Squatting on the floor amidst piles of tobacco and tree leaves that she expertly transforms into beedis, a local cigarette, she tells IPS, I feel dizzy. The tobacco gives me headaches and nausea.

30/6/2014

ISIS advance adds to aid challenges in Iraq’s north

27/6/2014

Press Release on the arrest and detention of Human Rights Defenders in Egypt

The Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights Defenders in Africa is deeply concerned about the arrest and detention of human rights defenders in Egypt, including Sanaa Seif, Hanan Mustafa Mohamed, Salwa Mihriz, Samar Ibrahim, Rania El-Sheikh, Nahid Sherif, Fikreya Mohamed and Yara Sallam, a winner of the human rights defenders’ award for North Africa in October 2013.

27/6/2014

Libya: Tribute to Salwa Bughaighis

A Voice of Courage Stilled in Libya

By Peter Bouckaert

June 26, 2014, Tripoli - The Libyan lawyer and human rights activist Salwa Bughaighis always made a head-turning sight on the streets of Benghazi. Unveiled and striding confidently to meeting after meeting, she was one of the few who continued to challenge Islamist militias despite increased threats and violence. After years of standing up to Muammar Gaddafi’s tyranny and defending Islamist activists, some of whom were now trying to impose their views on her and other women, she continued to stand up for herself and other Libyan women.

26/6/2014

Libyan rights activist killed in Benghazi

Libyan human rights activist and lawyer Salwa Bugaighis, who played an active part in country’s 2011 uprising, was shot dead by unknown assailants in the eastern city of Benghazi late Wednesday.

26/6/2014

Due diligence for women's human rights: transgressing conventional lines

Jennifer Allsopp: Yakin, you were invited to Oxford to deliver the annual Barbara Harrell-Bond lecture at the Refugee Studies Centre. You stressed in your talk, and have repeatedly argued elsewhere, that violence against women is a human rights issue. Could you say something more about the relationship between violence against women and human rights?

25/6/2014

Nigeria: extremists have abducted 91 more people, witnesses say

24/6/2014

ON THE OCCUPATION OF MOSUL AND THE CITIES OF WESTERN IRAQ – YANAR MOHAMMED (ORGANIZATION OF WOMEN’S FREEDOM IN IRAQ)

On the Occupation of Mosul and the Cities of Western Iraq

The Iraqi society is suffering unprecedented crisis that threatens the future of peaceful co-existence of citizens, and augments genocides and civil conflicts based on the sectarian identities that were established on the Iraqi population, and were strengthened throughout more than a decade of the American occupation to Iraq.

24/6/2014

Iraq Women's Shelter Responds to Growing Crisis

Amid worsening armed violence in Iraq, the Baghdad-based Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq is working to help women who have been harmed and driven out of their homes. The group is reaching out to cities with the largest numbers of women displaced by the fighting.