Search Results for: colony

Under President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s leadership, the Sri Lankan civil war reached a brutal conclusion on May 18, 2009, ending a 25-year-long conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist rebel group. Rooted in longstanding grievances, including discriminatory policies against Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, the conflict saw the [...]

Bob Rae, Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations, does not shy away from tough questions. Though many in a position such as his might shy away from argument, Rae seems to relish the opportunity to engage in some intellectual sparring. It was in this context that I requested an interview as Canada grapples with multiple [...]

The United States issued a statement on Friday condemning Zimbabwean authorities for their alleged attempts to intimidate US government officials and aid workers, subjecting them to unlawful overnight detention, prolonged interrogation and eventual forced deportation.  The US Agency for International Development (USAID) alleged that their aid workers, who were there to “support civic participation, democratic [...]

Hong Kong’s Court of Appeal upheld Hong Kong activist Tam Tak-chi’s sedition convictions on Thursday and refused to grant him leave to appeal his convictions. The District Court of Hong Kong previously sentenced Tam on April 20, 2022 to 40 months in prison over sedition charges. He was found guilty of uttering seditious words, holding [...]

The UN Human Rights Committee announced Thursday that it received a record-high number of individual complaints in 2023, with many raising issues of freedom of expression and the press, as well as concerns over the treatment of opposition leaders during elections. According to the announcement, there are currently 1,321 individual complaints under investigation by the [...]

The court of last resort for Britain’s overseas colonies and some Commonwealth countries revived a lawsuit seeking to block the construction of an airstrip in Antigua and Barbuda over environmental concerns on Tuesday. The UK-based Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) concluded that the plaintiffs in the suit have standing to challenge the airstrip’s [...]

Russian human rights activist Oleg Orlov has been sentenced to two and a half years in a prison colony, his organization, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Memorial, announced Tuesday. Orlov was convicted under Article 280.3 of the Russian Criminal Code, which prohibits the discrediting of the Russian armed forces. The charges arose from an article he [...]

New Zealand Health Minister Shane Reti said Tuesday that the Māori Health Authority will be shut down by the end of June this year, and its functions will be absorbed into the country’s national healthcare system. The move comes amid nationwide protests and legal action by the Pacific nation’s indigenous population, who believe the new [...]

A close ally of recently deceased Alexei Navalny, Maria Pevchikh, claimed Monday that the Russian dissident was just days away from being freed in a prisoner exchange. Pevchikh said that an agreement had been reached, offering Navalny and two American citizens in exchange for FSB officer Vadim Krasikov, who is currently in prison in Germany [...]

The Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal (CFA) refused to grant leave to the government on Friday to appeal the acquittals of seven pro-democracy activists. The lower court overturned the activists’ convictions for organizing an unauthorized assembly but upheld their convictions for participating in an unauthorized assembly. The lower court reasoned that leading and directing [...]