Search Results for: UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)  released a statement Monday condemning the idea that the Taliban was “reformed.” The statement from multiple human rights experts drew attention to the gap between the promises made by the Taliban during its return to power in 2021 and the reality of “gender apartheid” in [...]

The UK’s Illegal Migration Bill is set to become law as of Tuesday, with the House of Lords backing down on a series of amendments.  The bill provides for the deportation of those who arrive on the UK’s shores ‘illegally.’ Under the bill, anyone who arrives in the UK illegally will be detained and promptly [...]

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention released a report alleging that Afghanistan, Lithuania, Morocco, Poland, Romania, Thailand, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the US all participated in human rights violations against Abd al-Rahim Hussein al-Nashiri, a man accused of assisting in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. Al-Nashiri is currently held in [...]

Following a three-week trial, a French court on Friday convicted Hassian Diab, a sociology professor from the University of Ottawa Canada, to life imprisonment in absentia for the October 3, 1980 Copernic synagogue bombing in Paris, which resulted in four deaths and 46 injuries. Diab is a dual national of Canada and Lebanon. Following  the announcement [...]

In an open letter addressed to US President Joe Biden, Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi announced Monday he had commenced a hunger strike in Iran’s Evin Prison, where he has been imprisoned since 2015 on charges including espionage and colluding with a “hostile foreign government.” Namazi, a US citizen, had been arrested in October 2015 but [...]

American basketball star Britney Griner was transferred to a Russian penal colony this week to serve out her nine-year sentence for possession of vape cartridges containing cannabis oil. The transfer — which comes nearly nine months after she was detained in a Moscow airport in the days leading up to Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine [...]

Iranian lawyers Tuesday collectively wrote a letter to the United Nations Special Rapporteur to take immediate action on the explosive shooting that occurred at Tehran’s Evin prison in Iran. They requested the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) seek information and special commitments from the Iranian government about the number of deaths, [...]

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) Monday urged Mexico to repeal the mandatory pre-trial detention provisions from its constitution. Pre-trial detention, also known as automatic preventive detention, is provided for under Article 19 of the Constitution of Mexico. The article includes provisions intended to safeguard the rights of the accused, but WGAD [...]

Mexican police have arrested the country’s former Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam on charges of enforced disappearance, torture and obstruction of justice. These charges relate to a 2015 investigation led by Murillo Karam into the 2014 disappearance of 43 male students of a teachers’ college located in the town of Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state.  On the night [...]

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has urged the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to immediately release Ryan Cornelius, a British businessman, who has been detained in the country since 2008 on fraud charges. The opinion is based on submissions made by Cornelius’ lawyers in the UK. According to the submissions, in 2004, CCH, a German [...]