Human Rights

On Thursday, Sudan called for a probe into the “assassination” of Sudanese nationals in an oil town in South Sudan, where the UN has in the past accused rebels of killing several hundred civilians. The official SUNA news agency, in an SMS alert, said “The foreign ministry condemns assassination of the Sudanese nationals in Bentiu and calls for urgent investigation”. …

In a report on Wednesday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said there has been no improvement in the access of foreign aid for millions of desperate Syrians, thereby violating a resolution passed in the Security Council two months ago. In the resolution, the first such humanitarian resolution on the Syrian civil war, the Security Council demanded that the armed opposition …

New claims have surfaced that President Bashar Assad’s regime launched chemical attacks with an industrial chemical agent earlier in the month, despite its international agreement to get rid of its entire chemical arsenal. The latest evidence, cited by French and US authorities, comes as Syria announced its plant to hold a presidential election on June 3, which the Syrian opposition …

On Tuesday, Egyptian prosecutors submitted new evidence against the defendants in a trial of Al-Jazeera journalists, accused of having connections to the banned Muslim Brotherhood. The defendants’ lawyers have disputed the new evidence, which include audio tapes as well. In the trial’s last hearing, prosecutors aired video footage and showed random photographs which were not connected to the case. Authorities …

The United Nations released a statement on Friday reporting the death of at least 58 people in an attack on a UN base in South Sudan in the government-controlled town Bor; over a 100 people were said to be wounded in the attack. Toby Lanzer, the top UN official in the country, praised the efforts of peacekeepers from Nepal, South …

On Wednesday, The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists said that Syria is one of the most dangerous countries for journalists in the world, as it published its annual impunity index, tracking unsolved killings of reporters. The New York-based watchdog reported “a rising number of journalists in Syria. “With unprecedented numbers of abductions and high rates of fatalities in combat and …

On Wednesday, an Egyptian court handed out jail sentences for over 120 supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi related to clashes last year with authorities which left dozens dead, officials said. The trial was a part of an unrelenting crackdown on Morsi supporters going on since the army ousted him last July. According to judicial officials, the defendants were …

Several rights groups led by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) said on Wednesday that sexual violence against women in Egypt has been abundant since the 2011 uprising and that women protesters had been the target of sexual attacks with impunity, they said. In their report, the groups said that “successive Egyptian governments have failed to address violence against …

On Tuesday, a legislation tabled in the Iraqi parliament could introduce new religious restrictions on women in the country, including laws which could make it legal for nine-year-old girls to marry and force married women to comply with their husband’s sexual demands. The bill looks to be the last legislation the current government will pass before the elections towards the …

A Saudi court ordered the arrest of an eminent rights lawyer Waleed Abulkhair, who was on trial for defying the ruler and insulting the authorities in the conservative kingdom, according to his wife Samar Badawi. Abulkhair was on bail for organizing unapproved meetings for reformists when he went to the fifth hearing of his trial on Tuesday at a court …