Human Rights

A total of forty-three former and current Israeli military reservists signed a letter vowing to no longer be a part of operations against Palestinians. In the letter, they address the operations of Unit 8200, which is said to carry out electronic surveillance. According to the letter the intelligence gathered by the unit was mostly concerning innocent people and used to …

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki moon, in his annual report to the UN General Assembly on the issue of human rights in Iraq, said that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s pledges for greater freedom in the country has not led to major improvements of freedom of expression or human rights. In a report obtained by Reuters, he also expressed concern over the …

On Wednesday, several Muslim leaders, along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, wrote to Bill Montgomery, the county attorney of Maricopa in Arizona, in protest of an event sponsored by his office to “tell the truth” about Muslim terrorist organizations. The event, titled “Understanding the Threat” and scheduled for next week, will be presented by John Guandolo, a …

On Wednesday, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed the “systematic” use of chlorine in chemical warfare in Syria. After an investigation by an OPCW team in Syria, a report publishing the findings established “compelling confirmation” that the chemical was used “systematically and repeatedly” as a weapon in several villages in northern Syria earlier in the year. …

International advocacy group Human Rights Watch published a report on Tuesday suggesting that Israel had illegally coerced around 7,000 African migrants to return to Africa, where some might face prosecution. “Israel’s convoluted legal rules thwart Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers’ attempts to secure protection under Israeli and international law. Israeli authorities have… denied them access to fair and efficient asylum …

On Tuesday, British charity Oxfam called in rich countries to let in at least 5% of Syria’s 3 million refugees, and urged them to improve their aid contributions. It also called on them to stop providing weapons to all parties involved in the Syrian conflict which are committing human rights violations. The charity group slammed most of the international community …

The Palestinian government and the United Nations on Tuesday called for international donors to present $550 million in aid to hundreds of thousands who need help in Gaza. The appeal comes only two weeks after Hamas and Israel ended 50 days of brutal violence, in a war which caused the deaths of over 2,100 people. The donors’ conference will be …

On Tuesday, a Palestinian prisoner arrested by Israeli authorities in July died in an Israeli prison of what the Israeli Prison Authority said was a suicide attempt, an assertion Palestinians deny. The Palestinians identified the man as 35-year-old Raed Abdel Salam al-Jaabari and called for an independent investigation into his death, calling the circumstances as “mysterious”. Sivan Weizman, a spokeswoman …

The CIA has tortured terror suspects close “to the point of death” by almost drowning them during its interrogation sessions post 9/11, the Telegraph reported on Monday. The report published comes only a few days before the US Senate publishes a declassified variant of its Torture Report, a 3,600 page document based on reviews of millions of CIA documents. The …

On Monday, Leila Zerrougui, top UN envoy on children and armed conflict, said that the Islamic State (IS) have killed hundreds of children in summary executions, and have even used some in suicide bomb attacks. “Up to 700 children have been killed or maimed in Iraq since the beginning of the year, including in summary executions”, Zerrougui told the UN …