With the Human Rights Watch releasing a report that says hundreds of thousands of people all over India are unnecessarily experiencing pain due to restrictive drug regulations and lack of trained doctors, rediff.com's Krishnakumar P spoke to Dr M R Rajagopal of Pallium India, on the hurdles in the way of palliative care in India and ways to overcome them.
A leading international human rights watchdog has asked India to stop what it called "pattern-driven violence and abuse" by authorities against hijras (transgenders).
Asking Sri Lanka to end the indefinite detention of 11,000 people for suspected links with the Tamil Tigers, a global human rights body on Tuesday said the lack of transparency on the issue raises concerns about possible torture of those in custody.
A leading international human rights group has alleged that the Orissa government is recruiting children under 18 years of age as Special Police Officers to fight Naxalite insurgents, and asked the state to take measures to stop the practice. In a letter to Orissa Chief Minister Navin Patnaik, the Human Rights Watch asked the state government to develop and put into practice measures to ensure that children are not recruited as SPOs.
The rebel military commander has long been linked to the summary execution and torture of civilians and the use of children as soldiers. Till the time he left the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in March 2004, Karuna was the Tigers' top commander in eastern Sri Lanka, and the reputed number two in the LTTE hierarchy.
Human Rights Watch has slammed the Andhra Pradesh government for the detention and torture of over 100 youths from the Muslim community, who were arrested after a spate of terror attacks in Hyderabad last year.On November 13, the Andhra Pradesh government finally admitted that the innocent youths had been tortured and announced compensation of Rs 30,000 for each of them. It also promised additional financial assistance through government loans.
Government ministers, Human Rights Watch pointed out, have repeatedly indicated that should the Supreme Court rule Musharraf's election illegal, the military could suspend the Constitution, impose martial law and fire the judges.
The Nepal government and political parties should ensure that the long-awaited constituent assembly elections on April 10 are free of violence, candidate intimidation, and efforts to suppress voter turnout, according to the Human Rights Watch. The newly elected lawmakers will draft a brand new constitution and are expected to ratify a pledge by the main political parties to turn Nepal into a federal republic.The Nepali election campaign has been plagued by violence.
Describing India as a "vibrant electoral democracy with an abysmal human rights record", a prominent international group on Moday urged to take steps to check rights violation by its security forces. The Human Rights Watch (HRW) also asked the country to remove all "immunity clauses" in its laws that protect abusers of human rights.
A 79-page report, These Fellows Must Be Eliminated: Relentless Violence and Impunity in Manipur, documents the failure of justice in the state, where for 50 years the army, empowered and protected by the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, has committed numerous serious human rights violations.
A prominent human rights watchdog has criticised the British government for allowing Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan alias Colonel Karuna Amman, a former Tamil Tigers leader, to return to Sri Lanka as a free man. 45-year-old Karuna was released from a jail in London last month after serving three months for entering Britain on a forged visa and diplomatic passport.
Even as Bangladesh introduced its new counter-terrorism ordinance in a bid to curb terror, it has already come in for flak with Human Rights activists demanding that the ordinance be repealed or amended as per international standards. The ordinance, according to HRW, sets out an overly broad definition of terrorist acts, including mere property crimes as well as attacks targeting individuals, contrary to United Nations recommendations.
A US-based human rights watchdog has asked the Indian government to investigate the role of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in fake encounters in the context of his reported statement "endorsing the extra-judicial execution of a terrorism suspect" by police.
Former US attorney-general Ramsay Clark slammed the West Bengal government for 'perpetrating atrocities' on the people of Nandigram as part of a globalisation drive to set up industries there.
The trials of 30 Tibetans, which led to their conviction for alleged role in the recent Tibet unrest, were not open and public as claimed by China, a leading rights watchdog alleged on Wednesday. the actual trials had been conducted covertly on undisclosed dates earlier in April, the Human Rights Watch said. Tibetans, including six monks, were handed over sentences, ranging from three years to life imprisonment. They were denied their right to their own counsel.
The organisations include the Human Rights Watch, the Centre for Human Rights and the Global Justice at New York University School of Law, and the International Dalit Solidarity Network.
Human Rights Watch, however, says that it has solid information that Pakistani military officers were involved in smuggling of between $2 to 5 million worth of gold from Itrui district in Eastern Congo.
Recently, Justice Choudhury has taken up several human rights cases including initiating proceedings in cases involving enforced disappearances, the watchdog noted.
HRW said that all parties in the Chhattisgarh conflict have used children in armed operations. The Naxalites, a Maoist armed group, admitted that it is their official practice to recruit children above age 16 in their forces, and they have used children as young as 12 in armed operations.
Tasneem Khalil, a Bangladeshi journalist who works for the Daily Star and the CNN, was picked up by the military intelligence in May 2007 and kept in detention for over 22 hours. The Bangladeshi intelligence agencies suspect that he was an Indian spy and he was providing vital information on Bangladesh to India.
'The proceedings in the Dujail trial were fundamentally unfair'.
Rihanna, who has frequently spoken out on issues such as LGBTQIA+ rights and racism, is the fourth most followed person, with 101.3 million followers, on Twitter after former US president Barack Obama and singers Justin Bieber and Katy Perry. Her tweet on India's farmers received hundreds of thousands of retweets and likes.
A US-based human rights watchdog has urged the Indian government to repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act in force in Jammu and Kashmir and the north-east, alleging that it provides "impunity" for abuses and "fuels militancy".
Human Rights Watch said that abductions of minors continued and children are continually being drafted as soldiers by both the Karuna faction and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
"The Indian government can no longer deny its collusion in maintaining a system of entrenched social and economic segregation," she said.
Nepal's Maoist guerrrilas have been forcibly recruiting child soldiers, an international human rights group said Friday.
A United States-based human rights watchdog has criticised the Indian government for "offering" a military assistance package to Myanmar, saying that it is likely to be used to attacks civilians in its war against ethnic insurgents.
Human Rights Watch said India's respect for Tibetans' human rights have long distinguished its conduct with China.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday said it had documented cases where workers building venues for Russia's 2018 soccer World Cup had been left unpaid, made to work in dangerously cold conditions, or suffered reprisals for raising concerns.
Human Rights Watch has said that India's government clings to the criminalisation of homosexual conduct.
A report released by Human Rights Watch states that police regularly disregard arrest procedures and torture suspects in custody to death. The police often blame the deaths on suicide or illness.
Rights group protests Saudi prisoner's sentence
A rights group has said that the US-run detention system in Afghanistan operates entirely outside the rule of law.
New York-based Human Rights Watch also expressed concern that US had not stopped the use of 'illegal coercive interrogation.'
A Human Rights Watch report says the US abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan has given other nations an excuse to torture terror suspects.\n\n
A car company 'Oscar Rent A Car' alleged that Balakrishnan had used a car for one year in 1994 without paying the rent, but the Indian claimed that the company gave him the car to use in return for jobs he did for it.
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