Human Rights

07 Feb 2022; MEMO: The Head of Tunisia's Supreme Judicial Council, Youssef Bouzakher, confirmed that the country's President, Kais Saied, did not announce the dissolution of the Council, but rather said that it had become something in the past.

This came in a statement to the Mosaique FM radio, as he indicated that there is no legitimate legal or constitutional mechanism that would allow the President to dissolve the Supreme Judicial Council.

07 Feb 2022; MEMO: The UAE is directly benefitting from Illegal Israeli settlements and is in violation of international law according to recently signed bilateral trade agreements between Abu Dhabi and the occupation state, Hugh Lovatt, Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, has pointed out in a series of tweets.

Saharanpur, Feb 7 (PTI) The official website of the Islamic seminary Darul Uloom at Deoband in the Saharanpur district was banned on Monday.

The ban was imposed by District Magistrate Akhilesh Singh who had been asked by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights to probe into an alleged diktat over the issue of legal rights of adopted children on their parent's property, an official said.

Bengaluru, Feb 7 (PTI) The 'hijab' (scarf) row in Karnataka intensified on Monday with some students seeking to defy the government order mandating uniform style of clothes as Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai issued an appeal to maintain peace.

At a college at Kundapur in Udupi district of the State, the principal talked to girl students wearing hijabs and explained the government order to them. But the students insisted on wearing the headscarves, and were asked to go to a separate room arranged for them.

07 Feb 2022; MEMO: The occupation state of Israel is planning to punish Amnesty International after the rights organisation issued a report which concluded that "apartheid" is being imposed upon the Palestinians, Israel Hayom reported on Sunday.

The Constitution, Law and Justice Committee in the Israeli parliament is to take measures in the coming days that will cancel the tax exemption status of Amnesty's branch in Israel.

06 Feb 2022; MEMO: The African Union summit has cancelled a decision to grant Israel an observer status in the pan-African organization, an Algerian source said on Sunday.

Algeria is participating in the two-day AU summit, which opened in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Saturday.

"The summit decided to abolish the decision to grant Israel an observer status at the AU," the source in the Algerian delegation was quoted as saying by the private Echorouk TV channel.

07 Feb 2022; MEMO: The Israeli cabinet agreed yesterday to submit a "racist" law to the Knesset (parliament) despite opposition from members of the government coalition, Israeli media have reported. The proposed law was introduced by extreme right-wing Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked who appears to be banking on support for this bill from the opposition, said the Times of Israel.

05 Feb 2022; MEMO: Israeli settlers on Friday intentionally polluted the water of a spring in the West Bank village of Qaryout, north of Nablus, Anadolu Agency reported.

"The settlers raided the area, broke the lock of the water spring, damaged the fence around it and poured unknown material with a dirty smell in the water," activist Bashar Al-Qaryouti confirmed.

He added: "They did so to turn the water unsafe for drinking or farming."

Mangaluru, Feb 5 (PTI) The hijab' controversy in Udupi district of Karnataka on Saturday spilled into the streets with a group of students of two junior colleges at Kundapur taking out a procession in the town wearing saffron shawls demanding ban on headscarves on the campuses.

Hindu boy students of Kundapur junior college and R N Shetty college who staged the protest, said they will continue to wear the shawls if Muslim girl students are allowed to wear hijabs.

03 Feb 2022; MEMO: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed yesterday that it had purchased the Pegasus spyware, developed by Israel's military spyware firm the NSO Group in 2019, but denied ever using it.

In a statement to the Guardian, the FBI said it purchased the hacking software in order to "stay abreast of emerging technologies and tradecraft."