Human Rights

CLINT, Texas (AP) — Lawmakers on Friday were calling for swift change after reports this week of more than 250 infants, children and teens being held inside a windowless Border Patrol station, struggling to care for each other with inadequate food, water and sanitation.

It’s a scene that is being repeated at other immigration facilities overwhelmed with too many migrant children and nowhere to put them.

21 June 2019; MEMO: The Egyptian authorities have blocked Turkey’s TRT Arabi and Anadolu Agency websites, the Ankara-based International Association for Media and Communication (IAMCR) announced yesterday.

“As part of the ongoing censorship on media in Egypt, TRT Arabi and Anadolu Agency were blocked by the Egyptian regime,” IAMCR said, condemning what it described as “a coup attempt against media freedom.”

21 June 2019; MEMO: The United States yesterday added Saudi Arabia to a blacklist of countries that do not play a sufficient role in fighting human trafficking.

According to the US’ annual report on human trafficking, Saudi Arabia has failed to prevent large scale violations committed against its foreign labour force, Lebanese newspaper the Daily Star reported.

21 June 2019; AFP: From lychees to heat, the factors behind almost 120 children dying in eastern India this month are many, but there are two underlying and preventable root causes: poverty and bad governance.

In Bihar state's Hichara, for instance, where the outbreak still rages, there are no toilets, no running water and no cooking gas for the group of thatched huts that make up the village.

20 June 2019; MEMO: The Egyptian authorities are preventing the former President Mohamed Morsi’s family from holding a consolation for his death at his home, Anadolu Agency reported yesterday.

“They have banned us from holding neither your funeral prayers nor your consolation,” Morsi’s son, Abdullah, said on Facebook.

“Even in our family’s house, we were not allowed to receive solace,” he stressed.

20 June 2019; MEMO: Saudi Arabia has bought $300 million worth of spy software from Israel as part of a large scale military deal.

20 June 2019; MEMO: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday vowed to try to ensure the Egyptian government is tried in international courts for the death of former president Mohamed Morsi, who suffered a fatal heart attack in a Cairo court earlier this week, Reuters reports.

20 June 2019; DW: A court of appeal in London on Thursday declared the sale of weapons by the UK to Saudi Arabia unlawful because of the Yemen conflict.

The court accepted the challenge brought by Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) that accused the UK government of licensing the arms sale when there is a clear risk that the weapons use could breach international humanitarian law.

20 June 2019; DW: A death threat was sent to Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker, police confirmed on Wednesday, just weeks after a German politician was murdered in what authorities believe was a "right-wing extremist" attack.

Police in the western German city told the mass-circulation Bild newspaper that the threatening note is believed to have been sent by someone active in the right-wing extremist scene.

Jamnagar, June 20;  IANS/GANASHAKTI: A Gujarat court on Thursday sentenced sacked IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt to life imprisonment in a three-decade-old custodial death case, finding him guilty of murder.

Jamnagar District and Sessions Court Judge D.M. Vyas also awarded similar penalty to police constable Pravinsinh Jhala.

The verdict came after the Supreme Court last week rejected Bhatt's application seeking fresh examination of witnesses in the case, contending that this was key to arrive at a proper judgment.