Human Rights

23 Apr 2021; MEMO: Labour leader Kier Starmer has come under sharp criticism for withdrawing from a virtual Ramadan interfaith event after a pro-Israel lobby group alerted him to the organiser's support for the boycott of Israeli dates produced in territories occupied by the Zionist state.

23 Apr 2021; MEMO: Human rights groups have accused Oxford University of "celebrating" a military occupation for politicising figures collated on its website tracking coronavirus vaccine delivery, which excludes Palestinians on Israel's vaccine rollout.

23 Apr 2021; MEMO: Sudanese authorities yesterday referred dozens of intelligence officers to retirement. A high-ranking official source told local media that the government had fired a total of 131 intelligence officers, "three of whom were lieutenant generals, 25 brigaders, 40 brigadier-generals, and 63 colonels."

(Reuters) --- Britain’s parliament called on Wednesday for the government to take action to end what lawmakers described as genocide in China’s Xinjiang region, stepping up pressure on ministers to go further in their criticism of Beijing.

But Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government again steered clear of declaring genocide over what it says are "industrial-scale" human rights abuses against the mainly Muslim Uighur community in Xinjiang. Ministers say any decision on declaring a genocide is up to the courts.

 23 Apr 2021; MEMO: A coalition of 14 of the leading human rights groups and NGOs, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have called on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken not to waive human rights conditions on aid to Egypt. The appeal has been made in a letter sent to Blinken as the Biden administration considers a national security waiver to continue aid payments despite Cairo's appalling human rights record.

 23 Apr 2021; MEMO: Israeli occupation authorities have approved the seizure of 147 dunums (35 acres) of Palestinian-owned land west of the city of Bethlehem in the southern occupied West Bank, the Wafa news agency reported.

The Director of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission office in Bethlehem, Hassan Brijieh, said the seized lands belong to Palestinians in the Nahalin and Husan villages, southwest and west of Bethlehem respectively.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a bill that would help combat the rise of hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, a bipartisan denunciation of such violence during the coronavirus pandemic and a modest step toward legislating in a chamber where most of President Joe Biden’s agenda has stalled.

The measure would expedite the review of hate crimes at the Justice Department and provide support for local law enforcement in response to thousands of reported violent incidents in the past year.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A white sheriff’s deputy in the San Francisco Bay Area shot and killed a Black man in the middle of a busy intersection about a minute after trying to stop him on suspicion of throwing rocks at cars last month, newly released video showed.

Graphic body camera footage showing Deputy Andrew Hall shooting Tyrell Wilson, 33, within seconds of asking him to drop a knife was released Wednesday, the same day prosecutors charged Hall with manslaughter and assault in the fatal shooting of an unarmed Filipino man more than two years ago.

NEW YORK, Apr 22 (APP): An unknown man threw acid on a Pakistani college student in Long Island, a suburb of New York City, disfiguring her face and shattering her life in an attack that activists want investigated as an anti-Muslim hate crime.

Nafiah Ikram, 21, and her mother were getting out of their car outside their home on March 17 when the man rushed up to her, threw a caustic liquid at her face and ran off. She was left severely burned and nearly blind.

 22 Apr 2021; MEMO: Palestinian from Gaza Loay Elbasyouni has helped American space agency NASA successfully fly a small helicopter on Mars.

Ingenuity Mars Helicopter flew over the red planet two days ago, in a feat which NASA says represents the first powered, controlled flight by an aircraft on another planet.