Human rights group Reprieve has condemned the United Arab Emirates' threat to forcibly repatriate 18 Yemeni former Guantánamo detainees - which has been confirmed by multiple sources who spoke to the Associated Press. Forced disappearance and torture are rife in Yemen, as the UN recently repo
Human Rights
The UK government has been urged to repatriate foreign fighters and their families detained in camps in north-east Syria following an intervention by UN human rights experts. In a court filing, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism and the UN s
Urgent measures are needed to address the increase in Scotland's prison population, a Council of Europe human rights delegation has said. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) has published a report made following a visit to Scotl
Lawyer, pro-democracy campaigner and avid civil rights activist Hina Jilani is the recipient of the 2020 Stockholm Human Rights Award – bestowed annually by the Swedish Bar Association, the International Bar Association (IBA) and the International Legal Assistance Consortium. Ms Jilani grew up
A group of 29 states has expressed "deep concern" about human rights in Saudi Arabia as it bids to rejoin the UN Human Rights Council. Human rights organisations Reprive and the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) have echoed these concerns as the Saudi Arabian government has not fo
The Saudi Human Rights Commission has announced that, following a royal decree, the sentences of all people convicted of childhood crimes will be reviewed. According to a new Royal Order, all authorities must suspend the application of the death penalty for those convicted while they were minors, pe
A coalition including Human Rights Watch and 160 other NGOs has published a report on the use of fully autonomous weapons and calling for a ban on the use of so-called "killer robots". The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots was launched in 2013 and since then there have been increasing calls to ban the
The Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC) has issued a new policy briefing which details how COVID-19 has affected the right to adequate housing in Scotland. Part of a series of briefings highlighting areas of human rights concern during the pandemic, the document explores poverty and increasingly
Lord Sumption has admitted that he stopped obeying the coronavirus regulations when they began "reaching levels of absurdity". Speaking to legal journalist Joshua Rozenberg QC (hon.), the former Supreme Court justice said he did not accept that there was a "moral obligation to comply with the law".
The Scottish Human Rights Commission has published a new briefing on care homes and human rights during the pandemic. The briefing sets out the human rights framework as it applies to the issues that have arisen in care homes, and details the requirements of human rights law to ensure effective inve
A law professor has been detained after he refused to stop publicly criticising the government and “personality cult” of President Xi, The Times reports. Xu Zhangrun, 57, was taken into custody yesterday and removed from his post at the prestigious Tsinghua University after he wrote an a
Concerned that the responses to COVID-19 may exacerbate existing inequalities across all areas of life, the Equality & Human Rights Commission explains how it will work to support disadvantaged groups. The equality and human rights implications of the coronavirus pandemic stretch far and wide. I
Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard has written to the Scottish Human Rights Commission asking it to ensure that the human rights of Scotland’s care home residents are upheld and defended throughout the COVID-19 crisis, and that decisions taken by the Scottish government with regards to car
Scottish lawyers are supporting five detained Egyptian colleagues for a human rights award. The nomination of the five for the CCBE Human Rights Award 2020 has been made by the Law Society of England and Wales, and is backed by the Faculty of Advocates and the Law Society of Scotland, as well as the
Patrick Penninckx, head of the information society department at the Council of Europe conducted a webinar entitled Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights this week. It was organised by the European Law Students Association (ELSA) as part of a series of webinars on law and technology. The spe