Human Rights | WPN World People News

The United Nations is marking the International Day of Older Persons by encouraging countries to draw attention to and challenge negative stereotypes and misconceptions about older persons and ageing, and to enable older persons to realize their potential to build a life of dignity and human rights.

Masih, resident of Chak 66, Dina Nath Village, Kasur District of Punjab Province, 48 km southwest of Lahore, was friends with a Muslim, Mr. Akhtat Ali. On September 18, Ali, along with his friends Bakht Khan and Saddam opened Nabeel Masih's Facebook profile; there was a picture therein, allegedly posted and liked by Nabeel, where the Kaaba was defamed and disrespected. The picture was photo-shopped to show the picture of a pig atop Khan-e Kaaba. Ali immediately filed a case of blasphemy at Police Station Bhai Pheru.

"The evacuations and arrests were just part of a larger Khmer Rouge project of mass social engineering which involved obliterating everything that smacked of capitalism, privatism, and class oppression," writes Alexander Laban Hinton, Founding Director, Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights and Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University. He is the co-editor of Colonial Genocide in Indigenous North America, published by Duke University Press, and author of the award-winning Why Did They Kill?: Cambodia in the Shadow of Genocide.

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned about six Pacific countries raising the subject of human rights violations in Papua in the General Debate of the Assembly's 71st Session, on 26 September 2016. The video can be accessed here.

A Rwandan opposition activist has been missing for six months and is feared to have been forcibly disappeared, Human Rights Watch said on Sep 29. People close to the activist, Illuminée Iragena, have not seen her since March 26, 2016, and fear she may have died in detention.

Security forces in Bangladesh are deliberately shooting members and supporters of opposition parties in the leg, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Sep 29. Victims explained that police shot them in custody and then falsely claimed that they were shot in self-defense, in crossfire with armed criminals, or during violent protests.

Authorities at a maximum security prison in Cairo that holds many political prisoners routinely abuse inmates in ways that may have contributed to some of their deaths.

Security forces in Bangladesh are deliberately shooting members and supporters of opposition parties in the leg, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Sep 28. Victims explained that police shot them in custody and then falsely claimed that they were shot in self-defense, in crossfire with armed criminals, or during violent protests.

Malawi’s government has failed to protect the rights and livelihoods of people living in nascent mining communities, Human Rights Watch said today in a report released on eve of the International Right to Know Day. Families living near coal and uranium mining operations face serious problems with water, food, and housing, and are left in the dark about health and other risks from mining.

The 2016 US presidential election has generated a great deal of debate on human rights issues—from torture to paid family leave, immigration to policing—on which Human Rights Watch has been working for years.  In the lead-up to the vote, our experts will examine some of the key issues being debated, as well as others that should be top priorities for the next president.