Human Rights | WPN World People News

Over the past month, several government-run educational institutions in India’s Karnataka state have banned Muslim female students from wearing the hijab, or headscarf. The state government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has backed the discriminatory ban, passing a directive last week saying, “clothes which disturb equality, integrity, and public law and order should not be worn.”

Indian authorities have arrested the prominent Kashmiri journalist Fahad Shah on politically motivated charges as part of the government’s crackdown on the media and civil society groups in Jammu and Kashmir, Human Rights Watch said on February 8, 2022. Since 2019, at least 35 journalists in Kashmir have faced police interrogation, raids, threats, physical assault, or fabricated criminal cases for their reporting.

Qatari state security authorities have imposed indefinite arbitrary travel bans against at least four citizens without a judicial process or a clear legal basis, Human Rights Watch and the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) said on February 7, 2022. State security forces arrested one of the men in October 2020 after he posted tweets criticizing arbitrary travel bans against himself and others, and he remains in detention.

Just days before the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics opening ceremony, Japanese lawmakers passed a Diet resolution highlighting human rights issues in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia. Specifically, the February 1 resolution calls for the “monitoring of serious human rights situations in cooperation with the international community,” and “implementation of comprehensive relief measures.”

A trader affected by leprosy waits for customers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Protesters attend a march against the military coup in Myanmar.

The Holocaust “defined the United Nations”, Secretary-General António Guterres told a virtual ceremony marking Holocaust Remembrance Day on Thursday, recalling that the UN Charter was drafted in San Francisco “as the Dachau concentration camp was liberated”.

Egyptian authorities are deporting Eritreans seeking asylum, including children, without assessing their asylum claims or other protection needs, Human Rights Watch said on January 27, 2022.

The conviction in Germany on January 13 of a former Syrian intelligence official for crimes against humanity marks a major breakthrough in the fight for justice for atrocities in Syria. In sharp contrast, a French court’s decision in November raises fears that France could harbor perpetrators of similar crimes in Syria and elsewhere.

Children wearing “United Against Hate” t-shirts appear at an interfaith gathering at the Park East Synagogue in New York City in memory of Jewish worshipers who were killed in Pittsburgh in the United States.