Sealing borders ‘will continue to fail on massive scale,’ UN rights expert tells European countries

Migrants arriving on Italy’s Lampedusa Island after crossing the Mediterranean on a...
Fair trials for children: MEPs amend rules to establish strong EU-wide standards
Draft EU rules to ensure that children suspected or accused of a crime are assisted by a lawyer at all stages of criminal proceedings in any EU country were approved by the Civil Liberties Committee on Thursday. MEPs also made sure that children will...
Zimbabwe: Coerced Into Precarious Resettlement
The Zimbabwe government has used violence, harassment, and the deliberate restriction of humanitarian aid to coerce an estimated 20,000 flood victims to resettle on tiny land plots where the government plans to establish a sugar cane plantation, Human...
Egypt: Investigate Professor’s Allegations of Torture
Egyptian judicial authorities should investigate allegations that police tortured an economics professor and his brother. Abdallah Shehata, a former Finance Ministry advisor, and his brother As’ad have been held since they were detained on November 28...
Bosnia and Herzegovina: Reject Draft Law Criminalizing Online Speech
The National Assembly of Republika Srpska (RS) in Bosnia and Herzegovina should reject a draft law to criminalize free expression online, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the president of the RS National Assembly on February 2, 2015. The RS...
UNESCO chief condemns killing of journalists in Mexico, Syria

Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Irina Bokova.
Egypt: Video Shows Police Shot Woman at Protest

Police in black uniform moments after the shooting of Shaimaa al-Sabbagh, a political activist who later died as a...
General rapporteur appalled by execution of two men with intellectual disabilities
“I am gravely disturbed at the execution this week, in Georgia and Texas respectively, of Warren Hill and Robert Ladd – both of whom seem to have a well-documented intellectual disability,” Marietta Karamanli (France, SOC), General rapporteur of the...
Law meant for spies is being used against whistle blowers?
Whistleblowers from the US and the EU recounted the problems they faced in trying to expose what they believed to be wrongdoing in the organisations they worked for, testifying this week at a hearing of PACE’s Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee...
Professor Sues University of Illinois Over Firing for “Uncivil” Gaza Tweets
A professor who was fired from a tenured position at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign because of his tweets criticizing the Israeli government’s bombing of Gaza last year has filed a civil rights suit against the University and its top...