Human Rights | WPN World People News

An attack on a United Nations aid convoy and on a Red Crescent warehouse in Aleppo should be investigated as possible war crimes. The apparent airstrikes on September 19, 2016, hit the convoy and building for over three hours with no military targets in the vicinity. The attacks violate the laws of armed conflict and would constitute war crimes if they intentionally targeted personnel, vehicles, or installations involved in providing humanitarian assistance. Only Syrian and Russian air forces are known to be active in this part of Syria.

Hungary is keeping many of the most vulnerable asylum seekers stranded on its border in poor conditions for weeks while they wait to enter the country and file their claims. Some said that border officials had used excessive force against them.

Pakistani authorities should halt the execution of Imdad Ali, which is scheduled for September 20, 2016, Human Rights Watch said on Sep 19. Imdad Ali has a mental disability.

The Philippine Senate has ousted the chair of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights in an apparent reprisal for her inquiry into the surge in killings linked to President Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” Human Rights Watch said on Sep 19. The Senate should seek Sen. Leila De Lima’s immediate reinstatement to signal its support for justice and human rights.

The number of South Sudanese refugees sheltering in neighbouring countries has this week passed the 1 million mark, including more than 185,000 people who have fled since fresh violence erupted in the country in Juba on July 8, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, said on 16 September.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ Regional Representation for South-Eastern Europe (UNHCR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Mission to BiH welcome the decision of the BiH Council of Ministers to form a Co-ordination Team to follow the implementation of rights of refugees and displaced persons under Annex VII of the Dayton Peace Accords.

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and the Animal Protection League of New Jersey (APLNJ) on September 15 provided video footage to all members of the New Jersey Legislature demonstrating the barbarity of enclosed leghold traps. In contravention of New Jersey’s ban on steel-jaw leghold traps, the New Jersey Fish and Game Council (Council) allowed the traps’ use on raccoons and opossums in the Garden State during last year’s trapping season and seeks to do so again when the trapping season begins in November. AWI and APLNJ are calling on legislators to support a resolution condemning all steel-jaw leghold type traps, reaffirming the state’s ban.

Our organisations strongly condemn on September 16’s arbitrary arrest of Kashmiri human rights defender Mr. Khurram Parvez, and call for his immediate and unconditional release.

The Zeinhom Criminal Court’s decision on 17 September to freeze the personal and organizational bank accounts of a group of leading and award-winning human rights lawyers and campaigners over politically motivated accusations that they are using foreign funds for illegal purposes is a reprehensible blow to Egypt’s human rights movement, Amnesty International said on 17 September.

The American Civil Liberties Union on September 16 filed a motion to intervene in a case challenging a section of the Affordable Care Act that prohibits health care entities from discriminating based on race, national origin, sex, age or disability. The lawsuit, Franciscan Alliance v. Burwell, was filed by a group of states and religiously affiliated health care organizations who are suing the federal government.