India’s Supreme Court ordered police on Wednesday to put five prominent rights campaigners suspected of links to Maoist guerrillas under house arrest as outrage grew over their detention. Critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government have dismissed the allegations against the activists, who were detained a day earlier, and said the crackdown was part of […]
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An opposition Ugandan lawmaker was charged with treason on Thursday over his alleged role in the stoning of President Yoweri Museveni’s convoy this month. A civilian magistrate ordered Robert Kyagulanyi remanded in custody until Aug. 30 and granted him access to private doctors, citing the “health of the accused”, according to footage broadcast on private […]
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Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor is seeking the death penalty against five human rights activists from the kingdom’s Eastern Province currently on trial in a secretive terrorism court, groups including Human Rights Watch (HRW) said. Among the detainees is Israa al-Ghomgham, whom Saudi activists said was the first woman to possibly face the death penalty for […]
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Bahrain’s detention of activist Nabeel Rajab is unlawful and violates his right to freedom of expression, U.N. human rights experts have found, calling on the kingdom to release him immediately with compensation. The government on Thursday rejected the findings of the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, saying that Rajab’s offences did not relate to […]
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Canadian Muslims travelling to the Hajj pilgrimage face delays coming back due to a diplomatic dispute with Saudi Arabia that is also prompting thousands of students from the kingdom to scramble to sell their assets and return home to meet a month-end deadline. As the stalemate continues, Canada is reaching out to its allies, including […]
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South Korea marked its first “memorial day” on Tuesday for girls and women forced to work in Japan’s wartime brothels, with both of the U.S. allies expressing concern that the emotionally charged issue could undermine their relations. Under a 2015 deal, Japan apologised to the “comfort women”, its euphemism for women – many of them […]
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Ethiopia has released thousands of prisoners as a new prime minister reverses decades of security abuses. No-one knows how many were tortured. But some of those torture victims are now talking openly – to the media, to their relatives and to their friends – about what happened to them after they were jailed, in many […]
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Muslims in Buddhist-majority Myanmar usually keep a low profile for fear of intimidation, but Win Lae Phyu Sin, one of the community’s rare bloggers on beauty care, has gone the other way. The 19-year-old was the centre of attraction at a recent launch of beauty products in Yangon, her striking multi-coloured make-up offset by a […]
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Tunisia’s president on Monday proposed giving women equal inheritance rights despite protests from thousands of people objecting to any challenge to Islamic law. The North African Muslim country, which toppled autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, grants women more rights than other countries in the region, and since last year has allowed Muslim […]
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A Malaysian minister on Wednesday said he had ordered the removal of portraits of two lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) activists from a public photography exhibition, as they promoted LGBT activities. The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community is routinely persecuted in Muslim-majority Malaysia, where sodomy is a crime and is seen as a […]
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