Tag Archives: Law & Politics

Age, Ideology + Affiliation

China News | Incarcerated Seniors & Veterans

China announces rare prisoner amnesities ahead of WWII anniversary
  • Four groups, including seniors and war veterans, will receive amnesty.
  • The decision marks only the eighth time China has granted incarceration relief in Communist Party history.
  • Those convicted of violent crimes such as rape, murder, or terror will remain incarcerated.

Read the full story at Reuters.

Race + Color + Ethnicity, Religion + Belief

Myanmar News | Rohingya

Rohingya politician barred from re-election as hundreds of thousands find themselves struck from voting rolls
  • Lawmaker U Shwe Maung, a member of Myanmar’s governing party, was informed by the country’s electoral commission of his ineligibility to run for re-election.
  • The commission claimed Shwe Maung was not a citizen, the result of Myanmar’s recent invalidation of the identity cards held by the majority of the country’s Rohingya population.
  • The mass disenfranchisement of Rohingya has compromised the integrity of the upcoming November elections, which will be the first to include a democratically led party to compete with the military-backed governing party.

“This is the government really stripping them of their last right. … It suits the government’s long-term plan of compelling them to leave.”

Read the full story at The New York Times.

Nationality + Migration, Race + Color + Ethnicity

U.S. Feature | Undocumented Asian Immigrants

Undocumented Silence

Image Credit: Jill Stephenson/Alamy, via the Guardian
Image Credit: Jill Stephenson/Alamy, via the Guardian

With only 21% of the estimated 87,000 undocumented Asian immigrants having applied for deportation relief under the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the U.S.’s undocumented Asian community has largely existed in the shadow of the more politically vocal Latino community in immigration activism. The Guardian profiles Jong-Min You, one of the few public faces of the undocumented Asian community, about the causes of this silence and his hopes for his own future.

Read the full feature at the Guardian.

Ideology + Affiliation

China News | Activists

1 Comment
Hong Kong Occupy leaders charged a year after pro-democracy protests
  • Alex Chow, who led the Hong Kong Federation of Students, reported he and Joshua Wong, leader of student group Scholarism, have been charged with illegal assembly following 2014’s demonstrations.
  • Wong faces the additional charge of inciting others to illegal assembly during the student-led protests that shut down major areas of Hong Kong.
  • More than 100,000 participated for more than two months in demonstrations against China’s decision to vet candidates for Hong Kong’s 2017 elections.

Read the full story at Reuters.

(Image Credit: Bobby Yip/Reuters)

Ideology + Affiliation

India News | Critics

Indian activist targeted by government investigations during pursuit of PM for negligence during 2002 massacres
  • Rights activist Teesta Setalvad has been seeking to hold PM Narendra Modi responsible for negligence and conspiracy during the 2002 riots that left more than 1,000 dead–many of them Muslim–in Gujarat, where Modi was chief minister.
  • Setalvad has been subject to numerous unannounced searches, bank freezes, mobility restrictions, interrogations, and lawsuits by government bodies and Modi’s allies.
  • Tensions have also led to government monitoring of and restrictions on international NGOs including the Ford Foundation, from whom Setalvad received funding for projects unrelated to her battle with Modi.

“What I’m not worried about is them finding anything incriminating against us. … I’m worried they’ll find things we have that incriminate them.”

Read the full story at The New York Times.

(Image Credit: Manpreet Romana/The New York Times)

Other, Race + Color + Ethnicity

Israel News | Incarcerated Palestinians

Israel looks to release Palestinian hunger-striker after months of charge-less detention
  • Israeli authorities have offered release to prisoner Mohammad Allan on the condition that he be exiled for four years.
  • Allan lost consciousness last week after having been on hunger strike for two months, but vowed to refuse basic nutrients after being revived.
  • One of a number undertaken in protest of Israel’s “administrative detention” of prisoners (overwhelmingly Palestinian) without charge, the hunger strike has continued even as the government recently passed a law allowing for the force-feeding of prisoners.

“I think that, under the circumstances, this is a realistic proposal that would be good if he accepts it.”

Read the full story at The New York Times.

(Image Credit: Amir Cohen/Reuters, via The New York Times)

Ideology + Affiliation

Myanmar News | Dissident Journalists

1 Comment
Myanmar shutters media connected to ousted parliamentary speaker
  • The Ministry of Information ordered two newspapers considered the mouthpieces of parliamentary leader Shwe Mann to go dark.
  • Mann’s ousting followed his attempts earlier in the summer to limit the political role of the military ahead of the November general election.
  • President Thein Sein’s use of security forces to remove Mann has led to concerns about the government’s commitment to democratic process ahead of an election that could be Myanmar’s first free and open one in a half-century.

Read the full story at Reuters.

Age, Health + Ability, Ideology + Affiliation

Azerbaijan News | Dissident Seniors

1 Comment
Senior Azerbaijani rights activists sentenced to prison terms despite ailing health
  • Leyla Yunus, 59, and her husband Arif, 60, were sentenced to eight-and-a-half and seven-year prison terms, respectively, after on charges including tax fraud, illegal entrepreneurship, and treason.
  • Rights advocates argue that the couple were targeted for their human rights advocacy, with numerous other activists and journalists having been recently imprisoned as well.
  • The Yunuses suffer from diabetes, hypertension, and kidney problems, worrying family and friends about their health prospects while incarcerated.

“If there were irregularities in [the] way Yunus ran her groups, the government could have pursued them through noncriminal measures. … But instead the authorities arrested them and went directly to criminal charges, despite their age and ill health.”

Read the full story at BuzzFeed News and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

(Image Credit: Facebook, via BuzzFeed News)

Sexual + Gender Minorities

Costa Rica News | LGB

1 Comment
Costa Rican president submits bill to legalize same-sex common-law marriages
  • The bill would amend the Costa Rican family code to allow for cohabitating same-sex couples who have been partnered for at least three years to meet with a lawyer or judge to apply for a common-law marriage.
  • Under common law status, the unions would purportedly provide all of the legal protections of regular marriage, with the residency and duration requirements being the point of difference.
  • In June, a judge granted the first common-law marriage to a couple in Goicoechea after slow legislative progress following a 2006 Supreme Court ruling declaring the Constitution does not prohibit same-sex marriage.

Read the full story at the Tico Times.

(Image Credit: Alberto Font/The Tico Times)

Gender

Nigeria News | Women

Women’s rights groups in Lagos continue to combat discrimination and gender-based violence
  • One activist cited more than 500 cases of gender-based discrimination that her organization has handled so far in 2015.
  • Advocates have zeroed in on workplace discrimination as a key area for improvement, with women-unfriendly policies in recruitment and human resource policies like maternity leave erecting barriers to equal opportunity.
  • Women’s rights groups have also secured a pledge from newly inaugurated President Muhammadu Buhari to see women in at least 35% of government roles in his administration, which they plan to take action on should he renege on his campaign promise.

Watch the CCTV report on YouTube.

Nationality + Migration, Race + Color + Ethnicity

Israel News | Migrants & Refugees

Protests erupt in Tel Aviv following Supreme Court decision limiting migrant detentions to 12 months
  • After the court ruling that calls for the immediate release of around 1,200 migrants detained without charge, some Tel Aviv residents took to the streets in outrage.
  • Demonstrators claimed asylum seekers bring down their quality of life with crime and open-air living.
  • Protesters confronted some migrants around Lewinsky Park, yelling insults and condemning the Supreme Court.

“What’s going to happen in reality is that thousands of infiltrators are going to come here and make our lives hell, even more than they are now. … We are going to fight this with all our strength.”

Read the full story at Ynet News.

Nationality + Migration

Israel News | Refugees & Migrants

Israel Supreme Court limits detention of migrants without charge to a year
  • The ruling struck down a portion of the Infiltration Prevention Act that allowed for migrants to be detained for up to 20 months.
  • Among the more than 2,500 migrants detained at the Holot detention facility in the Negev, those who have been detained without charge for 12 months or more are to be released in the next 15 days.
  • Israel refers to illegal migrants as “infiltrators” and since 2009 has granted asylum requests–mostly from Eritreans, Sudanese, and Congolese–to fewer than 0.15% of those who applied.

“The court made it clear that a policy whose purpose is to break asylum-seekers’ spirit to coerce them to leave Israel is unconstitutional. The judges also criticized the slow pace of examining asylum claims and the abysmally low recognition rate of refugees in Israel.”

Read the full story at the Times of Israel.

(Image Credit: Flash90, via The Times of Israel)

Sexual + Gender Minorities

Mexico News | LGB

1 Comment
Mexico supreme court strikes down ban on same-sex adoption
  • The court ruled 9-1 that a 2013 law in the state of Campeche was unconstitutional following a filing by the state’s human rights commission.
  • Same-sex couples’ adoption rights have experienced less support than marriage equality in the country, with only 24% expressing favor versus 52% for marriage rights in a 2013 survey.
  • Adoption rights have been solidified in much of the country, with most of the opposition residing outside of the heartland.

“I see no problem for a child to be adopted in a society of co-existence, which has precisely this purpose. Are we going to prefer to have children in the street, which according to statistics exceed 100,000? We attend, of course, and perhaps with the same intensity or more, to the interests of the child.”

Read the full story at the International Business Times.

(Image Credit: Edgard Garrido/Reuters, via the International Business Times)

Ideology + Affiliation

Afghanistan Feature | Artist-Dissidents

Video

A Protest in Color

A group of artists convened at the presidential palace in Kabul to paint a mural in protest against government corruption.

View the AFP feature on YouTube (in French).

Race + Color + Ethnicity

Ecuador News | Indigenous Ecuadorians

1 Comment
Indigenous Ecuadorians march against government
  • Indigenous leaders led a march from an Amazonian province towards Quito against President Rafael Correa’s regime.
  • They argued that government policies are dispossessing them of land and resource rights and economic security.
  • Demonstrators connected indigenous struggles to broader inequalities marginalizing the poor and the general citizenry.

Watch the AFP report on YouTube.