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Voting rights advocates observe somber King holiday

While most of the country will spend the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday remembering the peaceful nature and civil rights successes lodged by the late leader, voting rights advocates say this is a dark time for them.

Many might spend Monday reflecting on King's 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march to push for voting equality for black Americans,

Announcing the human rights report, Secretary General of Amnesty International Salil Shetty listed US President Donald Trump alongside world leaders like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, and claimed that their "divisive fear-mongering has become a dangerous force in world affairs."

also criticizes former President Barack Obama's record on human rights, saying he "leaves a legacy that includes many grievous failures to uphold human rights" during his eight years in office. It says early indicators suggest that Trump's foreign policy will "usher in a new era of greater instability and mutual suspicion."

Amnesty. As powerful states backtrack on their human rights commitments, other leaders may feel emboldened to do the same, the nongovernmental organization warns

Thailand's senate has rejected an amnesty bill that could have led to the return to the country of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The amnesty was meant for offences committed during and after Thailand's 2006 coup, which ousted Mr Thaksin.

"This house rejects this bill for consideration," said deputy senate speaker Surachai Lengboonlertchai

Salvadoran authorities have committed "massive" human rights violations, including thousands of arbitrary detentions and violations of due process, torture, and ill-treatment, according to a new report from Amnesty International.

The report, released Thursday, found that since late March, nearly 2% of the country has been detained, with at least 18 people having died in state custody.

More than 36,000 people have been detained since

With more than 2 million Syrians already living outside their war-torn country and 1 million more expected to flee in the coming months, there is a growing protection gap. Indeed, a report (PDF) released in November by Harvard University shows that even Canada, which prides itself on being hospitable to refugees, has been systematically closing its borders to asylum seekers. Without a doubt, development-related aid is an important incentive to host countries, and providing sanctuary for vulnerable populations is just as vital, but what refugees need most is a legal status, which can be achieved only through a regional framework of protection and national asylum policies. The Bangkok Principles are a good start because they highlight the commitment among these states to develop a regional framework and national solutions to protect refugees, with the support of the international community. The U.S. must do its part and encourage the Middle East to build on these principles. Syrians deserve an organized and effective framework, and the risk of turning our backs is that Syrians, along with the Palestinians, will be wandering without a homeland. Galya Benarieh Ruffer is the founding director of the Center for Forced Migration Studies at the Buffett Center for International and Area Studies at Northwestern University and a public voices faculty fellow with the OpEd Project.  The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera America's editorial policy. 180401 Join the Conversation Post a new commentLogin   c

Although the cause of Syrians fleeing their homeland today differs fundamentally from the flight of Palestinians in 1948, one crucial similarity is the harsh reception they are experiencing in neighboring countries. The tragedy of the Syrian refugee crisis is palpable in news stories and in the images of those risking their lives in rickety boats on Europe’s shores. More than one-third of Syria’s population has been displaced, and its effects are rippling across the Middle East. For months, more than 1,500 Syrians (including 250 children) have been detained in Egypt. Hundreds of adults are protesting grotesque conditions there with a hunger strike. Lebanon absorbed the most refugees but now charges toward economic collapse, while Turkey will house 1 million Syrians by the year’s end.

The surge of Syrians arriving in urban centers has brought sectarian violence, economic pressure and social tensions. As a result, these bordering countries, having already spent billions of dollars, are feeling less hospitable and are starting to close their borders to Syrians.

ISIS has built a substantial arsenal, including U.S.-made weapons obtained from the Iraqi army and Syrian opposition groups.

that much of ISIS' equipment and munitions comes from stockpiles captured from the U.S.-allied Iraqi military and Syrian rebels.

And it won't require us sending a new generation of Americans overseas to fight and die for another decade on foreign soil."

LONDON –  Women and girl migrants coming into Europe face violence and sexual harassment at every stage of their journey, according to a new report from Amnesty International.

The vast majority of the migrants streaming into Europe are men, which leaves women particularly vulnerable, aid workers say. Women at camps reported having to use the same bathroom and shower facilities as men, and some said they did not eat or drink to avoid going to the toilet.

"One of the challenges we have been facing is that it is taking a long time for the international community, and by that I mean governments, to wake up to this crisis and to realize that it is not something that they can wish away," Jenny Becker, protection coordinator with the International Rescue Committee in northern Lesbos in Greece, told The Associated Press.

The European Union has in recent weeks been engaged in a dispute with vaccine makers after AstraZeneca admitted it was expecting a major shortfall in production, and has been accused of prioritizing deliveries to the UK. In response, European officials have introduced temporary export restrictions on vaccines produced in its territories, giving member states the option of limiting exports outside the EU to countries like the UK, the United States and even South Africa.

Wealthy countries are locked in a self-defeating and ultimately avoidable zero-sum game over vaccine supplies. And it is a game that poorer countries will inevitably lose -- to the cost of us all.

Rich countries have ordered enough doses to vaccinate their populations three times over, while 9 in 10 people in nearly 70 poorer countries are unlikely to be vaccinated at all this year.

SEOUL, South Korea — The government of President Moon Jae-in said on Friday that it would pardon former President Park Geun-hye, who is serving a 20-year prison term after she was convicted on bribery and other criminal charges.

Ms. Park, 69, who became the first democratically elected South Korean leader to be removed from office through parliamentary impeachment,

will be freed on Dec. 31 to promote “reconciliation and consolidate national power to help overcome the national crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic,” the Justice Ministry said in a statement.

At least 12,472 refugees and migrants have arrived on Europe's shores since the beginning of 2017, according to the UN refugee agency -- only slightly less than the 12,587 Syrian refugees admitted by the US in all of last year.

The UK government recently announced it was halting a program to resettle lone refugee children, after 350 had been brought to Britain. Campaigners had hoped that 3,000 children would benefit from the scheme, introduced last year.

In November 2016, the Home Office issued new guidance barring unaccompanied refugees from Afghanistan, Yemen and Eritrea older than 12, who were living in the now-demolished "Jungle" camp at Calais in northern France, from entering the UK if they have no family there.

European leaders should be ashamed by the paltry numbers of refugees from Syria they are prepared to resettle, human rights group Amnesty says.

10 member states have offered to take in refugees and even then only 12,000, it complains. The UK and Italy have offered no places at all, it adds.

European Union aid has reached 1.3bn euros (£1.1bn; $1.7bn), officials say.

The uneasy relationship between European economic interests and foreign policy ideals was on full display Wednesday in the German capital.

Standing by Sisi at a joint news conference in Berlin, Merkel said that Germany and Egypt have many common interests but maintain different views on issues such as the death sentence and other human rights matters. “I think that if one wants to be partners and solve complex issues, we have to be able talk about these things,” she said.

Despite Merkel’s criticism and the ideological sparring, the the trip has been a big success for Sisi, whose regime “presides over the gravest human rights crisis Egypt in decades,” according to a joint statement by Amnesty International and other nongovernmental organizations. She previously stated that she would not host him in Berlin until Egypt held fair parliamentary elections. Such elections have not yet taken place.

As a reporter covering the often heart-rending hearings in the 1990s, I watched Mr. de Kock calmly correct facts, expose lies and name superiors who then quickly had to apply for amnesty themselves. He became the polygraph machine of the commission. Without him the “truth” part of the T.R.C. would have been sorely lacking.

With his intimate knowledge of apartheid-era security agencies, he began to assist victims in finding the remains of loved ones. He provided answers and pointed to places where bodies could be found. Mr. de Kock openly confessed his regret directly to victims and admitted that nothing could redeem him. This contrasted sharply with many of his commanders, who openly refused to apply for amnesty, or the politicians who denied that he had carried out their orders.

For me it is irrelevant whether this change is genuine; the fact of his assistance to the victims is what counts. Unlike many other white people — perpetrators and bystanders — who have benefited since 1994 from the reconciliatory attitude of black South Africans, Mr. de Kock actually began to engage with fellow South Africans in restorative ways. Slowly, over the years, he transformed himself from a highly effective killer to somebody who genuinely engaged with those looking for answers.

And if you think, as Amnesty International suggested recently, that the solution is to decriminalize the commercial sex trade around the world, then pay special heed.

Poonam thus became one of 20.9 million people worldwide — a quarter of them children — subjected to forced labor, according to the U.N.’s International Labor Organization. In the United States, tens of thousands of children are trafficked into the sex trade each year.

and Koirala says that Maiti Nepal has helped prosecute 800 people for involvement in trafficking. In America as well, we need to prosecute traffickers rather than their victims.

Germany's top court ruled Wednesday that lawmakers must legally recognize a "third gender" from birth.

Once a law is passed, Germany would become the first European country to offer intersex people the option of identifying as a designation other than male or female.

In 2013, Germany became the first European country to allow parents of intersex children to leave the gender box blank on a birth certificate.

An Iowa jury acquitted a journalist on Wednesday in a highly unusual trial of a reporter who was arrested last spring as she covered a protest against racism and police violence.

“I’m thankful to the jury for doing the right thing,” Ms. Sahouri said in a statement after the verdict. “Their decision upholds freedom of the press and justice in our democracy.”

Carol Hunter, executive editor of The Register, said on Wednesday that she was grateful the jury had seen the case as an unjust prosecution of a reporter doing her job.

Turkish-backed militias, armed by Ankara, have killed civilians in areas abandoned by the U.S., four U.S. military and intelligence officials tell TIME. The officials say they fear that the militias committing those potential war crimes may be using weapons that the U.S. sold to Turkey.

Turkey and its allies may be preparing to clear civilian populations from the area, which has largely been controlled by the Kurds, Ankara’s long-time enemies in the region. Turkish President Recep Erdogan told the United Nations on Sept. 24 that he planned to establish a safe zone across the border in Syria, and to resettle some of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees currently sheltered in Turkey.

This intelligence is emerging as the U.S. struggles to manage the fallout from its precipitous retreat from Syria, which was announced Oct. 13, after Erdogan told Trump that Turkey was about to attack territory in northern Syria where U.S. troops were deployed. Trump gave the Pentagon and State Department no warning of his decision to pull the U.S. out of the area, and no time to plan an organized retreat or to negotiate a handover of territory. That has left U.S. military officials and diplomats scrambling to deal with the situation.

Desmond M. Tutu, the cleric who used his pulpit and spirited oratory to help bring down apartheid in South Africa and then became the leading advocate of peaceful reconciliation under Black majority rule, died on Sunday in Cape Town. He was 90.

“a leader of principle and pragmatism who gave meaning to the biblical insight that faith without works is dead.”

the archbishop remained unhappy about the state of affairs in his country under its next president, Jacob G. Zuma, who had denied Mr. Mbeki another term despite being embroiled in scandal.