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Category: US news

  • Alarm as Alabama man to be executed via gas method rejected by veterinarians

    Death row prisoner Kenneth Smith, 58, to be killed via nitrogen-gas procedure animal scientists have ruled out for ethical reasons

    Alabama is preparing to execute a death row inmate using nitrogen gas, an experimental method that veterinarians in the US and across Europe have deemed unacceptable as a form of euthanasia for most animals.

    Barring last-minute appeals, Kenneth Smith, 58, is scheduled to be judicially killed on 25 January using a previously untested technique. Alabama’s department of corrections is proposing to strap him to a gurney, apply a respirator mask to his face, then force him to breathe pure nitrogen which would cause oxygen deprivation and death.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Human rights in decline globally as leaders fail to uphold laws, report warns

    Human Rights Watch’s annual report highlights politicians’ double standards and ‘transactional diplomacy’ amid escalating crises

    Human rights across the world are in a parlous state as leaders shun their obligations to uphold international law, according to the annual report of Human Rights Watch (HRW).

    In its 2024 world report, HRW warns grimly of escalating human rights crises around the globe, with wartime atrocities increasing, suppression of human rights defenders on the rise, and universal human rights principles and laws being attacked and undermined by governments.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • It’s been 22 years since the Guantánamo prison opened. Men are still held there | Pardiss Kebriaei

    During his captivity, my client Sharqawi Al Hajj has lost both parents and gone through his 30s and most of his 40s. He wonders what future he has left

    Sharqawi Al Hajj is a man detained at the US military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. I have been his lawyer for many years. This week marks 22 years since the prison was opened, and Sharqawi’s 20th year inside. He is one of 30 men still detained there, down from nearly 800 ever held. This trajectory is because Guantánamo, though not singular among prisons in its harsh treatment and arbitrary detention, was at least for a time very overt in its extremeness, and what could be seen more plainly than usual caused a reaction.

    There are public records and images of an earlier period that people who are old enough remember. A news article from 2002, reporting on the first planeload of detainees arriving, sticks with me. Men chained to their seats for 8,000 miles were led off the plane because they wore goggles covered with black tape; some fell to the ground. A government report from 2008 described interrogations during those years, things like a man being found immobile on the floor of an interview room next to a pile of his own hair.

    Pardiss Kebriaei is Mr Sharqawi Al Hajj’s lawyer and has represented men at Guantánamo since 2007. She is a senior attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • UN and US efforts to stop mass atrocities have waned, activists warn

    Human rights campaigners say ‘responsibility to protect’ principle and ambition to prevent genocides have diminished

    Human rights activists say that the international community has given up on intervention efforts to stop mass atrocities, leading to fears that such occurrences may become the norm around the world.

    The warnings come on the 75th anniversaries this weekend of the Genocide Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, both signed in the aftermath of the Holocaust in the hope that the world would act in concert to prevent a repeat of such mass slaughter.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Revealed: how top PR firm uses ‘trust barometer’ to promote world’s autocrats

    Edelman, world’s largest public relations company, paid millions by Saudi Arabia, UAE and other repressive regimes

    Public trust in some of the world’s most repressive governments is soaring, according to Edelman, the world’s largest public relations firm, whose flagship “trust barometer” has created its reputation as an authority on global trust. For years, Edelman has reported that citizens of authoritarian countries, including Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and China, tend to trust their governments more than people living in democracies do.

    But Edelman has been less forthcoming about the fact that some of these same authoritarian governments have also been its clients. Edelman’s work for one such client – the government of the UAE – will be front and center when world leaders convene in Dubai later this month for the UN’s Cop28 climate summit.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Leftist Democrats invoke human rights law in scrutiny of Israel military aid

    Congressional progressives say proposed $14.3bn breaches 1997 Leahy act as assault on Gaza has overwhelmingly harmed civilians

    Leftwing Democrats in Congress have invoked a landmark law barring assistance to security forces of governments deemed guilty of human rights abuses to challenge the Biden administration’s emergency military aid program for Israel.

    Members of the Democratic party’s progressive wing say the $14.3bn package pledged by the White House after the 7 October attack by Hamas that killed more than 1,400 Israelis breaches the Leahy Act because Israel’s retaliatory assault on Gaza has overwhelmingly harmed civilians. An estimated 9,000 people have been killed in Gaza so far, among them 3,700 children, according to the Gaza health ministry, run by Hamas.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Top UN official in New York steps down citing ‘genocide’ of Palestinian civilians

    Craig Mokhiber, director of human rights body, accuses the US, UK and much of Europe as ‘wholly complicit in the horrific assault’

    The director of the New York office of the UN high commissioner for human rights has left his post, protesting that the UN is “failing” in its duty to prevent what he categorizes as genocide of Palestinian civilians in Gaza under Israeli bombardment and citing the US, UK and much of Europe as “wholly complicit in the horrific assault”.

    Craig Mokhiber wrote on 28 October to the UN high commissioner in Geneva, Volker Turk, saying: “This will be my last communication to you” in his role in New York.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • US ‘deeply saddened’ by death of Iranian teenager after alleged hijab encounter

    Armita Geravand had been in a coma after alleged incident with Iran’s ‘morality police’ on Tehran metro

    The United States has spoken of its deep sadness over the death of a young Iranian girl, Armita Garawand, who had been in a coma after a controversial incident in Tehran’s metro.

    “I am deeply saddened to learn that Amita Geravand has died after being beaten by Iran’s morality police for not wearing a hijab in public,” US National Security advisor Jake Sullivan said on X. “Iran’s state sponsored violence against its own people is appalling and underscores the fragility of the regime.”

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • The man who performs miracles: how ‘the extractor’ works to free political prisoners

    The human rights lawyer Jared Genser has helped more than 300 detainees in 20 countries. The key to his success? ‘Being relentless’

    It was 8pm on a Friday night when his source texted him back. A potential deal was on the table.

    He had been at a reception in Washington earlier that day where he heard that efforts were “dead in the water”. That confirmed reports he’d heard two days earlier saying the situation between Iran and the US was looking bleak. However, this text implied the opposite.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Biden’s support for Israel is qualified: he means to hold Netanyahu to the law of war | Yossi Mekelberg

    The president has a frosty history with Israel’s PM, and he has emphasised that US backing depends on the upholding of democratic values

    President Biden’s response to the murderous attack by Hamas on Israeli towns, villages and kibbutzim that claimed more than 1,200 Israeli lives, the majority of them civilians, was one of the most heartfelt expressions of support for Israel by a US president for a very long time. His speech on 10 October emphasised that Washington would not confine its backing for the Jewish state to words, and would immediately translate those words into tangible assistance. But Biden’s pledge of “surging” support, including sending aircraft carriers “to deter hostile actions against Israel” – is not without caveats, to which Israel should pay careful heed. Over the weekend, Biden wisely warned Israel against occupying Gaza, and expressed his support for opening a humanitarian corridor to alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe that is already taking place.

    It is no secret that US-Israel relations have been strained since Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power at the end of last year. The US administration has been openly critical of the crass attempt to weaken the country’s judiciary, and with it Israel’s democratic system, by the newly formed, most rightwing government coalition in its history. Indirectly supporting the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have been regularly taking to the streets in defence of their democracy, Biden linked US friendship with Israel to the preservation of that democracy, and asserted that: “The genius of American democracy and Israeli democracy is that they are both built on strong institutions, on checks and balances, on an independent judiciary.”

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Corporations are paying for worker abuse audits that are ‘designed to fail’, say insiders

    US and UK companies with foreign operations use audits to prevent worker abuse – but auditors say the checks aren’t working

    Before he began the interviews, Ahmed swept the room for cameras and recording devices. He then invited the workers in, one by one, spending about 10 minutes talking with each.

    They were employed at a factory in the Middle East that supplied goods for a major American company – and it was Ahmed’s job, as an outside auditor, to uncover any labor abuses. Often, before he could even ask a question, the staff members hastened to assure him that they were happy with their jobs.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • McDonald’s and Amazon’s ties to alleged labor trafficking: five key takeaways

    Foreign workers at the Middle East locations of US and UK brands allege low pay, harsh conditions and a legal limbo with few protections

    Today the Guardian has published an investigation into labor conditions at the Persian Gulf locations of major US and UK brands, including Amazon, McDonald’s and the InterContinental Hotels Group.

    Almost 100 current and former migrant laborers spoke to reporters, and many claimed they were misled into taking poorly paid jobs, subject to extortionate and arbitrary fees, or had their passports confiscated. These practices are broadly considered to be indicators of labor trafficking.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • McDonald’s and Chuck E Cheese tied to alleged foreign worker exploitation

    Workers contracted to work for western brands in Saudi Arabia have described conditions as ‘like jail’

    Over the years the world’s most powerful fast-food chain, McDonald’s, has twice honored a Saudi prince’s business empire with its highest accolade for its franchisees: the Golden Arch award.

    Prince Mishaal bin Khalid al-Saud – who controls more than 200 McDonald’s outlets across Saudi Arabia – told CEO Magazine in 2018 that one of the secrets of his enterprise’s success is “ensuring a positive and favorable environment for our employees”.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Bolivian ex-president to pay damages to victims of military in landmark US case

    Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and former defence minister agree to pay for 2003 violence in which 60 protesters were killed

    A former Bolivian president and his defence minister have agreed to pay damages to the families of people killed by the military during their government, in a landmark settlement that sets a precedent by which other foreign leaders could face accountability for human rights abuse in US courts.

    The settlement concerns events in 2003, when massive protests broke out over then president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada’s plan to export Bolivia’s natural gas. The army was sent to clear blockades in the largely Indigenous and working-class city of El Alto, killing more than 60 protesters and injuring hundreds.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • US and UK issue sanctions on Iran one year on from Mahsa Amini’s death

    Multiple rounds of sanctions mark anniversary of 22-year-old’s death in custody of Iran’s ‘morality police’

    The US and Britain on Friday imposed sanctions on Iran on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the death of a Kurdish Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, while in the custody of Iran’s “morality police”, which sparked months of anti-government protests that faced often violent crackdown.

    Amini, 22, died on 16 September last year after being arrested for allegedly flouting the Islamic Republic’s mandatory dress code. Her death sparked months of anti-government protests that marked the biggest show of opposition to Iranian authorities in years. Iranian security forces have been deployed in her home town in anticipation of unrest this weekend.

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  • Twitter ‘unfit’ for banking over alleged complicity in Saudi rights abuses

    Lawyers for family say Saudi government took brother’s data in breach and ‘arrested, tortured, and imprisoned’ him and others

    The company formerly known as Twitter is “unfit” to hold banking licenses because of its alleged “intentional complicity” with human rights violations in Saudi Arabia and treatment of users’ personal data, according to an open letter sent to federal and state banking regulators that was signed by a law firm representing a Saudi victim’s family.

    The allegations by lawyers representing Areej al-Sadhan, whose brother Abdulrahman was one of thousands of Saudis whose confidential personal information was obtained by Saudi agents posing as Twitter employees in 2014-15, comes as Twitter Payments LLC, a subsidiary of X (the company formerly known as Twitter), is in the process of applying for money-transmitter licenses across the US.

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  • ‘Astonishingly cruel’: Alabama seeks to test execution method on death row ‘guinea pig’

    Nine months after Kenneth Smith’s botched lethal injection, state attorney general has asked for approval to kill him with nitrogen

    Kenneth Smith is one of two living Americans who can describe what it is like to survive an execution, having endured an aborted lethal injection last November during which he was subjected to excruciating pain tantamount, his lawyers claim, to torture.

    Nine months later Smith has been singled out for another undesirable distinction. If the state of Alabama has its way, he will become the test dummy for an execution method that has never before been used in judicial killings and which veterinarians consider unacceptable as a form of euthanasia for animals – death by nitrogen gas.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Germany says it ended training of Saudi border forces after abuses reported

    Statement comes amid concern about allegations Saudi forces have killed hundreds of migrants

    Germany ended a training programme for Saudi border forces, who have been implicated in the mass killing of migrants at the country’s border with Yemen, after it was alerted to reports of “possible massive human rights violations”, the German interior ministry has said.

    In a statement to the Guardian, the ministry said training undertaken by the federal police service for the Saudi border force had been “discontinued after reports of possible massive human rights violations became known and, as a precaution, are no longer included in the current training programme [for Saudi security forces]”.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • The Guardian view on Saudi Arabia and the west: don’t count on Riyadh | Editorial

    The UK has invited Mohammed bin Salman for an official visit. Relying on the kingdom for energy or regional stability is a grave error

    Five years ago, Jeremy Hunt, then foreign secretary, echoed the widely voiced horror at the murder of the Saudi dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey. He promised that Britain’s response would depend upon “our confidence that such an appalling episode cannot – and will not – be repeated”.

    The UK has now invited Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, whom the CIA believe approved the murder despite his denials, for an official visit. His rehabilitation was already under way when Joe Biden fistbumped him a year ago, and Britain, which has profited richly from Saudi arms sales, is hungrier than ever for trade and investment.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Saudi Arabia warns Snapchat users that ‘insulting’ regime is a criminal offense

    Users of the social media app have faced legal consequences for posts – some private – that are critical of Saudi authorities

    Saudi state media issued an explicit warning that it is a criminal offense to “insult” authorities using social media apps like Snapchat, the California-based messaging app whose chief executive officer recently forged a new “cooperation” deal with the kingdom’s culture ministry.

    The threat – which was originally televised in April and then deleted – has gained new resonance as more cases emerge in which Snapchat users and influencers in the kingdom have been arrested by authorities and, in some cases, sentenced to decades-long prison sentences.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • ‘Like a war zone’: Congress hears of China’s abuses in Xinjiang ‘re-education camps’

    Two women tell of witnessing or experiencing torture and brainwashing, as Republicans and Democrats vow to document ‘genocide’

    Two women who say they experienced and escaped Chinese “re-education camps” have provided first-hand testimony to members of the US Congress, giving harrowing detail while imploring Americans not to look away from what the US has declared a continuing genocide of Muslim ethnic minorities.

    Testifying before a special House committee at the beginning of Ramadan, Gulbahar Haitiwaji, a Uyghur woman, said that during her nearly three years in internment camps and police stations, prisoners were subjected to 11 hours of “brainwashing education” each day. It included singing patriotic songs and praising the Chinese government before and after meals.

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  • US calls conditions in Rwanda’s detention centres harsh to life-threatening

    Ally’s criticism will be hard to dismiss as UK tries to push through £120m migrant scheme

    Britain’s closest ally, the US, has criticised Rwanda’s dire human rights record, describing conditions in the country’s detention centres as harsh to life-threatening.

    The British home secretary, Suella Braverman, took a group of journalists on a trip last week to reveal details of her £120m scheme to send all migrants arriving in the UK through irregular means to Rwanda whether they claim asylum or not. The legality of the scheme is due to be tested shortly in the UK court of appeal.

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  • UN urged to intervene over destruction of US abortion rights

    Exclusive: letter from human rights groups says overturning of the constitutional right violates US’s obligations as a UN member state

    Top human rights organizations are calling on the United Nations to intervene over the destruction of abortion rights in the US.

    In a letter shared in advance with the Guardian and sent Thursday by nearly 200 organizations and experts, the authors detail how, since the overturning of the federal constitutional right to abortion in June 2022, some 22 million women and girls of reproductive age live in states where abortion access is now either banned or inaccessible.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • US ranking on abuse of power index hurt by inequality and violence

    Country came near median of 163 countries on Index of Impunity, higher than Hungary and Singapore

    The US scores surprisingly badly in a new ranking system charting abuses of power by nation states, launched by a group co-chaired by former UK foreign secretary David Miliband.

    The US comes close to the median of 163 countries ranked in the Index of Impunity, reflecting a poor record on discrimination, inequality and access to democracy. The country’s arms exports and record of violence are an even bigger negative factor.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Chagos islanders must get full reparations for forced exile, says NGO

    Human Rights Watch also demands trial for ‘appalling colonial crime’ of expulsion – and continuing ill treatment – of Chagossians

    The UK should pay full and unconditional reparations to generations affected by its forcible displacement of Chagos Islands inhabitants in the 1960s and 70s, an action that constituted a crime against humanity, Human Rights Watch has said.

    The NGO said that individuals should be put on trial for the expulsion of Chagossians when the UK retained possession of what it refers to as British Indian Ocean Territory, or BIOT, after Mauritius gained independence in 1968.

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  • ‘Can you spell lynching?’: lawyer’s shocking note in Texas execution case

    Appeals court submission exposes racial toxicity in case of Black man John Balentine, sentenced to death for 1999 triple murder

    In April 1999, John Balentine, a Black man on trial for murder in Amarillo, Texas, sat before an all-white jury as they deliberated whether he should live or die.

    Should he be given a life sentence, in which case he would likely end his days behind prison bars? Or should they send him to death row to await execution?

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Harvard blocks role for former Human Rights Watch head over Israel criticism

    Kennedy School allegedly bowed to donors unhappy with organisation accusing Israel of apartheid in occupied territories

    The dean of one the US’s leading schools of government blocked a position for the former head of Human Rights Watch (HRW) over his organisation’s criticism of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.

    The Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy offered Kenneth Roth a position as a senior fellow shortly after he retired as director of HRW in April after 29 years. Roth is highly regarded within the human rights community for the part his organisation played in advances such as the creation of the international criminal court and the prosecution of major human rights abusers.

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  • Iranian actor Taraneh Alidoosti released from jail after family post bail

    Alidoosti was arrested for support of women’s movement in Iran, including posing on Instagram without hijab

    The celebrated Iranian actor Taraneh Alidoosti has been released from prison by the authorities after her friends and family provided bail. Pictures of her outside jail with campaigners holding flowers and without a hijab were shown on Iranian social media.

    She had been arrested for issuing statements of support for the women’s movement in Iran, including by posing on Instagram without a hijab, the compulsory hair covering in the country.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • I have a friend on death row. He’s the most remarkable person I know | Rebecca Solnit

    To live for 41 years in a small cage in concrete is to be profoundly sensorily deprived. Recently my friend Jarvis Masters asked me to describe moss

    I have one friend whose calls I always take no matter where I am or what I’m doing. Jarvis Masters calls me collect from death row, when he can get the phone – I’ve never seen quite how this works, but the prison guards haul some kind of apparatus to the small cage in which he’s been confined for the past 30-something years and he dials out. I keep a fund topped up for these calls. The calls, which a voice reminds us may be monitored, are automatically terminated after 15 minutes. If they don’t take the phone away for someone else to use, he can call back.

    We laugh and joke a lot and talk about everything under the sun, but not much about daily life on death row in San Quentin state prison. That’s usually not what he wants to talk about, although, during a recent in-person visit, he told a very funny story about Charles Manson from when Manson had the cell next to him. To live for 41 years in a small cage in a concrete structure is to be profoundly sensorily deprived, and that’s made him eager for secondhand evidence of the outside world.

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  • UAE poised to deport activist who called for protests during Cop27 in Egypt

    Sherif Osman, an Egyptian-American citizen, was detained in Dubai where he was visiting family

    The United Arab Emirates is preparing to deport an Egyptian-American citizen detained in Dubai who called for protests during the Cop27 climate conference in Egypt, sparking fears about the treatment of civil society during next year’s Cop28 in the Emirates.

    Sherif Osman, a former Egyptian army officer who has lived in the United States for decades, was detained at a restaurant in Dubai, where he had travelled with his fiancee to see family.

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