Cameroon: 18 Suspected Ritual Killings in 14 Days
Michele Mbala Mvogo, a 17-year-old high school student, left home to go to school one morning, and she never came back. On Friday 18/01/03, police found Michele's corpse with four other bodies dumped outside a kindergarten school. Fighting back tears, Deborah Ngoh Tonye described what was left of her sister's gruesome corpse. Someone had removed Michele's genitals, tongue, eyes, hair, and breasts. Michele's bizarre murder is believed to be part of a wave of killings linked to occult rituals that has triggered panic in Yaounde, the capital city of more than 2 million people in the West African nation of Cameroon.
In the past two weeks police have found 18 bodies dumped along the streets. Authorities said all of the bodies had been mutilated. Officials have not said if the female victims among the 18 bodies had been raped.
Read more: By Tapang Ivo Tanku,CNN, January 22, 2013
Immigrants: Detainees [Rule 35 Reports]
Bridget Phillipson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many detainees (a) were and (b) were not released from detention following submission of a report to UK Border Agency under Rule 35 of the Detention Centre Rules 2001 in each year for which figures are available; [137251]
(2) how many reports have legal and healthcare teams submitted to UK Border Agency under Rule 35 of the Detention Centre Rules 2001 in each year for which figures are available. [137252]
Mr Harper: Reports made under Rule 35 of the Detention Centre Rules 2001 may be made only by the medical practitioners at immigration removal centres.
Management information for the administration of reports submitted under Rule 35 of the Detention Centre Rules 2001 is available for the period 1 January 2012 to 30 September 2012. This information does not form part of published statistics and is not subject to the detailed checks that apply for National Statistics publications. It is provisional and subject to change. Records prior to this period were locally held manual records for administrative purposes and are not available.
There were 983 Rule 35 reports during 2012
Detention Maintained 909 / Detainee Released 74
House of Commons / 24 Jan 2013 : Column 431W
Asylum Seekers [Returns to Greece still blocked]
Greece is making progress in developing a new asylum service, appeals authority and framework for reception arrangements. However, the delivery of physical infrastructure, such as buildings and equipment, plus staff recruitment and the implementation of new procedures, is not yet complete. The UK, along with the European Asylum Support Office, other member states, the European Commission and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, continue to support and monitor the progress of this work. Only once we are satisfied changes have been fully implemented and that Greece can meet its international obligations to asylum seekers will it be possible to consider resuming transfers under the Dublin regulation.
House of Lords / 23 Jan 2013 : Column WA209
Cameroon (Persecution of LGBT/Human Rights defenders)
Lord Smith of Finsburyto ask Her Majesty's Government what representations they have made to the Government of Cameroon about safeguarding lives of two men being released from prison following an overturning by the Court of Appeal of their convictions relating to homosexuality, and about the safety of their lawyer.
House of Lords / 21 Jan 2013 : Column WA164
Support Rzhwan Amin Detained Iraqi Journalist
The National Union of Journalists' Manchester and Salford branch has launched a campaign in support of a political journalist who fled Iraq in 2010 after being threatened as a result of newspaper articles he wrote at the time of the elections.
Rzhwan Amin (Jaf), who has been living in Tameside, Greater Manchester, is now in Morton Hall Immigration Removal cCentre, Lincolnshire, after being detained when he went to report at Dallas Court Home Office Reporting Centre, Salford, on January 8th.
For full campaign details go to Rapar . . . .
GEO Managed USA Immigration Facility Accused of Human Rights Abuses
[In the UK GEO Manage, Harmondsworth & Dungavel IRCs]
595 men, 105 women who have committed minor offenses, such as driving without a license, or no apparent crime at all, are locked up for weeks and months in a little-known central Broward County facility run by private company GEO.
They are immigrants, accused of entering the country without legal authorization or staying longer than permitted.
Their treatment — at the hands of the federal government and GEO Boca Raton-based firm hired to keep them at the 700-bed Broward Transitional Center — has become a growing controversy since July, when a detainee went on hunger strike and activists staged protests demanding a halt to the confinement and deportation of foreigners with no serious criminal histories.
Read more: Huffington Post, 06/01/13 |
UKBA: Country of Origin Information Report - Iran
This Country of Origin Information (COI) Report has been produced by the COI Service, United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA), for use by officials involved in the asylum/human rights determination process. The Report provides general background information about the issues most commonly raised in asylum/human rights claims made in the United Kingdom. The main body of the report includes information available up to 2 December 2012. The report was issued on 16 January 2013
Published on Refworld, 25/01/03
UKBA: Country of Origin Information Report - Algeria
This Country of Origin Information (COI) Report has been produced by the COI Service, United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA), for use by officials involved in the asylum/human rights determination process. The Report provides general background information about the issues most commonly raised in asylum/human rights claims made in the United Kingdom. The main body of the report includes information available up to 3 December 2012. The report was issued on 17 January 2013. Published: Refworld, 24/01/13
1,000s Forgotten in UKBA Forgotten Box Farce Blunder
More than 2,000 immigrants, including many who want to join husbands or wives already in Britain, have been waiting up to 10 years to learn whether they will be allowed to stay in this country because of a bureaucratic blunder.
Read more: Nigel Morris Indpendent, Thursday 24 January 2013
Conviction For Speaking Kurdish Breach of Freedom of Expression
Chamber judgment in the case of Sükran Aydin and Others v. Turkey (application no. 49197/06), which is not final, the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been: a violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The case concerned the applicants' complaint about a law, amended in 2010, which prohibited the use of any language other than Turkish during election campaigns. The Court held in particular that, while States had discretion to determine their linguistic policies and were entitled to regulate the use of languages during election campaigns, a blanket ban on the use of unofficial languages coupled with criminal sanctions were not compatible with freedom of expression.
Torture on rise in Afghan jails, says UN report
The use of torture has risen in Afghan police jails over the past year, and there are "credible reports" the country's intelligence service has created secret prisons and sometimes hides detainees from international observers, a damning UN survey has found.
Just over half of prisoners held in connection with Afghanistan's long-running war endured torture or ill-treatment while in custody between October 2011 and October 2012, with 14 different methods recorded, including electric shocks, twisting of genitals, beatings with cables and rifle butts and suspension from the wrists or feet.
Read more: Emma Graham-Harrison, guardian.co.uk, 20/01/13
Garden Court Chambers - Immigration Law Bulletin - Issue 308
Removal Of Sri Lanka Chief Justice 'Serious Setback'
The United Nations human rights chief today spoke out against the impeachment and removal of Sri Lanka's Chief Justice, saying it is a "calamitous setback" for rule of law in the South Asian nation, as well as for accountability and reconciliation.
Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake was served notice of her dismissal and removed from her chambers and official residence on Tuesday, in spite of a Supreme Court ruling that the parliamentary procedure to remove her violated the Constitution, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
"The removal of the Chief Justice through a flawed process – which has been deemed unconstitutional by the highest courts of the land – is, in the High Commissioner's view, gross interference in the independence of the judiciary and a calamitous setback for the rule of law in Sri Lanka," Rupert Colville, spokesperson for High Commissioner Navi Pillay, told reporters in Geneva. Read more: UN News Centre 18/01/13
Zimbabwe: Crackdown on Human Rights Defenders before Elections
Citing arbitrary arrests, intimidation and harassment, the United Nations human rights arm today condemned recent attacks against human rights defenders in Zimbabwe ahead of elections expected later this year.
"We are concerned about the crackdown on non-governmental organisations and dissenting voices seen as critical of President Robert Mugabe's rule and apparently politically motivated prosecutions," Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said at a briefing in Geneva.
Read more: UN News Centre 1/01/13
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