Leading Experts And Human Rights Defenders Condemn And Ridicule The Award Of Vienna’s Highest Honour To The Chinese Ambassador, writes Peter Zoehrer. The award of the State of Vienna’s Great Gold Medal to Chinese Ambassador Li Xiaosi has drawn sharp criticism from leading experts on human rights and religious freedom in China. “We are astonished and embarrassed by this…
At the last session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, a case of discrimination based on ethnicity in Croatia was submitted to their delegation, writes Willy Fautré. Twenty-five years after the end of Croatia’s war for independence from Serbia, many Serbs living in Croatia report ongoing discriminatory treatment in court by the judiciary. …
As UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Ahmed Shaheed, solicits submissions from NGOs for the upcoming Report on the Elimination of Religious Intolerance and Discrimination and the Achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 16 (SDG 16), 12 European civil society organisations have co-signed a document denouncing the scapegoating of the Shincheonji Church in…
Concern has been voiced over Spain’s human rights record, in particular “unfair” detention conditions and extensive pre-trial detention of suspects, during the Universal Periodic Review of Spain at the UN in Geneva on 22 January. The EU member state has been accused of “failing to abide” by international standards concerning fair trials. During the plenary…
A leading Brussels-based human rights group has voiced concern about ethnic minority groups, mostly Uighur Muslims, in China. Leaked documents about Chinese detention camps are said to dramatically contradict government claims they are voluntary job training centres. The classified documents, which have been broadcast by Sky TV, appear to confirm the testimony of many former detainees that they are centres…
