A human rights report published today by the US rights group, Human Rights Watch, accused M23 rebels of carrying out war crimes that included summary executions, rape and forced recruitment of child soldiers, since breaking away from Congo’s army. In the report, Human rights Watch argued the UN Security Council should already be considering sanctions on high ranking officials that were allegedly responsible for violations of an arms embargo as well as international criminal law. Highlighting the Rwandan authorities’ potential liability for war crimes, Anneke van Woudenberg, senior Africa Researcher at Human Rights Watch said, “From a legal perspective because Rwanda is directly involved in the conflict both in providing recruits and fighting, it could be made accountable for war crimes.”
Tariq al-Hashemi, the fugitive Iraqi vice-president has rejected the verdict and death sentence of a court in Baghdad, claiming it was politically motivated. Talking at a press conference in Turkey, Hashemi said he was innocent and that the charges were ‘politically motivated’ against him. "The verdict is unjust, politicised, illegitimate and I will not recognise it, "But I put it as a medal of honour on my chest because it was al-Maliki, not anyone else, behind it. I'm proud that it is al-Maliki, and not anyone else, to target me. "I reiterate that I'm innocent, and am ready to stand before...
The trial of Saif al-Islam, the son of Colonel Gaddafi, has been pushed back after Libyan authorities announced they would be seeking new information for his prosecution, following the arrest of Gaddafi's former spy chief. The trial was scheduled to take place in the Libyan city of Zultan after the International Criminal Court's request to try Saif at the Hague for war crimes was rejected. Following al-Senussi's extradition from Mauritania earlier this year, Libyan prosecutors now state that they need more time to collect evidence against Saif with prosecutor Milad al-Zintani saying, “We were...
Rebels from the Free Syrian Army have been accused of executing government soldiers, after a video emerged showing what appeared to be at least 20 dead bodies, blindfolded and handcuffed. The amateur videos posted online showed men who identified themselves as from the rebel Salman al-Farisi battalion in Aleppo, standing over the bound uniformed bodies on a pavement. The execution allegations were reiterated by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights who stated that the incident had occurred sometime over the weekend. See video from Russia Today below (graphic images). Meanwhile, Navi Pillay...
One of Europe’s top human rights watch dog urged Ukrainian authorities to ensure that the conduct of the parliamentary election, due to take place next month, was free and fair. The human rights body warned that the continuing imprisonment of Ukraine’s main opposition leader did not bode well for the country. The Council of Europe Secretary-General, Thorbjorn Jagland, condemned the imprisonment of opposition leader, Yulia Tymoshenko, stating that it was still “ very important that the elections are being held and that they be free and fair.” The rights groups accuse the current president,...
A Russian proposal for a new Security Council resolution on Syria has been dismissed by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Mrs Clinton said that it was pointless to pass a resolution with ‘no teeth’, whilst talking to reporters after holding talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and President Putin at the end of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit. "We have to be realistic. We haven't seen eye-to-eye... that may continue," "There is no point to passing a resolution with no teeth because we've seen time and time again that Assad will ignore it and keep attacking his...
Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi has been sentenced to death in absentia for running death squads targeting the country’s Shia majority. The fugitive vice president was the most senior Sunni Muslim in the Iraqi government, dominated by Shias. He went on the run after he was charged last December, when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issued a warrant for al-Hasjemi’s arrest, sparking a major political crisis and accusations by Sunni politicians that he was provoking sectarian conflict. Tensions have been running high since December, with a sharp increase in sectarian violence in recent...
A former Kosovan Albanian rebel has testified “in detail” on how Serb prisoners had organs removed for sale in the black market during the Kosovan war, according to Serb psoecutors. Serbia's War Crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic stated that, "We have a witness who testified about a medical procedure, done in northern Albania, that consisted of harvesting organs from Serbs kidnapped during the 1998-99 conflict in Kosovo" "He described a surgery harvesting a heart from a Serb prisoner at a location near (the northern Albanian town of) Kukes in the late 1990s." The witness then further alleged...
The International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), hosted by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, to address the conflict in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, ended without the creation of a concrete plan to establish peace in the area. However, the ICGLR did make some progress on working towards the implementation of a ‘Neutral International Force’. The idea was agreed upon by several regional leaders to combat the rebels in the provinces. The conference decided that regional defence ministers should meet immediately to work towards “operationalisation of the...
The US has decided to designate the Pakistan-based Haqqani network as a terrorist organisation on Friday, in a move that will be seen as a test to US-Pakistan relations. The decision will mean that the now blacklisted group will now be subject to sanctions, a freezing of assets and will prevent any US individuals or companies from having ties to the group. The move, announced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, comes after the US Congress set a deadline for the Obama administration to make a decision on the group in July. She stated that whilst classifying the group as a Foreign Terrorist...