French President François Hollande has acknowledged that Algerian demonstrators were massacred during a pro-independence rally in Paris in 1961.

The admission marks the first time a French leader has publicly accepted that the killings took place.

Twitter blocked an account belonging to a banned neo-Nazi group on Thursday, preventing Germans receiving or viewing tweets from the account.

The group Besseres Hannover, under the alias @hannoverticker now reveals only the following generic tweet: “Withheld account. @Hannover ticker’s account has been withheld in Germany.”

The Philippines’ House of Representatives has ratified a bill which would criminalise enforced disappearances, which have been mostly sanctioned by the government.

The new law will come into force Presdient Aquino signs the Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act of 2012, which would make the Philippines the first Asian country to enact such a law.

"The occurrence of enforced or involuntary disappearance and the impunity of offenders who are agents of the State are now finally consigned to the past," Representative Edcel Lagman said, according to Interaksyon.

"The same obtained Congressional approval on 20 September 2012, a day before the 40th anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law an era when enforced disappearance was an atrocious tool of the martial law regime to silence protesters and human rights madvocates," Lagman, one of the principal authors of the bill, said.

Hundreds of Filipinos disappeared during the Martial Law period, with disappearances still occurring today.

See below for some of the important features of the bill:

The UK’s Foreign Affairs Committee has criticised the British government, accusing them of being inconsistent on issues of human rights in other countries.

The report particularly highlighted the case of Bahrain, criticising the decision to take no action over the Bahrain grand Prix, but boycott football matches in Ukraine for the Euro 2012 championships.

UK ministers to boycott Euro 2012 football in Ukraine (07 June 2012)

Former F1 Champion wants Bahrain Grand Prix rethink (05 April 2012)

Richard Ottaway, the MP who chairs the committee, told the BBC,

"What we're saying is, whichever side of the argument you're on here - and people in the human rights sector are on both sides of the argument - that there has to be some form of consistency."

"We think perhaps the government should make clear what their approach is to international boycotts and sanctions before going one way in one case and another in another case."

The report went on to state that Bahrain should be placed on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s list of "countries of concern". The list currently contains 28 countries which include North Korea, Sudan Iran and Sri Lanka amongst others. See here.

A Foreign Office spokesman responded to the report, commenting,

"Human rights are essential to and indivisible from our foreign policy objectives... They are part of our national DNA and are woven deeply into the decision-making processes of our foreign policy at every stage.

We cannot achieve long-term security and prosperity unless we uphold our values.

European Union (EU) announced its most rigorous sanctions yet against Iran in an attempt to pressurise Tehran into negotiations over its nuclear program. Sanctions will target the financial sector, energy and shipping while imposing tighter measures on Central Bank of Iran. European Union will further restrict the exportation of graphite, metals and shipbuilding materials as well as importing gas to Europe.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) have criticised an armed police raid on the offices of a prominent defence lawyer in the Bangladeshi war crimes trials, calling the raid ‘a grave affront to the basic tenets of fair trials.’

Asia Director at HRW, Brad Adams said:

British Prime Minister David Cameron has urged the international community to show “courage” and allow the sanctions, which have been imposed on Iran, to take effect.

Speaking at a United Jewish Israel Appeal in London he said that this was not the time for Israel to take military action against Iran.

Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic began his defence against charges of genocide at The Hague on Tuesday, telling the court that he should be rewarded for his actions during the Bosnian war.

In his statement he told the court,

Satellite imagery and a video from the mobile phone of a Sudanese soldier shows that the Sudanese armed forces are continuing to commit crimes against humanity in the Nuba mountains, according to activist group the Satellite Sentinel Project

Serbia President Tomislav Nikolic has once again denied that genocide took place in Srebrenica in comments made to an Italian newspaper.

Nikolic told Corriere della Sera,

Writing in The Times newspaper, the British Foreign Secretary William Hague, asserted that "rape is a weapon of war" and "Britain will lead a global effort to end the culture of impunity that surrounds this monstrous crime."

See here for full article.

Extracts reproduced below:

From Bosnia to the Democratic Republic of Congo we have seen rape used as a terrifying weapon of war. Inflicted systematically and sometimes to order from the highest levels, it is as much a means of waging war as are bullets or tanks. And more often than not it is carried out not by invading armies but by one group against another: deliberately to destroy, degrade, humiliate and scar political opponents or entire ethnic and religious groups.

The number of victims involved is utterly chilling. In Rwanda alone, up to 400,000 women are estimated to have been raped in the 100-day genocide of 1994. The vast majority of victims are women and children, but men are often targeted too.
Guilt lies with those who commit these crimes, but the shame falls on the whole world. For we have failed to act in a concerted way against this problem and have allowed a culture of impunity to develop. The shocking truth is that very few perpetrators have ever been put on trial for rape in conflict and even fewer have gone to prison. In wartime Bosnia, up to 50,000 women were raped, but only 30 men have ever been convicted. Given this record, the government forces and militia committing rape in Syria today probably expect they will simply get away with it.

As a man I feel appalled by this, and as Foreign Secretary I believe that it is within our power to do something about it. Moreover, I am convinced that this is a cause that Britain must champion. Ours is one of the few countries in the world with the global reach, resources and diplomatic network to be able to set a lead and so it is our responsibility to do so.

I believe that the time has come for a concerted international effort to challenge the use of rape as a weapon of war and to shatter the culture of impunity.

The Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) have signed a peace plan they

The European Union reinstated its sanctions against individuals and companies linked to the Belarus government for another year, due to Belarus’ failure to improve its human rights record.

The Council of the European Union called on the Belarusian authorities to mend their ways, stating,