Our Voices

This Week’s Spotlight on Human Rights

U.S. President Joe Biden joined former Democratic presidents and others to honor longtime human rights advocate and storied political family matriarch Ethel Kennedy at a memorial service in Washington on Wednesday after her death last week at age 96.


United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a US government agency linked to human rights abuses, has contracted services from the Israeli spyware company Paragon, according to a government contracting website. Wired magazine first reported on the US$2 million contract, which the agency signed with Paragon in September. 


Dozens of rights groups have urged the United States government to stop holding asylum seekers at a detention facility at its Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba, claiming its conditions are illegal and inhumane. The coalition of 125 rights organisations, led by the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) and Haitian Bridge Alliance, made their plea on Wednesday in an open letter to US President Joe Biden.


A special court in Bangladesh issued arrest warrants on Thursday for former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and 45 others, including her close aides, on charges of crimes against humanity during a student-led uprising in July and August that forced her to flee the country, a prosecutor said. Prosecutor B.M. Sultan Mahmud said the Dhaka-based International Crimes Tribunal under Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, the country’s interim leader, issued the arrest warrants in response to two petitions submitted by the prosecution.