Africa
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Suspected Mass Graves Uncovered in Burundi in the Wake of Post-Election Violence
Restricting civic space in Burundi creates a domino effect, allowing renegade leaders to avoid accountability and continue violating rights essential to the maintenance of a free and democratic society.
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Egypt’s Crackdown on Freedom of Speech Takes Dangerous Turn
Tags Share The crackdown on freedom of speech and expression continues in Egypt. This last weekend an Egyptian-German academic was denied entry and a social and political cartoonist was arrested and detained for 24 hours. Upon arrival to the Cairo Airport on January 29, Egyptian-German academic Dr. Atef Botros was detained by airport authorities and…
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Hijazi and Fathallah v. Egypt: Belady Founders Released From Detention
Aya Hijazi and Mohamed Hassanein aided Cairo’s street children, until they were arbitrarily detained for three years.
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Malek Adly v. Egypt: Human Rights Lawyer Brutally Detained
After being charged with manufactured crimes by the Egyptian State, Malek Adly spent 116 days in solitary confinement.
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Mahmoud Hussein v. Egypt: Egyptian Protester Jailed, Tortured
A protest shirt is all it took for Mahmoud Mohamed Ahmed Hussein to be arbitrarily detained for more than two years.
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Another Unhappy Anniversary for Mahmoud Hussein
Tags Share Two years ago today, Mahmoud Mohamed Ahmed Hussein put on a t-shirt that read a “nation without torture” and went to a peaceful protest. The government’s response to these simple acts changed his life and have become a glaring example of the deteriorating human rights situation in Egypt. On January 25, 2014, Mahmoud…
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Premature Celebration for Gambia’s FGM Ban
Tags Share The Gambia was thrust into the spotlight this week after the country’s longtime president, Yahya Jammeh, announced a ban on female genital mutilation (FGM). This pronouncement surprised many, especially after the country’s National Assembly rejected a similar proposal in March of this year, claiming that Gambians “were not ready.” Activists who work closely…
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RFK Human Rights Submits Case to UN Working Group
Tags Share Read the full U.N. Working Group petition here. (November 13, 2015 | Washington, D.C.) Today Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights submitted an urgent action and petition to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) on behalf of Egyptian teenager Mahmoud Mohamed Ahmed Hussein. The case was submitted in conjunction with the…
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Detention of Egyptian Human Rights Defender Hossam Bahgat
Tags Share (November 10, 2015 | Washington, D.C.) Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights expresses alarm at the temporary detention and attempted intimidation of Egyptian human rights defender and investigative journalist Hossam Bahgat. Hossam Bahgat, founder of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR)—one of the country’s preeminent civil society organizations—was ordered detained by the military…
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Arrests in Zimbabwe Part of Broader Crackdown on Human Rights
Tags Share The media profession in Zimbabwe is once again under siege. During the past week, four newspaper journalists have been arrested, and three of them charged with slander, in a country already notorious for systematic violations of human rights. On the surface, this latest crackdown might be expected, or at the least, not altogether…
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Enough is Enough in Horribly Repressive Eritrea
Tags Share This week, Swedish-Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak spent his fourteenth consecutive birthday in prison. Isaak was arrested back in 2001, along with twenty others, for signing an open letter critical of the government in Asmara. These individuals were labeled as “spies” and enemies of the state simply for demanding democratic reforms in their country.…
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Angola’s Escalating Repression Should Prompt American Action
Tags Share After almost four decades in power, Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, aged 73, continues to smash dissent with the keenly energetic fists of a much younger man. Indeed, Angola’s political climate has only become more toxic and paranoid over the course of 2015. We have witnessed the legal persecution of a journalist…
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