logo
Russia responsible for downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, European court rules

Russia responsible for downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, European court rules

Mint10-07-2025
Europe's top human rights court has ruled that Russia is responsible for the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in 2014 and for committing widespread human rights abuses in Ukraine.
In a unanimous decision on Wednesday, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found that Russia had carried out 'indiscriminate military attacks,' 'summary executions of civilians,' and acts of torture, including the use of rape as a weapon of war. The court also said Moscow was guilty of the unjustified displacement and transfer of civilians, among other serious violations.
The ECHR, which is based in Strasbourg, is the judicial arm of the Council of Europe. Russia was expelled from the Council in 2022 following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The following year, Russia's parliament voted to withdraw from the ECHR's jurisdiction.
Ahead of the ruling, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the court's authority, saying: 'We consider them null and void.'
In its ruling, the ECHR said: "Taken as a whole, the vast volume of evidence before the Court presented a picture of interconnected practices of manifestly unlawful conduct by agents of the Russian State (Russian armed forces and other authorities, occupying administrations, and separatist armed groups and entities) on a massive scale across Ukraine."
The ruling concerned four consolidated cases, one of which involved Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, which departed Amsterdam for Kuala Lumpur in July 2014 and was shot down over eastern Ukraine amid fighting between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists. All 298 people on board the plane died.
Moscow denies any responsibility for MH17's downing and in 2014 denied any presence in Ukraine.
The ECHR ruled that Russia had failed to conduct an adequate investigation into the incident, to cooperate with requests for information or provide legal remedies for survivors. Its lack of cooperation and continued denial of any involvement has caused additional suffering for the victims' relatives, the court said.
Responding to the ruling, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp said: "Nothing can take away this suffering and grief, but I hope the verdict offers a sense of justice and recognition." A majority of those on the airliner were Dutch.
The other three cases covered by Wednesday's ruling were brought by Ukraine, over pro-Russian separatists accused of abducting groups of Ukrainian children and transferring them to Russia, and over alleged patterns of human rights violations during Russia's war in Ukraine, now in its fourth year.
Ukraine's Justice Ministry, in a statement on the Telegram messaging app, hailed the ECHR ruling as "one of the most important in the practice of interstate cases".
The court is expected to rule in due course on possible damages and compensation but it has no way of enforcing its rulings, especially on a country that no longer recognises its jurisdiction, meaning Wednesday's verdict is mainly symbolic.
(With inputs from Reuters)
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Outrage in China as men share private images of women without consent on Telegram
Outrage in China as men share private images of women without consent on Telegram

Mint

time7 minutes ago

  • Mint

Outrage in China as men share private images of women without consent on Telegram

Thousands of men in China are accused of sharing private photos and videos of their girlfriends without consent via the messaging app Telegram, according to Chinese media reports. The incident has triggered widespread outrage online, with growing calls to crack down on secret filming and strengthen protections for women. Pornography is banned in China, where conservative views on women remain widespread, often reinforced by state media and popular culture. This controversy follows a recent case where a Chinese university expelled a female student for 'damaging national dignity' after a Ukrainian esports player shared videos on Telegram suggesting they had been intimate. The Chinese state-owned Southern Daily reported this week that a woman discovered photos of her taken unknowingly had been shared in a Telegram forum with over 100,000 users, mostly Chinese men. Members of the forum also shared photos of their girlfriends, ex-girlfriends and wives, according to a commentary in the Guangming Daily, an outlet backed by China's ruling communist party. Revelations of the group have sparked widespread outcry online. "We are not... 'content' that can be randomly uploaded, viewed and fantasised about... We can no longer remain silent. Because next could be me, or it could be you," read one comment on Instagram-like Red Note. A related hashtag has been viewed more than 230 million times on social media platform Weibo since Thursday. The largest group, called "Mask Park", has since been taken down, but smaller spinoffs remain active, according to women contacted by Southern Daily. Telegram encrypts its users' messages and is banned in China, but it is accessible using a virtual private network. "The sharing of nonconsensual pornography is explicitly forbidden by Telegram's terms of service and is removed whenever discovered," Telegram said in a statement sent to AFP. "Moderators proactively monitor public parts of the platform and accept reports in order to remove millions of pieces of harmful content each day, including nonconsensual pornography." The incident has drawn comparisons to a case in South Korea dubbed "Nth Room", in which a man blackmailed dozens of women into taking sexually explicit videos and sold them on Telegram. Online, Chinese women have detailed their own experiences of being filmed and photographed by men in public. "What criminals consider 'regular' for them may be nightmares that countless women can't escape for the rest of their lives," one woman said, sharing an encounter on Douyin. Chinese police have cracked down on illegal filming, arresting hundreds of people in 2022 over clandestine surveillance. But women's rights are sensitive territory in China -- over the last decade, authorities have suppressed almost every form of independent feminist activism. #MeToo activist Sophia Huang Xueqin was sentenced to five years in prison on charges of "inciting subversion of state power" after she became a symbol of the country's stalled feminist movement. Chinese authorities have yet to publicly announce any action against the Telegram group. But the Guangming Daily commentary urged "accountability" for the organisers of the Telegram group, and empathy for the people filmed. Improving law enforcement would "enhance the overall sense of security, free women from the fear of being spied on and make privacy boundaries a truly untouchable red line", it said. (With inputs from news agency AFP)

Trump's trip to Scotland as his new golf course opens blurs politics and the family's business
Trump's trip to Scotland as his new golf course opens blurs politics and the family's business

Time of India

time37 minutes ago

  • Time of India

Trump's trip to Scotland as his new golf course opens blurs politics and the family's business

EDINBURGH: Lashed by cold winds and overlooking choppy, steel-gray North Sea waters, the breathtaking sand dunes of Scotland's northeastern coast rank among Donald Trump 's favorite spots on earth. "At some point, maybe in my very old age, I'll go there and do the most beautiful thing you've ever seen," Trump said in 2023, during his New York civil fraud trial, talking about his plans for future developments on his property in Balmedie, Aberdeenshire. Explore courses from Top Institutes in Please select course: Select a Course Category Cybersecurity Leadership MBA CXO MCA Project Management Design Thinking Others Data Science Degree PGDM Artificial Intelligence Data Analytics Operations Management Technology Management Product Management Healthcare Data Science others Digital Marketing Finance Public Policy healthcare Skills you'll gain: Duration: 10 Months MIT xPRO CERT-MIT xPRO PGC in Cybersecurity Starts on undefined Get Details At 79 and back in the White House , Trump is making at least part of that pledge a reality, landing in Scotland on Friday as his family's business prepares for the Aug. 13 opening of a new golf course bearing his name. Trump will be in Scotland until Tuesday, and plans to talk trade with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The Aberdeen area is already home to another of his courses, Trump International Scotland , and the Republican president is also visiting a Trump course near Turnberry, around 200 miles (320 kilometers) away on Scotland's southwest coast. Trump said upon arrival on Friday evening that his son is "gonna cut a ribbon" for the new course during his trip. Eric Trump also went with his father to break ground on the project back in 2023. Live Events Using a presidential overseas trip - with its sprawling entourage of advisers, White House and support staffers, Secret Service agents and reporters - to help show off Trump-brand golf destinations demonstrates how the president has become increasingly comfortable intermingling his governing pursuits with promoting his family's business interests. The White House has brushed off questions about potential conflicts of interest, arguing that Trump's business success before he entered politics was a key to his appeal with voters. White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers called the Scotland swing a "working trip." But she added Trump "has built the best and most beautiful world-class golf courses anywhere in the world, which is why they continue to be used for prestigious tournaments and by the most elite players in the sport." Trump family's new golf course has tee times for sale Trump went to Scotland to play his Turnberry course during his first term in 2018 while en route to a meeting in Finland with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But this trip comes as the new golf course is already actively selling tee times. "We're at a point where the Trump administration is so intertwined with the Trump business that he doesn't seem to see much of a difference," said Jordan Libowitz, vice president for the ethics watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "It's as if the White House were almost an arm of the Trump Organization." During his first term, the Trump Organization signed an ethics pact barring deals with foreign companies. An ethics frameworks for Trump's second term allows them. Trump's assets are in a trust run by his children, who are also handling day-to-day operations of the Trump Organization while he's in the White House. The company has inked many recent, lucrative foreign agreements involving golf courses, including plans to build luxury developments in Qatar and Vietnam, even as the administration negotiates tariff rates for those countries and around the globe. Trump's first Aberdeen course sparked legal battles Trump's existing Aberdeenshire course, meanwhile, has a history nearly as rocky as the area's cliffs. It has struggled to turn a profit and was found by Scottish conservation authorities to have partially destroyed nearby sand dunes. Trump's company also was ordered to cover the Scottish government's legal costs after the course unsuccessfully sued over the construction of a nearby wind farm, arguing in part that it hurt golfers' views. And the development was part of the massive civil case, which accused Trump of inflating his wealth to secure loans and make business deals. Trump's company's initial plans for his first Aberdeen-area course called for a luxury hotel and nearby housing. His company received permission to build 500 houses, but Trump suggested he'd be allowed to build five times as many and borrowed against their values without actually building any homes, the lawsuit alleged. Judge Arthur Engoron found Trump liable last year and ordered his company to pay $355 million in fines - a judgment that has grown with interest to more than $510 million as Trump appeals. Golfers-in-chief Family financial interests aside, Trump isn't the first sitting U.S. president to golf in Scotland. That was Dwight D. Eisenhower, who played in Turnberry in 1959. George W. Bush visited the famed course at Gleneagles in 2005 but didn't play. Many historians trace golf back to Scotland in the Middle Ages. Among the earliest known references to game was a Scottish Parliament resolution in 1457 that tried to ban it, along with soccer, because of fears both were distracting men from practicing archery - then considered vital to national defense. The first U.S. president to golf regularly was William Howard Taft, who served from 1909 to 1913 and ignored warnings from his predecessor, Teddy Roosevelt, that playing too much would make it seem like he wasn't working hard enough. Woodrow Wilson played nearly every day but Sundays, and even had the Secret Service paint his golf balls red so he could practice in the snow, said Mike Trostel, director of the World Golf Hall of Fame . Warren G. Harding trained his dog Laddie Boy to fetch golf balls while he practiced. Lyndon B. Johnson's swing was sometimes described as looking like a man trying to kill a rattlesnake. Bill Clinton, who liked to joke that he was the only president whose game improved while in office, restored a putting green on the White House's South Lawn. It was originally installed by Eisenhower, who was such an avid user that he left cleat marks in the wooden floors of the Oval Office by the door leading out to it. Bush stopped golfing after the start of the Iraq war in 2003 because of the optics. Barack Obama had a golf simulator installed in the White House that Trump upgraded during his first term, Trostel said. John F. Kennedy largely hid his love of the game as president, but he played on Harvard 's golf team and nearly made a hole-in-one at California's renowned Cypress Point Golf Club just before the 1960 Democratic National Convention. "I'd say, between President Trump and President John F. Kennedy, those are two of the most skilled golfers we've had in the White House," Trostel said. Trump, Trostel said, has a handicap index - how many strokes above par a golfer is likely to score - of a very strong 2.5, though he's not posted an official round with the U.S. Golf Association since 2021. That's better than Joe Biden's handicap of 6.7, which also might be outdated, and Obama, who once described his own handicap as an "honest 13." The White House described Trump as a championship-level golfer but said he plays with no handicap.

Melania Skips Trump's Scotland Tour Sparking Speculation About Their Marriage
Melania Skips Trump's Scotland Tour Sparking Speculation About Their Marriage

News18

timean hour ago

  • News18

Melania Skips Trump's Scotland Tour Sparking Speculation About Their Marriage

US President Donald Trump arrived in Scotland for a "working trip" focused on golf at his Trump-branded courses. Melania Trump did not accompany him. US President Donald Trump arrived in Scotland on Friday for a 'working trip" focused on golf, visiting his Trump-branded golf courses in the country, particularly the new Trump International Golf Links in Balmedie, Aberdeenshire, set to officially open on August 13. Melania Trump, the First Lady, doesn't appear to be accompanying him on this trip. Trump landed at Prestwick Airport on Friday evening, engaging with UK officials and reporters before heading to his Trump Turnberry golf resort in South Ayrshire. During his stay, he's expected to play several rounds of golf. Trump will meet UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday, following their agreement on a trade arrangement for specific goods last month. 'I'm in Scotland now," Trump said today on TruthSocial. 'Many meetings planned." But it appears Melania Trump has decided to avoid the trip to Scotland. With Melania Trump not joining her husband, Donald Trump, on his trip to Scotland, she'll likely steer clear of the planned protests across the country. Melania's absence comes amid speculation she and Mr Trump have essentially 'separated" following reports she has only been at the White House for two weeks following his inauguration in January. 'They clearly do not in any way inhabit a marriage as we define marriage," Mirror quoted Journalist Michael Wolff, who has written several books about Trump, as saying. 'And I think maybe we can more specifically say they live separate lives. They are separated. The President of the United States and the First Lady are separated," he added. Russian TV personality Malek Dudakov weighed in on Donald Trump's marriage, suggesting the couple might be experiencing some issues. 'In my opinion, Trump has certain marital problems. Melania spends most of her time not at the White House, but in New York, along with her son, who recently enrolled in a University. She doesn't even live with Trump," Mirror quoted Dudakov as saying. 'Trump's ratings have certainly fallen. The latest YouGov polls show only 40 per cent. He has to somehow climb out of this hole. We will see whether or not Donald Trump's able to do it," he added, pointing to the president's plunging poll numbers. The comment comes amid speculation that Melania somehow influenced her husband to grant more aid to Ukraine amid its war with Russia. Following a conversation between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, she notified him about a Moscow-ordered strike on Ukraine. It's unclear what Melania Trump's schedule holds while Trump is in Europe, but she's reportedly been influencing significant shifts in US policy. Some Republicans are pushing to rename the Kennedy Center's Opera House after her, reflecting her growing clout. view comments First Published: July 26, 2025, 17:47 IST Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store