Latest news with #UNWorkingGrouponArbitraryDetention
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
The plight of Jimmy Lai shames us all
Dictatorships use solitary confinement as a form of torture, designed to break the prisoner's spirit. Under international law, 'prolonged solitary confinement' is defined as exceeding 15 days. British citizen and 77 year-old media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai, in jail in Hong Kong, has now exceeded 1,600 days in solitary confinement, yet has committed no crime. He has already served several prison sentences on multiple trumped-up charges, including 13 months for lighting a candle and saying a prayer at a vigil commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. He is currently on trial under Hong Kong's draconian National Security Law, imposed by Beijing in 2020, and could face life imprisonment, simply for standing up for the human rights and democratic principles that China pledged to guarantee when it was handed control of Hong Kong from British rule. The authorities appear determined to drag his trial out for as long as possible. When it started at the end of 2023, it was due to last 30 days. Multiple adjournments have meant that closing submissions will not be heard until August this year and the verdict and sentencing may not come until the end of the year, making it a two-year trial process. This outrageous foot-dragging is designed to test the mental strength of Mr Lai, his family and his legal team. Despite widespread international condemnation, Mr Lai continues to be held in a tiny cell for more than 23 hours a day, deprived of natural light, and permitted less than an hour a day for physical exercise in a confined space. This is dehumanising and brutal treatment more often associated with 'maximum security prisons' for extremely violent offenders, while Mr Lai just lit a candle to commemorate a massacre that China has tried to erase from history, and exercised his freedom of expression by founding and publishing a successful newspaper. He is in jail for journalism, and for his opinions. Mr Lai, who is diabetic, has been denied access to independent medical care, and denied the right to his first choice of legal counsel, when British barrister Tim Owen KC was barred from representing him. His international legal team has received numerous outrageous threats. Even the right to receive Holy Communion has been restricted which, for Mr Lai as a devout Catholic, is a particularly poignant cruelty. Several governments around the world – including the United Kingdom, United States and Australia – have called for his release, as have the Canadian and European Parliaments. Five United Nations Special Rapporteurs – independent experts on freedom of expression, freedom of association, torture, the independence of judges and lawyers, and counter-terrorism and human rights – and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention have expressed concerns about the case. But the key question is what is the British government actually doing to free its citizen? It is not that no one seems to care – plenty of sympathy and support has been expressed for Mr Lai's plight. The fact that both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves have raised the case in their exchanges with China's leaders is welcome. A cross-departmental approach from the Government is the right strategy. But the important question is how was it raised? In passing, as a box-ticking exercise, or in a meaningful way? If Mr Lai dies in jail, what will be the consequences for China's relations with the United Kingdom, and have they been spelled out? It is time to turn sympathy into action, and words into meaningful measures. That is why an open letter to the prime minister last week by 22 former prisoners or relatives of former prisoners from around the world, asking him 'to do everything in your power to bring Jimmy Lai home', is so powerful and significant. Among the signatories are people whose own plight once looked dire. They include Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza and his wife Evgenia, former Iranian prisoner Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her husband Richard, Chinese-Australian journalist Cheng Lei who was jailed in China, Paul Rusebagina who was imprisoned in Rwanda and the former Soviet dissident For these reasons, they urge the United Kingdom to take urgent steps to secure Mr Lai's release, 'before it is too late'. They call on the prime minister to meet Mr Lai's family as a matter of urgency, and to take 'robust, principled, strategic action'. President Donald Trump has said that Mr Lai's case will be on the table in any US-China trade talks. The United Kingdom must be equally strategic in identifying what leverage it can use to free Mr Lai. It must make it clear to Beijing that Mr Lai's continued imprisonment – and the risk that he might die in jail – is not in the interests of either China or Hong Kong. Not if it wishes to remain a significant business partner. Other countries have been able to secure the release of their citizens from China. Australia worked hard to free Cheng Lai, as did Canada in the case of its citizens Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, and Ireland with the detention of businessman Richard O'Halloran. The United States spares no effort in securing the release of its citizens unjustly imprisoned abroad. Sir Keir Starmer therefore must step up to free Mr Lai. Mr Lai's name must be on the lips of every world leader, every diplomat, every journalist and every Parliamentarian until he is freed. He should never have been arrested in the first place, but after four and a half years of his detention in solitary confinement it is time to say clearly to Beijing: enough is enough. Free Jimmy Lai now. Benedict Rogers is Senior Director of Fortify Rights and a co-founder and trustee of Hong Kong Watch Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. 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The Sun
30-04-2025
- Politics
- The Sun
UN experts urge Saudi to release child offenders facing execution
GENEVA: UN rights experts called on Saudi Arabia Wednesday to release five people sentenced to death and facing 'imminent execution' for offences committed when they were minors, including protesting the government's treatment of Shia Muslims. 'We call for the immediate release of the five individuals, to prevent any irreparable harm to their lives or personal integrity,' the eight independent United Nations experts said in a statement. They were highlighting the cases of Abdullah al-Derazi, Jalal al-Labbad, Yusuf Muhammad Mahdi al-Manasif, Jawad Abdullah Qureiris and Hassan Zaki al-Faraj, who have all been sentenced to death over terrorism-related and other offences committed when they were under 18. The men, who were each charged in connection with protesting the Saudi government's treatment of the country's Shia minority and for attending funerals of those killed by authorities, 'face imminent execution', the statement said. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, whose members were among the experts behind the statement, ruled last year the detention of the five was 'arbitrary', saying the men were being held for exercising their rights to free speech and peaceful assembly. The experts, who are mandated by the UN Human Rights Council but do not speak on behalf of the United Nations, highlighted that they had previously communicated to the Saudi government about the cases. They said the trial had been 'tainted by ill-treatment and torture', raising allegations of forced confessions. The experts suggested that the five -- all members of the Shia minority -- had been prosecuted due to their religious affiliation. The experts said the five young men's situation was 'particularly worrying' given a sharp increase in executions in Saudi Arabia -- one of the world's most prolific users of the death penalty. They put the number of executions in the country since the start of the year at around 65. Rights group Amnesty International put it even higher, saying last week that at least 88 people had been executed in Saudi Arabia since January -- nearly double the figure during the same period last year.
The National
07-04-2025
- Politics
- The National
Family pleads for justice on fourth anniversary of Dubai resident's detention in Iraq over contract dispute
The wife of a Dubai resident serving a prison sentence in Iraq over a contract dispute since 2021 said she does not know if she will ever see her husband again. Robert Pether, from Australia, along with his Egyptian co-worker Khaled Radwan, who both resided in Dubai at the time, were jailed in August 2021 and fined $12 million after a contract dispute between his employer and authorities in Iraq. Mr Pether's wife spoke to The National on Monday, the fourth anniversary of his arrest. The decision to subsequently jail both Mr Pether and Mr Radwan has been described as 'arbitrary and in contravention of international law' by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. The families of both men were expecting them to be released in January, having served their sentences, however it emerged that Mr Pether was facing a new charge of money laundering, which could lead to a further 15 years in prison. 'I honestly don't know if we'll ever see him again,' said Mr Pether's wife Desree. 'I don't believe he'll survive if he's sentenced to another 15 years. Robert is at absolute rock bottom, he's already told he won't survive [if sentenced again].' The stress of the situation has also taken a toll on the rest of the Pether family. 'Our family is completely broken. The children are trying to survive and get on with their lives with what happened with their father,' said Ms Pether, who added that the family is having to pay the cost of getting her husband the legal support he needs. 'It's got to the point where I have to put my car up for sale so that we can eat and the kids can stay at college.' A renewed plea for the release of Mr Pether was made on Monday by the Australian government. 'Australian citizen Robert Pether has now been in prison in Iraq for four years,' said Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong on social media platform X. 'He has served the custodial sentence imposed on him by the Iraqi courts. It's time for him to be returned to his family.' The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued a report in 2022 describing Mr Pether's imprisonment as 'arbitrary and in contravention of international law'. A ruling in 2023 by the International Chamber of Commerce's International Court of Arbitration said that the central bank was to blame for the contractual dispute. Mr Pether and Mr Radwan were arrested in 2021 when they travelled to Iraq for what they thought was a routine business meeting. Employed as an engineer in Dubai for CME, Mr Pether was contracted to work on the central bank's headquarters on the banks of the Tigris River. The men were detained at the meeting and have remained in custody since, having each received a five-year jail sentence and ordered to pay $12 million by the Iraqi court. The dispute was over a $33 million contract awarded to CME in 2015. The project was put on hold a year later, with plummeting oil prices and Iraq's war with the extremist group ISIS put forward as the main reasons. Work resumed in 2018, with CME working for 39 of the 48 months as set out in the contract. Payment was received for 32 of those months before being withheld. CME was asked by the central bank to extend the contract by three months to make up for work that was suspended due to the onset of the pandemic.
South China Morning Post
21-03-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Bhutan's life sentences for political prisoners violate international law, UN says
Bhutan is illegally jailing people for life without the possibility of parole simply for expressing political opinions, according to a damning United Nations report published this week. Advertisement The report's conclusions sparked renewed criticism from human-rights advocates, former prisoners and exiled Bhutanese, who said the arrests reflected a broader pattern of discrimination against the kingdom's ethnic Nepali minority. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found the Bhutanese government had infringed upon human-rights practices by arresting ethnic Nepali Bhutanese and placing them outside the protection of law. It added the kingdom had violated the prisoners' right to a fair trial, calling the detentions 'discriminatory'. '[They were] deprived of their liberty on discriminatory grounds, because of their political opinion and status as members of a linguistic minority,' the report said, referring to the arrests of three men – Birkha Bahadur Chhetri, Kumar Gautam and Sunman Gurung – in 2008. Bhutan started expelling its ethnic Nepali population known as Lhotshampas – meaning the 'southern borderlanders' – in the late 1980s up to the 1990s. Advertisement Citing its 'one nation, one people' policy, it threw out more than 100,000. They were forced to live in refugee camps in neighbouring Nepal before the majority were resettled in other countries between 2007 and 2016.
Bloomberg
11-02-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
UN Panel Urges Niger Junta to Release Detained President
A United Nations human rights body called for the immediate release of Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum, who's been detained since a 2023 military coup. Bazoum is 'being held in precarious conditions, have been deprived of electricity for several months and have suffered serious health problems,' the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said in its decision sent to Bazoum's legal team, which provided the document to Bloomberg. The president is being held arbitrarily in violation of international law, it said.
