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Up in arms over the Egyptian President's state visit to France, around 20 protesters gathered outside the Paris National Assembly late on Monday, shouting "down with dictatorship".
The demonstration outside the parliament painted a very different picture to earlier in the day when France welcomed President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi with a cavalry parade through Paris.
Before the three-day visit, rights groups accused France of indulging President al-Sisi's "brutal repression of any form of dissent".
"We've come across a President of the Republic who welcomes the butcher of Cairo, the butcher of Egypt, in great pomp, on a state visit, with the Republican Guard," said François de Roche, chief of the NGO Justice and Rights Without Borders.
"We have fallen on our heads. This is unacceptable. France, the country of Human Rights, cannot accept this."
But French President Emmanuel Macron refrained from direct criticism of former army general Sisi, who has cracked down on supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, as well as on leftists and liberals.
Macron told a joint press conference with Sisi that he would not condition the sale of weapons to Egypt and trade ties on human rights as he did not want to weaken Cairo’s ability to counter-terrorism in the region.
"I think it is more effective to have a policy of dialogue than a policy of boycott which would reduce the effectiveness of one of our partners in the fight against terrorism and for regional stability," he said.
To force the issue of human rights would be both "ineffective on the subject of human rights and counter-productive in the fight against terrorism, that's why I won't do it," he added
Nationwide protests have taken place since October 7 despite the disbanding of the controversial Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) police unit.
The demonstrators have been accused of attacking police stations and personnel.
The rallies which are mostly attended by young people have become avenues to vent against corruption and unemployment.
Rights groups say at least 15 people have been killed the demonstrations began in early October.
Nine people, including one police officer, have died in the West African state of Guinea, the security ministry said Wednesday, following days of unrest after a tense weekend presidential election.
In a statement, the ministry pointed to shootings and stabbings in the capital Conakry and elsewhere in the country since Sunday's presidential vote.
\"This strategy of chaos (was) orchestrated to jeopardise the elections of October 18, \" the ministry said, adding that many people had been injured and property was damaged.
Clashes were ongoing in Conakry on Wednesday, where a security officer, Mamadou Keganan Doumbouya, told the press that at least three people had died.
And a local doctor, who declined to be named, said he had received two dead bodies, and nine injured people, at his clinic.
The violence follows the high-stakes election in which President Alpha Conde ran for a third term in a controversial bid that had already sparked mass protests.
With tensions already running high, Guinea's main opposition leader Cellou Dalein Diallo on Monday declared victory in the election -- before the announcement of the official results, which are expected this week.
Opposition supporters are deeply suspicious about the fairness of the poll, although the government insists that it was fair.
Much of the tension in Guinea centres on Conde's candidacy.
In March, the 82-year-old president pushed through a new constitution which he argued would modernise the country. It also allowed him to bypass a two-term limit for presidents, however.
Security forces repressed mass protests against the move from October last year, killing dozens of people.
On Wednesday, plumes of black smoke rose over an opposition stronghold in the capital Conakry, where protesters erected barricades and lit fires, an AFP journalist saw.
Youths in alleyways also hurled stones at police officers stationed along a main artery who fired back tear gas canisters.
The security ministry stated that \"a police officer was lynched to death\" in a Conakry suburb, without specifying when the attack occurred.
In a social media post earlier on Wednesday, Conde appealed for \"calm and serenity while awaiting the outcome of the electoral process\".
- Clashes and barricades -
Ten candidates are in the race besides alongside frontrunners Conde and Diallo, old political rivals who traded barbs in a bitter campaign.
Despite fears of violence after the pre-vote clashes, polling day was mostly calm.
Then Diallo's self-proclaimed election victory ratcheted up tensions, and celebrations by his supporters descended into violent clashes with security forces on Monday.
The opposition politician said that security forces killed three youngsters that night, although AFP was unable to confirm the details.
Security forces also barricaded Diallo inside his house, the politician said on Tuesday.
Monitors from the African Union and the 15-nation West African bloc ECOWAS both said that Guinea's election was mostly fair, despite insistence from Diallo's camp tha
Analysis - We lost colleagues. Others were intubated. It was really scary…. [I am] praying to have a vaccine soon. —“Fernanda”, nurse at a public hospital in Ceará state, Brazil, July 28, 2020
Cameroon’s University of Buea suspended a law instructor more than a month after he asked students a legal question during a political and constitutional history course.
English Law lecturer Felix Nkongho Agbor Balla posed level two law students the following: “The Anglophone crisis since 2016 was caused by the lawyers’ and teachers’ strike.
Manga summoned Agbor Balla on May 5 to appear before a university disciplinary council the following day to answer questions on the course, called “Political and Constitutional History of Cameroon,” and specifically the question he posed.
“The dismissal of Barrister Felix Agbor Balla as instructor at the Anglophone University of Buea seems to have all the hallmarks of the Anglophone-Francophone divide in Cameroon,” said John Menkefor, a commentator based in Bamenda, headquarters of Cameroon’s North West Region.
“Why did the higher education minister not raise similar concerns when francophone lecturers in law and political science departments in other Francophone universities set more challenging questions on the Anglophone problem?”
[HRW] Women track and field athletes, largely from the Global South, are abused and harmed by \"sex testing\" regulations, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The regulations target women in running events between 400 meters and one mile, and compel women they target to undergo medical interventions or be forced out of competition.
The Commonwealth of Nations, or more commonly just the Commonwealth, is an association of sovereign states consisting of the United Kingdom, some of its former colonies, and a few special cases. The Commonwealth nations maintain close economic ties, sporting associations and complementary institutions.
When was the Commonwealth of Nations Formed?
In the early twentieth century, the government of Britain was taking a hard look at its relationship with the rest of the British Empire, and particularly with those colonies populated by Europeans – the dominions.
The dominions had reached a high level of self-government, and the people there were calling for the creation of sovereign states. Even amongst the Crown Colonies, Protectorates, and Mandates, nationalism (and the call for independence) was on the rise.
The British Commonwealth of Nations was first noted in the Statute of Westminster on 3 December 1931, which recognized that several of the United Kingdoms self-governing dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa) were autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations. What was new under the 1931 Statute of Westminster was that these dominions would now be free to control their own foreign affairs – they were already in control of domestic affairs – and to have their own diplomatic identity.
There are 19 African states who are currently members of the Commonwealth of Nations.
See this Chronological List of African Members of the Commonwealth of Nations, or Alphabetical List of African Members of the Commonwealth of Nations for details.
No, Cameroon (which had only partially been in the British Empire following World War I) and Mozambique joined in 1995. Mozambique was admitted as a special case (ie could not set a precedent) following democratic elections in the
He said that his government intends to continue to listen and stay engaged with every voice in the civil society space because his government believes that each voice matters and every voice would make the country’s democracy better and stronger.
As a Government, we want to work with civil society to identify and resolve those structural imbalances and triggers,” the president said.
Executive Director of Campaign for Good Governance, Marcella Samba Sesay, said that the COVID-19 response requires every country to design its own pathway; adding that it is very important for the government and civil society to sit together to enable effective co-creation processes.
I have personally invited representatives of civil society organisations today to talk frankly about the relationship between government and civil society.
I want to thank members of Civil Society for their diverse support to the Government’s response to COVID-19 through direct support and other initiatives, advocacy, social mobilization, and also reiterating Government’s appeal to citizens to adhere to all Covid-19 healthcare and other directives.
In the early morning of February 25, 2020, police in the Manzini region of Swaziland raided the home of Zweli Martin Dlamini, the editor of the privately owned news website Swaziland News, and arrested him, according to media reports and the journalist, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app.
At the headquarters, officers questioned Dlamini about two articles he published in Swaziland News about King Mswati III, one published on February 3 accusing the king of lying about the political and economic situation in the country, and another from February 21, accusing the king of promoting a cultural ceremony where women could be sexually abused.
Also that day, police raided Dlamini's home again and confiscated material including contracts for employees of Swaziland News and took the journalist's wife, Nompendulo Nokuthula Mkhonta, into custody, leaving their two young children alone in their home, according to Dlamini and an affidavit filed by his wife in a court application against further harassment by the police, which CPJ reviewed.
According to an April 10 warrant, which CPJ reviewed, police are seeking Dlamini's arrest for allegedly violating regulations passed in March, which penalize anyone found spreading false news about the virus with up to five years in jail or a fine of 20,000 emalangeni ($1,082).
Dlamini previously fled Swaziland to South Africa in December 2017 after claiming he had received a death threat from a local businessman, and his then newspaper, Swaziland Shopping, was shut down by the government, the journalist told CPJ at the time and as was reported by regional news outlets.
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OTIS!!!!!
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The day celebrates diversity, raises awareness of the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTQ+) people and is this year being celebrated under the theme, 'Breaking the Silence', according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Nthengwe said Outright Namibia's main goal is to decolonise the Constitution so that it recognises the full humanity of the LGBTQ+ and other minority communities.
Ombudsman John Walters said Namibia has made no progress in terms of fighting homophobia nor amending laws to give justice to the rainbow community, which is subjected to harassment.
Walters, during the handover of the N$900 000 grant to ORN from Germany, said Namibia's Constitution does not have provisions to allow the criminal law to act on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community or to defend them.
A submission at the Universal Periodic Review of Namibia (UPR), a few years ago, states that although homosexuality is not illegal per se, sex between two males is illegal under the common sodomy law provisions that Namibia inherited at independence as part of Roman-Dutch law.
The two Zimbabwean journalists arrested last week as they were investigating the abduction of three opposition party members have been released on bail, a lawyers' association said on Tuesday.
The pair were \"ordered not to interfere with witnesses and continue to reside at the addresses they gave the police until the matter comes to an end\", he said outside the Mbare magistrate's court in the capital.
Chikowore and Takawira were arrested on Friday at a private hospital where they were conducting interviews with an opposition lawmaker and two party officials.
Accused of not maintaining adequate social distancing between themselves and interviewees, the journalists were arrested by a police officer guarding the hospital and charged with breaching regulations to curb the spread of coronavirus.
Last month a Zimbabwean high court ordered police to desist from arresting, detaining or interfering with the work of journalists providing coverage during the Covid-19 lockdown which began March 30 in the southern African country.
Don Carlton Lemon is a prominent, award-winning black television anchor in the United States. In 2011, he publicly came out as a gay man. In so doing, he became the most prominent African American journalist to announce his sexual orientation and was immediately considered a major role model for other gay men of color.
Lemon was born on March 1, 1966 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to a single working mother. His father, known only as Mr. Richardson, played a positive role in Lemon’s young life. He and his sisters, Yma and Leisa, grew up in west Baton Rouge and Port Allen. They lived there with their mother and grandmother until 1976 when his mother married Lemon’s step-father. As an adult, Lemon reported that at the age of five he was sexually abused by a teenage male neighbor.
Lemon enrolled at Louisiana State University in 1984 but did not complete his studies. He moved to New York City in 1990 and entered the broadcasting field. His first job there was as a reporter for the Fox Affiliate, WNYW. Lemon graduated from Brooklyn College in Broadcast Journalism in 1996. He then moved to Birmingham, Alabama to anchor the news at Fox’s WBRC. St. Louis, Missouri was his next stop where he anchored and reported for KTVI.
In the late 1990s, he started his NBC affiliation at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s WCAU. Lemon then stepped up to network news as correspondent for NBC’s Today and NBC Nightly News. At this time, he also guest anchored the Today show and was seen on MSNBC on weekends. Lemon earned the Edward R. Murrow Award for his 2002 reporting on the Washington D.C. snipers.
Lemon moved to Chicago in 2003 to co-anchor the 5 p.m. newscast at WMAQ. His investigative report on the Chicago real estate market garnered him an Emmy. He financed his own fact-finding trip to Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, and Tanzania in 2005. Reporting on the African AIDS pandemic, he connected the international situation to the home context. He won another Emmy for this special coverage as well as one for his reporting on Hurricane Katrina.
CNN hired
Van Jones is a social-environmental activist and the Obama administration’s former “Green Czar.” He was born in 1968 in Jackson, Tennessee. His mother and father were a high school teacher and junior-high principal respectively. While growing up, Jones was a stereotypical “geek,” going so far as to pretend that his action figures were running public offices. Jones attended the University of Tennessee at Martin where he majored in communications and political science. It was during his freshman year in UT-Martin that Jones chose for himself the nickname “Van.” In 1990 Jones enrolled at Yale Law School.
After graduating in 1993, Jones moved to San Francisco. There he became a community organizer and set up the Bay Area organizations, PoliceWatch and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in 1996, both intended to combat police abuse. Jones also involved himself and his organization in the campaign to reform California’s juvenile detention system including the fight against the construction of a huge new juvenile detention facility in Dublin, California.
Due in part to his friendship with environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill, Jones’s activism began to take on an environmental aspect. In September 2007, Jones formed the advocacy group, Green for All, which was instrumental in the passage of the Green Jobs Act of 2007 as incorporated with the Energy Independence and Security Act. This measure provided $125 million training for environmentally friendly jobs including funds intended for low-income trainees. In 2008 he published The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems. In it, he further espouses his belief that both poverty and global warming can be combated with the creation of green jobs.
Jones was appointed a special advisor on green jobs by President Barack Obama in March 2009. He was given the responsibility of coordinating government agencies to facilitate the creation of green jobs, a responsibility which earned him the informal “czar” moniker. Jones’s tenure was cut
Harriet Tubman escaped slavery to freedom and led more than 300 other slaves to their freedom, too. Harriet Tubman was acquainted with many of the social reformers and abolitionists of her time, and she spoke against slavery and for womens rights. Tubman died March 10, 1913.
In 1990 the US Congress and President George H. W. Bush first declared March 10 to be Harriet Tubman Day. In 2003 New York State established the holiday.
Public Law 101-252 / March 13, 1990: 101ST Congress (S.J. Res. 257)
To designate March 10, 1990, as “Harriet Tubman Day”
Whereas Harriet Ross Tubman was born into slavery in Bucktown, Maryland, in or around the year 1820;
Whereas she escaped slavery in 1849 and became a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad;
Whereas she undertook a reported nineteen trips as a conductor, endeavoring despite great hardship and great danger to lead hundreds of slaves to freedom;
Whereas Harriet Tubman became an eloquent and effective speaker on behalf of the movement to abolish slavery;
Whereas she served in the Civil War as a soldier, spy, nurse, scout, and cook, and as a leader in working with newly freed slaves;
Whereas after the War, she continued to fight for human dignity, human rights, opportunity, and justice; and
Whereas Harriet Tubman—whose courageous and dedicated pursuit of the promise of American ideals and common principles of humanity continues to serve and inspire all people who cherish freedom—died at her home in Auburn, New York, on March 10, 1913; Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That March 10, 1990 be designated as “Harriet Tubman Day,” to be observed by the people of the United States with appropriate ceremonies and activities.
Approved March 13, 1990.
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY – S.J. Res. 257
Congressional record, Vol. 136 (1990):
Mar. 6, considered and passed Senate.
Mar. 7, considered and passed House.
From the White House, signed by George Bush, then President of the United
It should create a special purpose vehicle -the DOVE (Debts of Vulnerable Economies) fund -- that will demonstrate to the financial markets how a responsible creditor treats African debtors in crisis.
The fund will also pledge that once the global economy begins to grow again it will work with African debtors to ensure that the debt does not become an unreasonable burden on their efforts to rebuild their economies.
Third, the DOVE fund will advocate that all private sector creditors should participate in a comparable standstill, both on debt payments and bond trading, and should applying the same principles as the DOVE fund in determining what to do with the debt of the participating countries after the crisis ends.
Fourth, the fund needs to be large enough to be an influential voice in any discussion among bondholders about the treatment of the participating African countries' debts.
The DOVE fund could encourage these groups to participate by issuing a social impact bond which would only offer holders a return that is linked to the post-crisis growth rate of sub-Saharan Africa and/or to the level of debt payments actually received by the DOVE fund after the crisis.
Maurice Tomlinson is one of the most well-known gay rights activists in the world. He is an attorney-at-law, law lecturer, journalist, and HIV/AIDS and LGBTI (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgendered Intersexual) activist in Jamaica and the Caribbean.
Tomlinson was born on April 9, 1971 in Montego Bay, St. James, Jamaica to George Cornel Tomlinson and Carmen Victoria Campbell Tomlinson. He has two brothers, Kurt and Rhoan. Tomlinson’s education includes studies at The University of the West Indies (2003), Norman Manley Law School in Jamaica (2005), University of Turin Law School in Italy (2006), and Mona School of Business (2007). Friends provided the catalyst for his interest in social justice. Before finishing his law degree, he worked as a flight attendant for Air Jamaica. In this period, he became aware that AIDS affected everyone and could impact anybody. Studying law exposed him to the idea of human rights and the possibility to change discriminatory laws and practices.
In 2009, Tomlinson became legal advisor of marginalized groups for the well-known, respected, international advocacy organization, AIDS-Free World. One area of his advocacy education is the link between Jamaica’s anti-gay laws and the spread of HIV. In his country, 32% of gay men have HIV compared to 1.6% in the general population. AIDS-Free World works in partnership with JFLAG (Jamaica Forum of Lesbians, All-Sexuals, and Gays), Representatives of Jamaicans for Justice, Families Against State Terrorism, and other human rights allies.
For two years, Tomlinson collected victim reports as part of a legal challenge against his nation. Since the new Jamaican Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms does not allow domestic challenges, his team engaged in an unprecedented legal challenge to Jamaica’s anti-sodomy laws. Their complaint filed with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in 2011 became the first regional challenge in the world of an AIDS-related issue. While IACHR can only release a recommendation to the Jamaican
