Amnesty reports on how governments fail human rights defenders
States around the world are failing to effectively protect people who defend human rights, with a resulting rise in preventable killings and enforced disappearances, says Amnesty International said in a new report that follows other verifiable accounts of how governments are abetting in the elimination of another ‘endangered species’—journalists. Amnesty’s new report, Deadly but Preventable Attacks: Killings and Enforced...
Amnesty sees rights in retreat worldwide
The world is experiencing a global assault on fundamental rights and everyone can consider their rights to be in jeopardy, advocacy group Amnesty International said [24 February 2016]. In its Annual Report for 2015 to 2016, the campaign group said many governments across a wide geographical spectrum have brazenly broken international law and are deliberately undermining institutions meant to protect people’s rights. Nor is the threat...
Yemen probe shows Saudi coalition has killed ‘scores’ of civilians
So, the word is out but is anyone going to do anything about it? Advocacy group Amnesty International says its findings show Saudi Arabia-led forces killed scores of civilians with powerful bombs. Apparently this isn’t news in Europe, well, not the right sort anyway, or there’d be bigger headlines at least in the broadsheets. There has been little European or western response to the killings, certainly not a single one...
Already, Saudi executions beat 2014 record
Less than half way through 2015, the 90 reported executions so far this year in Saudi Arabia have beaten the country’s “disgraceful” record for 2014, Amnesty International says. “Saudi Arabia today (28 May 2015) carried out its 90th execution so far this year, equalling the number of people executed in the Kingdom during the whole of 2014,” the international advocacy group said. The death toll is one of...
Is/was HSBC the only bank doing this?
The BBC’s Panorama programme later tonight (9 February 2015) is among numerous media that are focusing on revelations that HSBC, Britain’s largest bank, helped many people deprive the UK of tens of millions of pounds/dollars in tax. But is — ok, was — HSBC the only bank doing this? This is among numerous other questions that, according to analysts interviewed by The Middle East in Europe, remain unanswered. The...
Money-laundering: The risks near and far
A recent international seminar in Tunisia on money laundering focused attention on this key issue of financial malfeasance and the risks that persist near and far for professional individuals, business institutions and governments at large. The organiser of the event, the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, has been campaigning against money laundering as only a governance-savvy and responsible bank can do,...