Category: Human Rights

That figure is more than double the crossings made in all of 2022. Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, underscored the scale of the crisis. “The challenges that the unprecedented population movements in the Americas pose are formidable…no country on its own is equipped to address them,” he said. “Only by coming together with […]

(Beirut) – Saudi authorities should immediately release Waleed Abu al-Khair, an award-winning Saudi human rights defender and lawyer, 17 human rights groups including Human Rights Watch said today, on the 10th anniversary of his arrest. He is serving a 15-year prison sentence due to his peaceful human rights activism. “This grim anniversary of Waleed Abu […]

The world’s largest gathering dedicated to refugee issues, the Forum is co-hosted by UNHCR and Switzerland and convened by Colombia, France, Japan, Jordan and Uganda. It brings together Member States, civil society, financial institutions, private companies and more than 300 refugee advocates. Shattered dreams, disrupted lives Setting the tone for the discussion, Mr. Grandi said […]

Justa Libertad, an Ecuadorian coalition of eight civil society organizations, recently filed a lawsuit before the Constitutional Court of Ecuador seeking to decriminalize abortion. This crucial initiative seeks to ensure that women, girls, and other pregnant people can access safe abortion care. It follows similar coalitions that achieved progress in other Latin American countries like […]

In a message marking International Migrants Day, the UN chief emphasized that migration promotes the exchange of knowledge and contributes to economic growth, but at the same time, “poorly governed migration is a cause of great suffering.” “It forces people into the cruel realm of traffickers, where they face exploitation, abuse, and even death. It […]

U.S. Special Representative for Racial Equity and Justice Desirée Cormier Smith will travel to Geneva and New York City April 15-23. In Geneva, the Special Representative and Ambassador Michèle Taylor will represent the United States as heads of delegation at the third meeting of the UN Permanent Forum for People on African Descent. There the Special Representative will deliver […]

Twenty years have passed since the media broke the story that US forces and the CIA were torturing “war on terror” detainees at Abu Ghraib and other US-run prisons in Iraq. But for the men who were tortured, it feels like only yesterday. The physical and mental scars they carry serve as daily reminders of […]

Agreement in Brussels on the New Pact on Migration and Asylum reportedly followed three years of intense negotiations, and it should start taking effect in 2024. The deal will attempt to distribute migrants more evenly across the bloc, providing enhanced support and coordination for processing claims away from frontier states such as Italy and Greece, […]

Hundreds of young people stormed a building basement where scores of Rohingya refugees were sheltered, according to media reports. The Rohingya are a mainly Muslim community who have fled waves of persecution in Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist country.  Nearly one million are living in camps in Bangladesh and more than 1,000 have arrived in Indonesia […]

That’s according to Juliette Touma, Director of Communications for UNRWA, the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees, who spoke in depth to UN News’s Conor Lennon on Monday about her most recent visit to the Strip. The interview has been edited for clarity and length. “This was my second trip since the war began. I try […]