Human Rights – UN News Centre

Leaders in Bosnia and Herzegovina must abandon divisive policies and focus on building an inclusive future for all, UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Friday in the capital, Sarajevo, concluding an official visit to the country.

Friday’s decision by the US Supreme Court which overturns the 50-year-old Roe v Wade judgement guaranteeing access to abortion across the United States, was described by the UN human rights chief as “a huge blow to women’s human rights and gender equality.”

Israeli forces were behind the fatal shooting of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank - not indiscriminate Palestinian firing - the UN human rights office, OHCHR, alleged on Friday.

The dramatic real-life effects of shutdowns of the internet on people’s lives and human rights are vastly underestimated, the UN human rights office warns in a report released on Thursday.

Over the past two years, there has been “an unprecedented increase in all forms of gender-based violence,” the UN Deputy Secretary-General told a high-level meeting in Kigali, on Thursday, citing the COVID-19 pandemic as a major contributor.

Indigenous women and girls face grave, systematic, and continuous acts of violence that permeate every aspect of their lives, a UN-appointed independent rights expert said on Wednesday in a hard hitting report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva

The UN human rights office, OHCHR, is urging Iran to call off plans to amputate the fingers of eight prisoners convicted of burglary, Spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said on Wednesday. 

The UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide briefed the Security Council on Tuesday, reinforcing concerns already voiced by other senior UN officials in the chamber, over “the heightened risks” of sexual violence, and trafficking, which are “significantly impacting women and children”, following the Russian invasion of 24 February.

A shocking new UN report released on Tuesday indicates that the number of crisis-impacted school-aged children requiring educational support has grown from an estimated 75 million in 2016, to 222 million today.

Civic space is shrinking, together with a rise in human rights violations during peaceful protests worldwide, while governments adopt an increasingly militarised approach to policing demonstrations, said an independent UN human rights expert on Monday. 

In Colombia, decades of violence and armed conflict created significant obstacles to human development and sustainable peace. To encourage the private sector to move back into hard-hit areas, the UN is financing an innovative project that is supporting local businesses and providing sorely needed job opportunities.

After two decades of dictatorship, The Gambia is on the road towards democracy and respect for human rights, The UN is working closely with the government on this journey, a process that involves facing up to the country’s violent past.

Hate speech incites violence, undermines diversity and social cohesion and “threatens the common values and principles that bind us together,” the UN chief said in his message for the first-ever International Day for Countering Hate Speech.

A UN human rights expert on Friday urged the United Kingdom to halt its controversial policy of transferring some asylum seekers to Rwanda and expressed serious concern that the two country’s asylum partnership arrangement violates international law, and risks causing irreparable harm to those seeking international protection.

Sexual violence has become a brutal tactic of warfare and repression that “terrorizes populations, destroys lives and fractures communities,” the UN chief said on Friday.

The human rights situation in Nicaragua has continued to decline over the past three months, with detainees being held in appalling conditions, civic space shrinking, and an “unprecedented” rise in people fleeing the country, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Thursday. 

The Afghanistan people are experiencing some of “the darkest moments” in a generation the UN human rights chief told Human Rights Council on Wednesday.

UN independent human rights experts have deplored the recent violent crackdown on civil society in Iran, calling on Wednesday for independent investigations into excessive use of force against protestors.   

The reported use of live ammunition by security forces in Tanzania, against ethnic Maasai herders, and the death of a police officer, have been condemned by top UN-appointed independent rights experts.

Every year, one in six people aged 60 years and older experience some form of abuse – a trend that is expected to continue with rapid population ageing in many countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday. 

The UN’s top rights official expressed her concern on Wednesday at reports that Ukrainian children have been “forcibly deported” from the country’s embattled eastern regions, and taken to Russia for adoption.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Tuesday that the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee has been convened due to the spread of the Monkeypox virus to 32 non-endemic countries.

We have the tools to end the “systemic marginalization” of persons with disabilities, the UN chief told the 15th Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on Tuesday.

Still suffering from the devastating consequences of the February 2021 military coup, the UN rights chief said on Tuesday that the people of Myanmar remain “trapped in a cycle of poverty and displacement, human rights violations and abuses”.

War in Ukraine continues to cause mayhem and “destroy the lives of many”, and it is everyone’s responsibility to limit the global food, fuel and financial crisis” that it has sustained, the UN’s top rights official told the Human Rights Council on Monday, in her last session as High Commissioner.

The UN issued a statement on Saturday calling for attacks on civilians by multiple armed groups in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to “immediately cease”.

Dozens of independent UN human rights experts on Friday urged the Chinese Government to “cooperate fully” with the UN human rights system over abuse allegations, and grant them “unhindered access – particularly to prisons and detention centres. 

The international community must increase pressure on Myanmar ‘s military rulers in the wake of their decision to move ahead with death sentences against four individuals, including two prominent opponents of the regime, UN independent human rights experts said on Friday. 

Migrants who risk their lives to cross the Mediterranean to Europe on flimsy boats often piloted by people-smugglers, are at greater risk of dying now than for years, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday.

To end AIDS, beat COVID-19 and “stop the pandemics of the future”, the world needs to ensure global access to lifesaving health technologies, the UN Chef de Cabinet has told a meeting of the General Assembly to review progress.