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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.
[The Point] Soma and Farafenni are two busy settlements where under-aged children are continually ordered by their Arabic teachers or Qur'anic masters to go begging.
North American Slave Narratives documents the individual and collective story of the African American struggle for freedom and human rights in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The project received a two-year grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund the digitization of approximately two hundred texts, including all known narratives of fugitive and former slaves published in broadsides, pamphlets, or book form in English up to 1920 and many of the biographies of fugitive and former slaves published in English before 1920.
[263Chat] Jailed freelance journalist, Hopewell Chin'ono, will, through his lawyers, make a fresh freedom bid from at the High Court following his bail denial by the Harare Magistrate, Marehwanazvo Gofa Court last week.
The Minister Delegate at the Ministry of Justice on June 27 defended before the Committee on Constitutional Laws major changes undertaken to better empower the Commission.
In order to enhance the promotion and protection of human rights in Cameroon, bill (No 1055/PJL/AN) relating to the establishment, organisation and functioning of the Cameroon Human Rights Commission has been tabled in plenary and defended before the Committee on Constitutional Laws at the National Assembly by the Minister Delegate at the Ministry of Justice Jean de Dieu Momo.
Abbreviated \"the Commission,\" the Minister Delegate presented the major changes the reformed structure will witness given it is a modification to the existing National Commission on Human Rights and Freedoms.
Going by the explanations of Minister Jean de Dieu Momo, the Commission shall be an independent institution for consultation, monitoring, evaluation, dialogue, conciliation and deliberation in the promotion and protection of human rights and shall also serve as a National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture (NMPT) in all places of detention.
Minister Jean de Dieu Momo said the intention of the bill is to improve the human rights culture in Cameroon and prevent
The Jackie Robinson Foundation (JRF) announced that it will honor cosmetics industry pioneer Bobbi Brown with its ROBIE Humanitarian Award, Pittsburgh Steelers Chairman Ambassador Dan Rooney with JRF’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and Vista Equity Partners Founder and CEO Robert F. Smith with the ROBIE Achievement in Industry Award on Monday, March 7, 2016, at its annual ROBIE Awards Dinner in New York City. Each honoree will be recognized for promoting the humanitarian ideals embodied in the life of Jackie Robinson. For over 40 years, the Jackie Robinson Foundation has administered a unique scholarship program that provides four-year grants accompanied by comprehensive support services for high-achieving minority college students. The Foundation is also in the throes of a campaign to build the Jackie Robinson Museum in Lower Manhattan, New York City.
The Foundation’s Awards Dinner will be hosted by actor André Holland, who played sports journalistWendell Smith in the Jackie Robinson biopic “42” and Andrew Young in “Selma”, and currently stars in the hit Cinemax series, “The Knick.” R&B star and three-time Grammy Award nominee Angie Stone will entertain the approximately 1,000 guests expected to attend the Dinner. The evening’s presenters include fashion industry icon Norma Kamali and Founder & CEO of Legendary Pictures Thomas Tull.
“This year’s ROBIE honorees have had a remarkable impact in industry and in communities throughout the world,” said Della Britton, President and CEO of JRF. “As a 43-year old organization committed to empowering young men and women, we are proud to recognize each of them for their bold advocacy for equal opportunity and their demonstrated dedication to improving the lives of others.”
“I have personally experienced the important, positive influence that the Jackie Robinson Foundation has on the lives of so many young people,” said JRF Board Chairman, Gregg Gonsalves, Advisory Partner with Integrated Capital, LLC, and an alumnus of JRF’s preeminent scholarship program. “The awards
The Geneva Consensus Declaration breaks from UN consensus by seeking to restrict abortion access and undermine same-sex marriage.
BY SHAME MAKOSHORI ZIMBABWE’S power output plunged 39% during the seven months to July, as Harare and Lusaka moved to forestall a near catastrophe by applying limits on water outflows from Lake Kariba to bolster the reservoir’s capacity following prolonged droughts. Zambia and Zimbabwe share the hydroelectric power facility from both sides of the Zambezi at Kariba Gorge and operate the plant through the Zambezi River Authority, a co-owned outfit. The hydroelectric power facility currently generates most of Zimbabwe’s power after government completed a US$253 million upgrade two years ago, which increased output to 1 050 megawatts (MW), from about 750MW. A slowdown in output from Kariba has a huge bearing on the Zimbabwe Power Company’s capacity to power industries and domestic consumers. In its pre-budget strategy paper released last week, the Ministry of Finance indicated that output declined by 39% to 3 279GW/h during the period, from 5 337GW/h of power transmitted during the same period last year. “Electricity generation during the first seven months of 2020 declined by 39% to 3 279GW/h from 5 337GW/h sent out during the same period last year,” the strategy paper said. “This is attributed to planned reduced operating levels at Kariba Power Station in order to allow the dam to fill up following a drastic fall in reserves of usable water. The country has been facing serious electricity shortages which crippled domestic production. The situation was exacerbated by drought which resulted in low water levels in Kariba Dam, compromising hydro electricity generation in one of the major power stations in the country,” said the paper. Following the completion of the landmark power plant upgrade in 2018, Kariba promised to set the country back on the path of industrialisation, which was critical to lift millions out of poverty. But a starkly different picture has emerged in the past year, precipitated by a damaging drought in the Zambezi Valley, which limited inflows and almost turned off its turbines. The crisis was compounded by the resumption of a US$1,5 billion expansion and facelift of the Hwange thermal power plant, which kicked off last year, as Zimbabwe’s underfire government fulfilled its promise to address one of the biggest hurdles to its recovery efforts. Output at the thermal facility has often been disturbed by ongoing upgrades. But this could only be for a short period. Full generation may return around 2022. Government’s paper said after July, inflows into Lake Kariba have improved and power generation has been picking up again. “During the period under review, there has been improved generation capacity at Kariba Hydro Power plant due to continued increase in inflows into the lake as a result of normal to above normal rainfall in the Zambezi water catchment areas,” the paper noted. “To address the shortage of power in the country, government is undertaking several alternative electricity generation projects, most of which are funded by extra-budgetary funds, loans and private sector. Since the current proje
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There are certain natural rights as inalienable to civilization as are the rights of air and motion to the savage in the wilderness. The natural rights of the civilized man and woman are government, property, the harmonious development of all their powers, and the gratification of their desires. There are a few people we now and then meet, who, like Jeremy Bentham, scout the idea of natural rights in civilization, and pronounce them mere metaphors, declaring there are no rights aside from those the law confers. If the law made man too, that might do, for then he could be made to order, to fit the particular niche he was designed to fill. But inasmuch as God made man in his own image, with capacities and powers as boundless as the universe, whose exigencies no mere human law can meet, it is evident that the man must ever stand first -- the law but the creature of his wants -- the law-giver but the mouthpiece of humanity. If, then, the nature of a being decides its rights, every individual comes into this world with rights that are not transferable. He does not bring them like a pack on his back, that may be stolen from him, but they are a component part of himself -- the laws which insure his growth and development. The individual may be put in the stocks, body and soul, he may be dwarfed, crippled, killed outright, but his rights can no man get -- they live and die with him.
Though the atmosphere be forty miles deep all round the globe, no man can do more than fill his own lungs. No man can see, or hear, or smell, but just so far; and though hundreds are deprived of these senses, his are not the more acute. Though rights have been abundantly supplied by the good Father, no man can appropriate to himself those that belong to another. A citizen can have but one vote, fill but one office, though thousands are not permitted to do either. These axioms prove that womans poverty does not add to mans wealth, and if, in the
[Clooney Foundation for Justice] TrialWatch, a Clooney Foundation for Justice initiative, has been monitoring, through the American Bar Association Center for Human Rights, criminal proceedings against 67 individuals arrested at Ram Bar in Uganda in November 2019. Ram Bar was known as one of the only safe spaces for the LGBTQ community in Uganda. The defendants, who were among a larger group of 125 individuals rounded up at the bar, were charged with common nuisance.
The Little Rock Crisis erupted in September 1957 when Arkansas Governor Orval M. Faubus used state National Guard troops to prevent nine African American students from attending the then all-white Central High School. On September 20, Federal Judge Ronald Davis ordered Governor Faubus to remove the troops and allow the integration of the school. When he defied the court order, President Dwight Eisenhower dispatched nearly 1,000 paratroopers and federalized the 10,000 man Arkansas National Guard to insure the school would be open to the nine students. On September 24, 1957, President Eisenhower addressed the nation to explain his actions. That address appears below.
Good Evening, My Fellow Citizens: For a few minutes this evening I want to speak to you about the serious situation that has arisen in Little Rock. To make this talk I have come to the President’s office in the White House. I could have spoken from Rhode Island, where I have been staying recently, but I felt that, in speaking from the house of Lincoln, of Jackson and of Wilson, my words would better convey both the sadness I feel in the action I was compelled today to take and the firmness with which I intend to pursue this course until the orders of the Federal Court at Little Rock can be executed without unlawful interference.
In that city, under the leadership of demagogic extremists, disorderly mobs have deliberately prevented the carrying out of proper orders from a Federal Court. Local authorit
This morning the mob again gathered in front of the Central High School of Little Rock, obviously for the purpose of again preventing the carrying out of the Court’s order relating to the admission of Negro children to that school.
Whenever normal agencies prove inadequate to the task and it becomes necessary for the Executive Branch of the Federal Government to use its powers and authority to uphold Federal Courts, the President’s responsibility is inescapable. In accordance with that responsibility, I have today issued an Executive Order
President Cyril Ramaphosa says the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus in Africa has exposed how far the continent still has to go before achieving its aspirations of a united and prosperous region.
Ramaphosa, speaking in his capacity as African Union chairperson, addressed Africa Day celebrations, held via virtual platforms across parts of the continent.
Ramaphosa, reflecting on the history of the AU, which was called the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) when it was established in 1963, said its mission was to restore the continent's fortunes and dignity to its people following the damage cause by colonial oppression.
Ramaphosa said the continent needed to push ahead with meeting the aspirations of Agenda 2063, including pan-African integration, the creation of the African continental free trade area, along with Africa’s vision for security, peace, stable democracies, human rights and women’s empowerment.
While once again using his role as AU chair to call for international solidarity, Ramaphosa thanked those, on both the continent and in the broader international community, who had sought to assist the continental body in navigating the global pandemic.
Lester Walton was a journalist, entertainment professional, and diplomat who promoted civil rights at home and abroad. Born Lester Aglar Walton on April 20, 1882 in St. Louis, Missouri, his early life was spent as a journalist. At the age of 20 in 1902, when he was hired by the St. Louis Star to be its golf writer and later its court reporter, he became the first black reporter to write for a white daily paper in St. Louis.
In 1906 Walton moved to New York City, New York and in 1908 he became theatrical editor for the New York Age, which was the largest black newspaper in the nation at the time. He remained at the Age until 1914. In 1912 he married Gladys Moore, the daughter of Fred Moore, publisher of the newspaper. The couple had two daughters.
During this period he also wrote for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, the largest newspaper in the city, and from 1922 to 1931 he was a reporter with the New York World. He then worked briefly with the New York Herald Tribune, quitting in 1933 when the paper refused to give him a byline. Walton then returned to the New York Age. During his years with these newspapers, Walton started the movement which was eventually supported by the New York Times and the Associated Press, to have the spelling of the word “Negro” written with a capital “N.”
Walton was also actively involved in entertainment throughout his adult life. Between 1917 and 1919 he managed New York City’s Lafayette Theater. He later served as vice president of the Negro Actors Guild of America, and in the 1950s became chair of the Coordinating Council of Negro Performers, lobbying corporate and broadcast leaders to include more black actors in theatrical and broadcast performances. Walton was a songwriter, director, and founder of Walton Publishing Company, which published instrumental music.
Walton’s journalistic endeavors encouraged his interest in world affairs. He traveled as a correspondent to the Versailles Peace Conference outside Paris, France in 1919 and visited Liberia in 1933 to write articles
A crucial election has begun in the East African nation of Burundi, where President Pierre Nkurunziza is stepping aside after 15 years in charge but he will remain “paramount leader” in the country that continues to reject outside scrutiny.
Face masks and social distancing were observed as voting began after 6 a.m. but Burundi’s government has been criticized for not appearing to take the coronavirus pandemic seriously.
Ahead of the vote, government agents were accused of harassing the main opposition party, the CNL, whose leader Agathon Rwasa is believed to be in a close race with Nkurunziza’s chosen successor in the ruling CNDD-FDD, Evariste Ndayishimiye.
Some in Burundi worry that a rigged election could spark the kind of street demonstrations that marked the previous vote in 2015, when Nkurunziza decided to run for a third term that some called unconstitutional.
More than 300,000 people who fled Burundi amid the turmoil caused by the previous election remain refugees.
The Chagos Archipelago is clearly depicted as a Mauritian territory in the new world map (Map No 4170 Revision 18.1 of 20 February 2020), recently issued by the United Nations (UN) Secretariat.
The new map confirms the sovereignty of the Republic of Mauritius over the Chagos Archipelago, rejoiced the Prime Minister, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, this evening, during a televised message on the Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation.
He stated that Government has asked other institutions such as World Atlas, Google and Apple to make the necessary changes depicting the Chagos Archipelago as a territory of Mauritius and not as the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT).
The Prime Minister recalled that on 22 May 2019, the United Nations General Assembly had adopted the Resolution stipulating that the Chagos Archipelago forms an integral part of Mauritius by a record vote of 116 in favour and six against.
The General Assembly had also asked the United Nations and its institutions not to acknowledge the BIOT, created by the British in 1965 when they had illegally detached the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius, he added.
Walter Charles Carrington served as the United States Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Senegal from 1980 to 1981, and to Nigeria from 1993 to 1997. He married Arese Ukpoma, a Nigerian physician, and has lived in three Nigerian cities since the late 1960s.
Carrington was born July 24, 1930 in New York City, New York to Marjorie Irene Hayes Carrington and Walter Randolph Carrington, an immigrant from Barbados. Raised in the predominantly Italian-Irish community of Everett, Massachusetts, Carrington was elected vice president of his class while at both Parlin Junior High and Everett High School. Graduating in 1948, Carrington became one of only four black students at Harvard University at the time. He also founded the first Harvard chapter of the NAACP and, as its Youth Council delegate, visited Senegal. He was also vice chair of the Students for Stevenson organization when Adlai Stevenson campaigned in 1952 as the Democratic candidate for President. Carrington graduated from Harvard with a Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) degree in 1952.
Entering the United States Army in 1955, Carrington served as a clerk typist in Germany. One of his assignments was with the Judge Advocate General Corps (Germany, 1955–1957). After the service, he enrolled in Harvard Law School, earning his J.D. degree in 1958.
When Carrington was twenty-seven years old he was appointed commissioner of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. A year later he entered into practice and eventually became a partner with the law firm of Naples, Carrington and Ruland. Carrington worked on the John F. Kennedy campaign for President in 1960 and from 1961 to 1971 served in the Peace Corps, eventually becoming the Peace Corps director of Africa. He then served as executive vice president of the Africa-American Institute from 1971 to 1979, and was also a member of Africare. In 1981 Carrington was named director of the Department of International Affairs at Howard University. He also taught at Marquette University in Wisconsin,
THE Supreme law of the Republic of Zimbabwe, namely the Constitution, places squarely on the shoulders of the government the obligation to defend and protect the rights of citizens from harm and abuse.
The recognisable cases in the recent past involve former Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association president Peter Magombeyi and more recently the MDC trio of Harare West MP Joanah Mamombe, youth leaders Netsai Marova and Cecilia Chimbiri.
We have incessantly heard of theories of the kidnappings being stage-managed or a third force being behind the wanton abductions witnessed in recent incidents in the country.
This would be a protective measure for the government without which the continual human rights violations so rife in the country would constitute own goals for the government.
As it stands, the international community at large views Zimbabwe as intolerant of human rights and as an administration which strives to obfuscate the true facts of the violations.
As Piper Kerman, author of “Orange is the New Black,” wrote in the Washington Post, this is largely the result of prison sentences that are longer than those imposed by any other country.
After an outbreak killed six inmates in a federal prison in Lisbon, Ohio, U.S. District Court Judge James Gwin decried the “shockingly limited” amount of testing, noting that the prison has received fewer than 100 tests, while a state prison of similar size had done about 4,000 tests.
Two federal prisons in New York City reported that they had tested a total of only 19 inmates since the outbreak began; 11 were positive.
This has to change before the pandemic spreads, and prisons across the country go up in flames as prisoners’ riot against their conditions.
The crisis should also lead to larger reforms — drastically reducing sentences while expanding alternatives to incarceration, ending the cash bail system and the practice of locking poor people up while they await trial, expanding parole, reducing the overcrowded and primitive conditions of too many jails and prisons.
Paul S. Williams is a Partner with Major, Lindsey & Africa, the largest legal recruiting firm in the nation. Previously, Williams was Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary of Cardinal Health, Inc., a Fortune 20 healthcare services company with $80 billion in revenues and 55,000 employees. Responsible for managing legal affairs globally, Williams served as the Co-Chair of the company’s Diversity Council. Williams’ legal department was recognized for outstanding diversity, receiving the Minority Corporate Counsel Association’s ‘’Employer of Choice’’ Award.
served on numerous charitable and educational boards, including Physicians for Human Rights, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and Salesian Boys and Girls Club. Paul has been recognized by two publications as one of the 100 most influential diverse lawyers in the nation.
