Just a quick update in case you missed it.
 | Released on 03.05.2024 |  |
 | Recommendation for Human Rights Laws in Tasmania Department of State Tasmania should enact laws that better protect human rights, a new research paper from the Tasmania Law Reform Institute (TLRI) has recommended. A Charter of Human Rights or a Human Rights Act should be adopted and an independent Human Rights Commissioner appointed to better protect Tasmanians, the Institute says. In its report A Charter of Human Rights for Tasmania? Update, the TLRI has made 21 recommendations and urged Tasmania to become the fourth jurisdiction in Australia to adopt human rights legislation. Read more: miragenews.com |
 | Human Rights Violations in Pakistan Continue Unabated US State Department’s 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices is out and so are the comments of Pakistan’s Foreign Office [FO] on the same. While this report gives Islamabad an embarrassingly poor report-card on the issue of human rightsviolations, by mentioning that “There were no significant changes in the human rights situation in Pakistan during the year,” Washington has highlighted discernable institutional reluctance in curbing this despicable practice. Read more: indiandefencereview.com |
 | New technologies in automated social protection systems can threaten human rights Governments must ensure automated social protection systems are fit for purpose and do not prevent people eligible for welfare from receiving it, Amnesty International said today as it published a technical explainer on the underlying technology behind Samagra Vedika, an algorithmic system that has been used in India’s Telangana state since 2016. The technical explainer sheds light on Samagra Vedika’s human rights risks and its use of a technical process called “entity resolution” wherein machine-learning algorithms are used to merge databases together, with the goal of assessing the eligibility of welfare applicants and detecting fraudulent and duplicate beneficiaries in social protection programmes. Read more: amnesty.org |
 | No escape from international human rights scrutiny In March 2020, the Sri Lankan government believed that the massive mandate President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had received gave it a licence to get out of the cycle of UN Human Rights Council resolutions by unilaterally opting out of the process. It announced that it would no longer consider itself bound to implement the resolution in force at that time. It stated its position was “backed by a people’s mandate and is in the interest of Sri Lanka and its people, instead of opting to continue with a framework driven externally that has failed to deliver genuine reconciliation for over four and half years.” However, the government also sought to keep itself within the framework of the UN system. Read more: island.lk |
 | Saudi Arabia: Halt Executions of Child Offenders Saudi Arabia’s court of appeal in April 2024 approved death sentences for two Saudi men for protest-related crimes allegedly committed as children, Human Rights Watch and 26 other organizations said today in a joint statement. Saudi authorities should immediately halt executions for child offenders. Saudi Arabia’s Specialized Appellate Court upheld the death penalty sentences for Yousif al-Manasif and Ali al-Mabyook, for alleged crimes they committed when they were between the ages of 14 and 17 and referred the cases to the Supreme Court for final approval. Read more: hrw.org |
 | Taliban's treatment of women under scrutiny at UN rights meeting Afghanistan's Taliban face criticism over their human rights record at a U.N. meeting on Monday, with Washington accusing them of systematically depriving women and girls of their human rights. However, in an awkward first for the U.N. Human Rights Council, the concerned country's current rulers will not be present because they are not recognised by the global body. Afghanistan will instead be represented by an ambassador appointed by the previous U.S.-backed government, which the Taliban ousted in 2021. Read more: reuters.com |
 | Burkina Faso rejects Human Rights Watch’s report on village massacre as ‘baseless’ “The government of Burkina Faso strongly rejects and condemns such baseless accusations,” Communications Minister Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo said in a statement late on Saturday. “The killings at Nodin and Soro led to the opening of a legal inquiry,” he said. “While this inquiry is underway to establish the facts and identify the authors, HRW has been able, with boundless imagination, to identify ‘the guilty’ and pronounce its verdict”. HRW described the massacre as “among the worst army abuse in Burkina Faso since 2015”. Read more: france24.com |
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