Toll from Monday's anti-government protests in Kenya rises to 31: Rights commission
The KNCHR also reported two forced disappearances in the wake of the marches commemorating a 1990 uprising against autocratic rule.
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Arab News
4 hours ago
- Arab News
Tunisian jailed after refusing to watch president on TV: lawyer
TUNIS: A Tunisian inmate was sentenced to six months in prison after he was reported to authorities for refusing to watch a TV news segment about President Kais Saied, his lawyer and an NGO said Friday. The inmate's lawyer, Adel Sghaier, said his client was initially prosecuted under Article 67 of the penal code, which covers crimes against the head of state, but the charge was later revised to violating public decency to avoid giving the case a 'political' dimension. The local branch of the Tunisian League for Human Rights in the central town of Gafsa said that the inmate had 'expressed his refusal to watch (coverage of) presidential activities' during a news broadcast that was playing on TV in his cell. He was reported by a cellmate, investigated and later sentenced to six months behind bars, the NGO said, condemning what it called a 'policy of gagging voices that even extends to prisoners in their cells.' Sghaier said his client had been held over an unrelated case that was ultimately dismissed, and that his family only learnt of his other sentence when he wasn't freed as expected. He acknowledged that his client voiced insults and demanded the channel be changed when Saied's image appeared on TV, explaining the man blamed the president for 'ruining his life' by striking a deal with Italy for the deportation of irregular Tunisian immigrants. The man had himself been deported from Italy, where he had been living without documentation. A spokesman for the court in Gafsa could not be reached for comment. Saied, elected in 2019, has ruled Tunisia by decree since a 2021 power grab, with local and international organizations decrying a decline in freedoms in the country considered the cradle of the 'Arab Spring.'
Al Arabiya
5 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
Boeing settles with a man whose family died in a 737 max crash in ethiopia
Boeing reached a settlement Friday with a Canadian man whose wife and three children were killed in a deadly 2019 crash in Ethiopia, averting the first trial connected to the devastating event that led to a worldwide grounding of Max jets. The jury trial at Chicago's federal court had been set to start Monday to determine damages for Paul Njoroge of Canada. His family was heading to their native Kenya in March 2019 aboard Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 when it malfunctioned and plummeted to the ground. The devastating wreck killed all 157 people on board. Njoroge, 41, had planned to testify about how the crash affected his life. He has been unable to return to his family home in Toronto because the memories are too painful. He hasn't been able to find a job. And he has weathered criticism from relatives for not traveling alongside his wife and children. 'He's got complicated grief and sorrow and his own emotional stress,' said Njoroge's attorney, Robert Clifford. 'He's haunted by nightmares and the loss of his wife and children.' Clifford said his client intended to seek millions in damages on behalf of his wife and children but declined to publicly specify an amount ahead of the trial. Terms of the deal were not disclosed publicly. The proceedings were not expected to delve into technicalities involving the Max version of Boeing's bestselling 737 airplane, which has been the source of persistent troubles for the company since the Ethiopia crash and one the year before in Indonesia. A combined 346 people, including passengers and crew members, died in those crashes. In 2021, Chicago-based Boeing accepted responsibility for the Ethiopia crash in a deal with the victims' families that allowed them to pursue individual claims in US courts instead of their home countries. Citizens of 35 countries were killed. Several families of victims have already settled. Terms of those agreements also were not made public. The jetliner heading to Nairobi lost control shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport and nose-dived into a barren patch of land. Investigators determined the Ethiopia and Indonesia crashes were caused by a system that relied on a sensor that provided faulty readings and pushed the plane's noses down, leaving pilots unable to regain control. After the Ethiopia crash, Max jets were grounded worldwide until the company redesigned the system. This year, Boeing reached a deal with the Justice Department to avoid criminal prosecutions in both crashes. Among the dead were Njoroge's wife, Carolyne, and three small children: Ryan, age 6; Kellie, 4; and Rubi, 9 months old—the youngest to die on the plane. Njoroge also lost his mother-in-law, whose family has a separate case. Njoroge, who met his wife in college in Nairobi, was living in Canada at the time of the crash. He had planned to join his family in Kenya later. He testified before Congress in 2019 about repeatedly imagining how his family suffered during the flight, which lasted only six minutes. He has pictured his wife struggling to hold their infant in her lap with two other children seated nearby. 'I stay up nights thinking of the horror that they must have endured,' Njoroge said. 'The six minutes will forever be embedded in my mind. I was not there to help them. I couldn't save them.'
Arab News
9 hours ago
- Arab News
Pakistan's top judicial body sets up committee to examine enforced disappearances
KARACHI: Pakistan's top judicial policy-making forum has set up a body to examine the issue of enforced disappearances, an official statement said on Friday, in a move to address one of the country's most persistent human rights challenges. The decision came during the 53rd meeting of the National Judicial (Policy Making) Committee (NJPMC), chaired by Chief Justice of Pakistan Yahya Afridi and attended by top judges of all high courts and the additional attorney general in Islamabad. Enforced disappearances have long been a contentious issue in Pakistan, particularly in regions like Balochistan, where families of missing persons and human rights groups accuse state institutions of arbitrary detentions and extrajudicial killings. Pakistani authorities have frequently rejected these claims as 'baseless allegations.' 'The NJPMC took serious notice of the enforced disappearances and unanimously resolved that the judiciary would not compromise on its constitutional duty to safeguard fundamental rights,' said the statement circulated by the Supreme Court after the meeting. 'A dedicated committee was constituted to formulate an institutional response, after taking into consideration concerns of the Executive, to be communicated through the Attorney General for Pakistan,' it added. The statement said the forum deliberated on 'key policy issues and adopted several significant measures to improve judicial performance, technology integration in judicial processes and citizen-centric justice delivery.' Successive Pakistani governments have promised to look into the issue of enforced disappearances in the country and even set up a commission in 2011 to trace missing persons and fix responsibility for any wrongdoing. However, rights groups and activists say the issue continues to persist. The top judicial forum also acknowledged the growing presence of artificial intelligence in legal systems during the meeting and initiated work on a framework for its responsible use. 'The ethical and policy implications of using generative AI in judicial functions were discussed,' the statement said, adding the National Judicial Automation Committee (NJAC) had been tasked to 'finalize a comprehensive charter on ethical use of AI in this regard.' While several judicial systems around the world — including in the United States and the European Union — have begun exploring AI for research and case management, concerns persist over transparency, bias, and the potential erosion of human judgment in legal decision-making.
