Latest news with #humanrights
Reuters
3 hours ago
- Politics
- Reuters
Tens of thousands expected to attend Budapest Pride in defiance of ban
BUDAPEST, June 28 (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of LGBTQ+ rights supporters are expected to attend the Budapest Pride march on Saturday, defying a police ban as the event has become a symbol of the years-long struggle between Hungary's nationalist government and civil society. Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government has gradually curtailed the rights of the LGBTQ+ community in the past decade, and its lawmakers passed a law in March that allows for the ban of Pride, citing the need to protect children. Opponents see the move as part of a wider crackdown on democratic freedoms ahead of a general election next year when Orban will face a strong opposition challenger. Organizers said they expect tens of thousands to attend, with participants arriving from 30 different countries, including European Commissioner for Equality Hadja Lahbib and about 70 members of the European Parliament. More than 30 embassies have expressed support for the march and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called on Hungarian authorities to let the parade go ahead. Seventy Hungarian civil society groups, including the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, Transparency International Hungary and the Hungarian Helsinki Commission, published an open letter on Friday in support of the march, saying the law that led to the police ban "serves to intimidate the entire society". Budapest mayor Gergely Karacsony tried to circumvent the law by organising the march as a municipal event, which he said does not need a permit. Police however banned the event, arguing that it fell under the scope of the child protection law. Orban, whose government promotes a Christian-conservative agenda, provided some clues on Friday about what participants can expect when he warned of "legal consequences" for organising and attending the march. Earlier this week Justice Minister Bence Tuzson warned in a letter sent to some foreign embassies in Budapest that organising a prohibited event is punishable by one year in jail, while attending counts as a misdemeanour. The law that allows for the ban of Pride lets police impose fines and use facial recognition cameras to identify people who attend. When asked about the threat of a one-year jail term, Karacsony said at a press briefing on Friday that such a sentence would only boost his popularity. "But I cannot take it seriously," he said. Making the march a key topic of political discourse has allowed the Orban government to take the initiative back from the opposition and mobilise its voter base, said Zoltan Novak, an analyst at the Centre for Fair Political Analysis think tank. "In the past 15 years, Fidesz decided what topics dominated the political world," he said, noting that this has become more difficult as Orban's party has faced an increasing challenge from centre-right opposition leader Peter Magyar's Tisza party, which has a 15-point lead over Orban's Fidesz in a recent poll. Tisza, which has been avoiding taking a strong position on gay rights issues, did not specify in response to Reuters questions whether it believed the Pride march was lawful, but said those attending deserved the state's protection. "Peter Magyar has called on the Hungarian authorities and police to protect the Hungarian people this Saturday, and on other days as well, even if it means standing up against the arbitrariness of power," its press office said. Magyar himself would not attend.
CTV News
4 hours ago
- Politics
- CTV News
Bangladeshi woman may secure status in Canada as a victim of crime, Sask. court hears
WATCH: We're learning more about what drove three political officials and a Saskatchewan immigration worker to intervene in an alleged case of human trafficking
Al Arabiya
7 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
Prosecutors in Jalisco, Mexico say they found 34 bodies in a mass grave
Prosecutors in the western Mexican state of Jalisco said Friday that investigators have found at least 34 bodies in a mass grave discovered earlier this year. Human remains packed into 169 bags were discovered during excavations at a construction site in the city of Zapopan in February. Construction teams alerted authorities, who launched a forensic investigation. After months of work at the site, forensic experts reported identifying at least 17 bodies and continue working to identify additional victims and analyze the scene. The gruesome discovery has once again drawn attention to Jalisco, which in March became the center of controversy after collectives searching for missing people found human remains and hundreds of clothing items in a ranch once used by the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel for recruiting and training members. To date, some 15 people have been arrested in connection with the case, including the mayor of Teuchitlán, who was detained last month. The Rancho Izaguirre case sent chills down the spines of many Mexicans, who for years have endured soaring levels of cartel violence and the forced disappearance of more than 125,000 people. Families searching for their missing loved ones say that discoveries of such sites underscore the depth of violence and impunity in violence-torn regions like Jalisco. The discovery of the mass grave in Zapopan prompted calls from victims' families and human rights advocates for authorities to better investigate the scene and funnel more resources into the search for missing people.
Bloomberg
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Why Is Trump Deporting Migrants to ‘Third Countries'?
President Donald Trump's crackdown on undocumented immigrants has raised concerns about one of his controversial deportation methods: sending noncitizens to countries other than their own — like South Sudan or Libya — with little notice. A sharply divided US Supreme Court on June 23 temporarily cleared the way for the government to resume deportations to so-called third countries. That decision paused a lower court's order requiring deportees get 10 days' notice of their removal and a chance to argue they would be at risk of persecution or torture in the country they would be sent to.
The National
10 hours ago
- Politics
- The National
UN commission says Syria must end violence against Alawites and protect places of worship
The head of a UN investigative commission on Friday called commitments made by the new authorities in Syria to protect the rights of minorities 'encouraging' but said attacks have continued on members of the Alawite sect in the months since a major outbreak of sectarian violence on Syria's coast. Paulo Pinheiro, the head of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria, told a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that the current Syrian government – led by Islamist former insurgents who ousted former Syrian president Bashar Al Assad – had given his team 'unfettered access' to the coast and to witnesses of the violence and victims' families. 'Disturbingly, reports continue to circulate of continuing killings and arbitrary arrests of members of the Alawite community, as well as the confiscation of the property of those who fled the March violence,' he said. Mr Pinheiro's commission also 'documented abductions by unknown individuals of at least six Alawite women this spring in several Syrian governorates', two of whom remain missing, and has received 'credible reports of more abductions', he said. He also called on authorities to put in place more protections for places of worship after Sunday's suicide bombing attack on a church outside of Damascus. The attack, which killed at least 25 people and wounded dozens more, was the first of its kind to take place in the Syrian capital in years. The Syrian government has said that the perpetrators belonged to an ISIS cell and that they thwarted a subsequent attempt to target a Shiite shrine in the Sayyida Zeinab suburb in Damascus. 'Attacks on places of worship are outrageous and unacceptable,' Mr Pinheiro said. 'The authorities must ensure the protection of places of worship and threatened communities and ensure that perpetrators and enablers are held accountable.' Mr Al Assad was deposed in a lightning rebel offensive in December, bringing an end to a nearly 14-year civil war. In March, hundreds of civilians, most of them from the Alawite minority to which Mr Al Assad belongs, were killed in revenge attacks after clashes broke out between pro-Assad armed groups and the new government security forces on the Syrian coast. Mr Pinheiro said his commission had documented scattered 'revenge attacks' that happened before that, including killings in several villages in Hama and Homs provinces in late January in which men who had handed over their weapons under a 'settlement' process set up for former soldiers and members of security forces under Assad, believing that they would be granted an amnesty in exchange for disarmament, were then 'ill-treated and executed". He praised the interim government's formation of a body tasked with investigating the attacks on the coast and said government officials had told his team that 'dozens of alleged perpetrators' were arrested. Mr Pinheiro said the government needs to carry out a 'reform and vetting programme' as it integrates a patchwork of former rebel factions into a new army and security services and enact 'concrete policies to put an end to Syria's entrenched cycles of violence and revenge, in a context where heightened tensions and sectarian divisions have been reignited".
