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Good News World The Taliban have begun a campaign to eradicate poppy cultivation, aiming to wipe out the country’s production of opium and heroin. Afghanistan is the world’s biggest opium producer and a major source for heroin in Europe and Asia. The ban will, however, affect the livelihoods of many farmers and day labourers who…
Continue reading Good and Bad News around the World – July Update
Good News Europe The Nobel Peace Prize auctioned off by Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov to raise money for Ukrainian child refugees was sold for £84.4mn. Bomb-disposal experts are clearing landmines from farms in Ukraine and the Halo Trust is training more women detectors to replace the men in Ukraine who have been conscripted. Belgium is…
Continue reading Good News and Bad News in Europe – July Update
Good News Britain Peter Jouvenal, who featured in our Action Links in June, has now been freed by the Taliban along with the four other British nationals they held for more than six months. They have all now left Afghanistan. The government has announced that it will waive the £1,012 child citizenship fee for children…
Continue reading Good and Bad News in Britain – July Update
Jagtar Singh Johal is a young Scotsman facing the death penalty in India. He had translated for an activist website called neverforget84 which refers to Indian troops storming the Golden Temple at Amritsar, Sikhism’s holiest site. In October 2017, Jagtar travelled to India to get married. Just two weeks later, he was abducted off the…
Continue reading Scotsman Facing Death Penalty in India
Abortion in the USA The Supreme Court decided on 24 June to overturn (by six votes to three) the 1973 decision in Roe vs Wade which had held that the Constitution generally protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to have an abortion. The Court has now ruled that the Constitution ‘does not confer the right to…
Continue reading Abortion Rights
Just days after the shooting and killing of 21 people, mainly children, in Uvalde, America’s National Rifle Association (NRA) held its convention boasting 14 acres of the latest weapons. Although its membership has declined since 2018, it spent £23mn on the elections in 2020. New organisations are springing up which take an even harder line…
Continue reading The Right to Bear Arms?
According to multiple interviews conducted by Amnesty researchers with returnees or their relatives, Syrian intelligence officers have subjected women, children and men returning to Syria to unlawful or arbitrary detention, torture and other ill-treatment including rape and sexual violence, and enforced disappearance. These violations have been a direct consequence of their perceived affiliation with the…
Continue reading Amnesty International’s Report ‘You’re Going to Your Death’
The following sections provide more information about the proposals to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, with the government committed to scheduling another flight. It intends to issue more removal notices than seats in the plane in the hope that it can take off with some people on board. Numbers 28,000 migrants and refugees crossed the…
Continue reading Asylum Seekers and Deportations to Rwanda
British Courts: A judicial review on the government’s policy to send refugees to Rwanda will take place in July. In the meantime, numerous organisations applied for injunctions to block the first flight, due to take off on 14 June, including the Public and Commercial Services Union, Care4Calais and Detention Action. In rejecting the application for…
Continue reading The Flight that Did Not Take Place
In August 2021, the UK government promised ‘to do right by Afghans’. Almost a year later, Afghans without safe passage to the UK are the largest national group of asylum seekers arriving on small boats. More than 1,000 arrived in the UK between January and March 2022, strong evidence of insufficient safe and legal routes…
Continue reading Afghans Left Behind