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As part of his support for President Vladimir Putin’s war effort in Ukraine, President Lukashenko held a sham referendum on 27 February to allow Russian nuclear missiles on Belarusian territory. This sparked mass protests in the streets of the capital Minsk and elsewhere, with people chanting ‘No to war!’ ‘Glory to Ukraine!’ and ‘Long live Belarus!’…
Continue reading Opposition in Belarus to the War in Ukraine
OpenDemocracy and the Public Sociology Laboratory, an independent research initiative, carried out more than 200 in-depth interviews with Russians since 27 February. The people sampled tended to be educated and from large cities. The research showed that within this sample attitudes to the war split into three broad camps: supporters, opponents and, the largest group, the doubters.…
Continue reading Russians’ Views of the War in Ukraine
Good News Britain Former Iran detainee Anoosheh Ashoori ran the London Marathon in his Evin prisoner’s uniform on 2 October. He ran for hours each day in his cell hoping one day he would run the marathon as a free man. He dedicated his medal to the women of Iran, political prisoners and the freedom…
Continue reading Good and Bad News Update – Britain October 2022
Good News Europe Ukraine Railways and Doctors without Borders have created an ambulance train to carry patients from cities close to hostilities to hospitals some 1,000km away. So far they have carried over 650 patients. LGBTQ+ activists have set up shelters across Ukraine to help those who may need mental or physical support. The president…
Continue reading Good and Bad News Update – Europe October 2022
Good News World Research by Amnesty International which included 17,000 fans from 15 countries found that almost three quarters were in favour of compensating migrant workers who suffered abuses while working in Qatar in preparation for the football World Cup. Only ten per cent opposed this. The Australian government has promised to review the current…
Continue reading Good and Bad News Update – World October 2022
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region The outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, released her long-awaited 48-page report on the Uyghur Region on 31 August. She concluded that China has committed ‘serious human rights violations’ in the application of its…
Continue reading Focus on Uyghur and Other Ethnic Minorities in Xinjiang
Annually, around 50mn people are forced from their homes by conflict and disaster. This book contains 11 short essays, each introducing a sequence of poems. The book is in two halves. The first revolves around migration in the natural world: birds’ migration follows a yearly pattern, for instance, with ‘homes’ or nests created in different places. …
Continue reading Worth Reading: We Are All from Somewhere Else. Migration and Survival in Poetry and Prose by Ruth Padel
Life and Death Row This 20-episode BBC documentary series tells the story of capital punishment through the eyes of young people whose lives have been shaped or ended by it in the USA. Covering the crimes committed, experiences of family and community violence, and long legal battles, the series shows how youngsters on death row…
Continue reading Worth Watching
Amnesty International’s Report: They Don’t Treat us Like Humans – Unlawful Returns of Afghans from Turkey and Iran According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 180,000 Afghans in need of international protection have arrived in neighbouring countries since 1 January 2021, but there are considerably more left behind. This report presents Amnesty’s…
Continue reading Focus on Afghanistan
The legal challenge against the deportation of refugees and asylum seekers to Rwanda is currently being heard in the High Court. The government is relying on the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc.) Act 2004 which gives ministers the power to send asylum seekers to safe countries. Their QC, referring to the Refugee Convention…
Continue reading Deporting Refugees and Asylum Seekers to Rwanda