An open letter to: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, UN Member States We, the undersigned organizations, join together to call for an international mechanism to address the Chinese government’s human rights violations, and urge you to take decisive action to achieve this goal. On 26 June 2020, an...
The Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales (BHRC) condemns the designation and imposition of economic sanctions by the United States on the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda and Head of the Court’s Jurisdiction, Complementarity and Cooperation Division, Phakiso Mochochoko. BHRC further condemns the announcement of measures to restrict the issuance of...
The Bar Human Rights Committee has written a joint letter to UN Special Rapporteurs and Inter-American Rapporteurs in response to recent threats received by lawyer Reinaldo Villalba Vargas and his legal team. The Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales, along with The Law Society of England and Wales, Lawyers for Lawyers, Lawyers’ Rights...
For 26 years Alexandr Lukashenko has been widely referred to as “the last dictator of Europe”. Belarus, under Lukashenko’s tenure, is not a democratic society. As with all totalitarian regimes, power resides in Presidential authority. There is no meaningful accountability. Human rights are neither universal nor accessible. Periodically, there is a vote for the President....
(Beirut, August 28, 2020) – On 25 August 2020, the Fifth “Terrorism Circuit” of the Cairo Criminal Court sentenced Bahey eldin Hassan, a veteran human rights defender, to 15 years in prison on the basis of his critical tweets, 18 human rights organizations said today. The conviction of Bahey eldin Hassan, director and co-founder of...
The Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales (“BHRC”) expresses grave concern about the deteriorating human rights situation in Zimbabwe. BHRC are particularly concerned by a number of reports of the arrest, detention and intimidation of opposition party activists, lawyers and journalists. Further, there appears to be a clear pattern of systematic and targeted...
The Bar Council of England and Wales (“The Bar Council”) and the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales (“BHRC”) condemn the Zimbabwean Magistrate’s ruling on 18 August 2020 against Beatrice Mtetwa, a renowned human rights lawyer. We urgently call upon Magistrate Nduna –the ruling Magistrate in the case– to immediately revoke the judgment...
The Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales (“BHRC”) has raised concerns regarding the prosecution and judicial harassment of a number of lawyers and human rights defenders in Bahrain in a letter to the King sent today. The letter follows the recent conviction and sentencing of human rights lawyer Abdullah Al-Shamlawi on 30 June...
The Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales (“BHRC”) and Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada (“LRWC”) condemn the mass arrests, violence and excessive use of force against peaceful protesters in Belarus following the contested preliminary results of the presidential election on Sunday 9 August 2020. The USA, UK and the EU have refused to accept...
On Friday 14th August senior human rights lawyer Prashant Bhushan was convicted of criminal contempt of court by the Supreme Court of India. In publishing two tweets relating to the Chief Justice of India and the role of the Supreme Court in the last six years, on his Twitter feed, he was found to have...
The Bar Human Rights Committee is the independent,
international human rights arm of the Bar of England
and Wales, dedicated to promoting justice and respect
for human rights through the rule of law.