As the trial opens for Amnesty Turkey Director İdil Eser and the other human rights defenders known as the Istanbul 10, BHRC reiterates its condemnation of their continued detention and calls for their release. The Istanbul 10 were arrested on 5 July 2017 and accused of “committing crimes as part of a terrorist organisation without being...
BHRC, with the Bar Council and Law Society, have signed an open letter to the President of Tanzania condemning the violence against lawyers in Tanzania. The letter comes in the wake of the shooting of Tundu Antiphas Mughwai Lissu, the President of the Tanganyika Law Society, just weeks after being arrested by Tanzanian officials under questionable circumstances....
BHRC has released a statement of concern for Tundo Lissu, the president of the Tanganyika Law Society. Tundu Lissu was arrested on 20th July 2017 at the Julius Nyerere International airport in Dar es Salaam, when he was on his way to Kigali, Rwanda to represent the TLS at the East African Civil Society Governing...
BHRC has published a statement raising serious concern over the continued detention of human rights defenders in China and their inability to access defence lawyers of their choosing, particularly Wang Quanzhang, the longest-detained lawyer of the 709 Crackdown, and Wu Gang, an administrative assistant and human rights advocate whose trial is scheduled to begin today. Wang Quanzhang...
A joint letter signed by the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales and the Bar Council of England and Wales has been sent to the President of Zimbabwe calling for him to veto a Bill proposing changes to judicial appointments that would threaten the independence of the judiciary and undermine the rule of...
Today is the third anniversary of the massacre at Mount Sinjar where ISIS fighters murdered thousands of Yazidi men and enslaved thousands of Yazidi women and girls. Despite the fact that the UN and the European Parliament have accepted that crimes committed against the Yazidis constitute genocide, there has not been a single prosecution of...
21 July 2017 (updated 24 July 2017) BHRC has sent a letter to the President of Poland and released a Statement of Concern to the British Ambassador in Poland, raising serious concern over proposed changes to the Polish judiciary. The changes would give the Polish government substantial influence over the appointment of judges, eroding the independence of...
BHRC has sent an open letter to the Minister of Justice in Turkey calling for the release Amnesty Turkey director Idel Eser and the “Istanbul 10”. On 5 July, 10 human rights defenders, including the director of Amnesty Turkey Idel Eser, were arrested and accused of ‘committing crimes as part of a terrorist organisation without...
The Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales has issued a formal statement expressing serious concern over the Russian Supreme Court’s recent ban on Jehovah’s Witnesses. On 20 April 2017, Russia’s Supreme Court upheld an application by Russia’s Ministry of Justice to declare the Jehovah’s Witnesses Administrative Center an extremist organisation and to ban its...
After 1156 days on pre-trial detention, Aya Hegazy will have to wait a further 3 weeks to learn her fate, along with her co-defendants in the Belady Foundation trial in Cairo. The judge had previously indicated that he was ready to deliver his verdict on 23 March 2017. Instead, and without giving any reasons, he...
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.