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 undersigned organisations have been following recent developments in the cases of human rights lawyers Ebru Timtik and Aytaç Ünsal, who have been on hunger strike since February 2020. On 5 April 2020, the Turkish Day of the Lawyer, Timtik and Ünsal announced that they would persist in their hunger strike even if it leads...
The Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales (“BHRC”) has called on the King of Bahrain to suspend or commute the death sentences of Mohamed Ramadan and Husain Ali Moosa in an open letter sent today. Mr Ramadan and Mr Moosa were convicted of carrying out a 2014 bombing in Bahrain. Both men allege...
The Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales (BHRC) is deeply concerned at the news this morning that the national security law in Hong Kong has been passed unanimously by the National People’s Congress in Beijing, without either meaningful consultation on the law or without its advance publication. The details or text of the...
The Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales (“BHRC”) expresses its deep concern at the decision of the President of the United States to issue an Executive Order of 11 June 2020 (“the Order”). That Order declares that any attempt by the ICC to investigate or prosecute United States nationals, and the nationals of...
The Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales (BHRC) has today written to the UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, to raise grave concerns regarding the expressed intention of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to move towards the unilateral annexation of large areas in the West Bank on or after 1 July 2020. The...
The Bar Council and the Bar Human Rights Committee have written to the Polish President and Prime Minister, and Marshals of the Senate and Sejm ahead of a scheduled hearing of a motion filed by the National Prosecution Office to the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court to waive the immunity of Judge Igor Tuleya. On 8...
Protests in Indianapolis, IN, USA.Photo by Hybrid on Unsplash BHRC expresses condemnation at the excessive use of force deployed by State law enforcement officers in the United States in response to mass protests taking place across the country following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers on 25 May 2020....
The Bar Human Rights Committee has joined a coalition of ten legal organisations in a joint letter to the President of Turkey expressing concern about criminal investigations launched in Turkey against the Ankara Bar Association and the Diyarbakir Bar Association for “openly disrespect the religious belief of a group” (article 126(3) of the Penal...
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.