17 Jun 2011 | Index Index, minipost
Human rights activist, Mikita Likhavid, is being tortured in prison according to claims made by the Belarus opposition group Youth Front. In March Likhavid, a member of the Za Svabodu (For Liberty) movement, was sentenced to three and a half years for participating in a rally held to protest President Alexander Lukashenko’s reelection last December. According to Youth Front, Likhavid has been held in solitary confinement four times in the last 40 days, an action which is considered torture by international standards.
14 Jun 2011 | Index Index, minipost
At least 50 anti-government protesters were jailed in Bangladesh yesterday after the authorities broke up the second general strike staged this month. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Islamic fundamentalist group, Jamaat-e-Islami, are oppposing the planned abolition of a law which requires the government to hand over power to a neutral party for polling once their administration is over. Protesters observing the 36-hour strike have been jailed for up to a month for “creating public disturbance” in the capital, Dhaka.
14 Jun 2011 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Twenty-year-old student, Ayat al-Gormezi, who recited poems critical of Bahrain’s rulers at a Shia-led protest in Pearl Square has been sentenced to a year in prison. In the lead up to her trial she claimed that she was beaten in prison and she has now been convicted of charges which include inciting hatred. One verse of the poem, addressed directly to King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, read: “We are the people who will kill humiliation and assassinate misery. Don’t you hear their cries?” According to her mother, Sada al-Qurmezi, an appeal is planned.
9 Jun 2011 | News and features
For almost 20 years, artist MF Husain was threatened and his work abused. Salil Tripathi says goodbye to a controversial and spell-binding master (more…)
