Australia Must Release Refugees Subjected to 'Cruel' Treatment
Arbitrary and indefinite detention of 46 refugees amounts to Òcruel, inhuman and degrading treatmentÓ the United Nations Human Rights Committee has said, calling for their immediate release. The refugees, who have been held in detention for at least two and half years, had been recognized as asylum-seekers who could not return to their homes. However, the Australian Government refused to grant them visas on the grounds that they posed a security risk.

The 46 refugees Ð 42 Tamils from Sri Lanka, three Rohingya from Myanmar and a Kuwaiti Ðwere not told the reasons of why they were considered a security risk, and so could not mount a legal challenge to their indefinite detention.
Read more: < >UN News Centre 23/08/13

Roseline Akhalu Finally Beats Theresa May

Between SSHD Appellant and Roseline Onoshoagbe Akhalu Respondent
10. The appeal came before First-tier Tribunal Judge Saffer on 21 November 2012. Having considered a very large volume of oral and documentary evidence put before him by Mr Toal, the judge found that there would be a breach of the appellant's rights under article 8 and so allowed the appeal.

11. The question for the Upper Tribunal is a very different one from that addressed by the First-tier Tribunal. Our task is to examine the challenge brought by the respondent to that decision of Judge Saffer and to decide whether that challenge has identified any error of law disclosed by the determination that requires his decision to be set aside. Unless that is established there is no basis upon which we may disturb his decision, even if that was not the only outcome possible on the facts.

54. For all these reasons the appeal to the Upper Tribunal is dismissed and the determination of the First-tier Tribunal will stand.

(1) MM (Zimbabwe) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWCA Civ 279 does not establish that a claimant is disqualified from accessing the protection of article 8 where an aspect of her claim is a difficulty or inability to access health care in her country of nationality unless, possibly, her private or family life has a bearing upon her prognosis. The correct approach is not to leave out of account what is, by any view, a material consideration of central importance to the individual concerned but to recognise that the countervailing public interest in removal will outweigh the consequences for the health of the claimant because of a disparity of health care facilities in all but a very few rare cases.

(2) The consequences of removal for the health of a claimant who would not be able to access equivalent health care in their country of nationality as was available in this country are plainly relevant to the question of proportionality. But, when weighed against the public interest in ensuring that the limited resources of this country's health service are used to the best effect for the benefit of those for whom they are intended, those consequences do not weigh heavily in the claimant's favour but speak cogently in support of the public interests in removal.
Download the full judgement from Refworld <>here . . . .

Egypt: Supporters of Morsi turn on Christians in Angry backlash

Scores killed and many wounded as Coptic churches and properties are hit by violent mobs: As hundreds of Islamists were being gunned down on the streets of Cairo during Wednesday's bloodbath, the ugly consequences began to ripple hundreds of miles down river to the towns and cities along Egypt's Nile Valley.

Outraged supporters of toppled President Mohamed Morsi, reacting to the ferocious crackdown launched against protesters camped out in Cairo, started attacking police stations and government institutions in several provinces. Scores were killed and many more wounded. But in a development which does not bode well for an already fractured society, it was the nation's Coptics which bore the brunt of some of the worst violence.

Christians account for an estimated 10 per cent of the country's 85 million population. A former Coptic Pope, Kyrillos VI, once claimed that Egypt's Muslims and Christians were a single people " worshipping the same God in two different ways." Yet following Wednesday's nationwide violence, when churches, Christian-owned businesses and property were attacked by angry mobs, Egypt's Copts appear to be feeling increasingly vulnerable.

Read more: Alastair Beach, <> Indpendent.co.uk, 15/08/2013

Stop Child Labour

Many observers thought that child labour was a thing of the past in Europe. However, there are strong indications that child labour remains a serious problem and that it might be growing in the wake of the economic crisis. Governments need to monitor this situation and to use the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Social Charter as guidance for preventive and remedial action.

Vulnerable people are always disproportionately affected in times of economic down-turn. The link between declining economic growth and increasing child labour is therefore no surprise. With the recession many European countries have drastically cut social aid. As unemployment soars, many families have found no other solution than sending their children to work.

Read more: <>Nils Muiznieks, Commissioner for Human Rights

Court Rules Sudanese Family Can't be Removed To Irish Republic

A journalist who fled Sudan with her three children amid fears they would be killed due to her race and political views has won a legal challenge to being removed from Northern Ireland.

The woman, a non-Arab Darfuri who said she was subjected to genital mutilation aged five, was seeking to avoid being ordered to return to the Republic where they first claimed refugee status.

Quashing a UK Border Agency decision to send them back across the border, a High Court judge in Belfast yesterday ruled that it was in the family's best interests to remain in Northern Ireland.
Read more: <>   Belfast Telegraph, 15/08/13

Militants Kill 44 Worshippers at Nigeria Mosque
Suspected Islamic militants wearing army fatigues gunned down 44 people praying at a mosque in northeast Nigeria, while another 12 civilians died in an apparently simultaneous attack, security agents have said.

Sunday's attacks were the latest in a slew of violence blamed on religious extremists in this West African oil producer, where the radical Boko Haram group, which wants to oust the government and impose Islamic law, poses the greatest security threat in years.

It was not immediately clear why the Islamic Boko Haram would have killed worshipping Muslims, but the group has in the past attacked mosques whose clerics have spoken out against religious extremism. Boko Haram also has attacked Christians outside churches and teachers and schoolchildren, as well as government and military targets. Since 2010, the militants have been blamed for the killings of more than 1,700 people.
Read more:  <> Telegraph, 13/08/13

G4S Condemned for Allowing Prisoner to Die in Agony

A prison complaints body has slammed G4S managed, HMP Birmingham after a terminally-ill convict had to wait until he was 'screaming in agony' before being admitted to hospital.

Nigel Newcomen The Prison Ombudsman criticised escort officers who kept the inmate waiting in handcuffs for 40 minutes while they bought themselves sandwiches at the New Cross Hospital branch of Greggs, Ôin full view of the publicÕ. He also blasted the prison for keeping Mr Dent handcuffed to officers on a long chain for three weeks at the hospital. 'The prison needs to ensure that it appropriately balances security with humanity when making such decisions,' he said.

Mr Newcomen said terminally ill prisoners 'should be treated with greater sensitivity than was accorded to Mr Dent and his family'. He accused the jail of failing to act on recommendations his body had made following two previous inmate cancer deaths. In his report he laid out ten recommendations for improvements at the prison.
Read more: <> Birmingham Mail 14th August 2013