This is the News in Brief from the United Nations
Death sentence for Pakistani lecturer a ‘travesty of justice’: UN rights experts
UN independent human rights experts are urging authorities in Pakistan to overturn the death sentence imposed on a university lecturer accused of blasphemy, calling it a “travesty of justice”.
Junaid Hafeez, 33, was arrested in March 2013 for allegedly making blasphemous remarks during lectures and on his Facebook page.
Mr. Hafeez has been in solitary confinement for the past five years and was sentenced to death last week by a lower court in Multan, where he worked.
The sentence was handed down despite a landmark Supreme Court ruling last year acquitting a Christian woman of blasphemy, known as the Asia Bibi case, which should have set a precedent for lower courts, according to the UN experts.
“In the light of this ruling, the guilty verdict against Mr. Hafeez is a travesty of justice, and we condemn the death sentence imposed on him,” they said in a statement issued on Friday.
The experts urged the superior courts in Pakistan to promptly hear Mr. Hafeez’s appeal, overturn the death sentence and acquit him of the charges.
Rise in migrant children crossing dangerous Colombia-Panama jungle: UNICEF
There has been a six-fold increase in the number of migrant children and adolescents crossing through one of the world’s most dangerous jungles in search of a better life, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reports.
This year 3,540 children and young people transited through the Darien jungle at the border between Colombia and Panama, compared with 522 in 2018.
Furthermore, it is estimated some 500 pregnant women also made the trip.
UNICEF said the migrant population crossing Darien has shifted from mostly men seeking opportunities in Mexico, the United States and Canada, to families with children and pregnant women fleeing poverty, exclusion and conflict.
In 2017, just one per cent of migrants was under the age of 18, jumping to five per cent in 2018, and reaching nearly 16 per cent this year.
“Based on this pattern, it is estimated that for 2020 there will be an increase in the transit of children and adolescents through the Darien, mainly of Haitian families with children holding Chilean or Brazilian nationality,” according to the latest UNICEF Panama Situation Report.
The agency is stepping up action in areas such as water and sanitation, health, nutrition and child protection, to support children and youth as they transit through Panama.
WFP to expand monthly cash assistance programme in Zimbabwe
A cash assistance programme supporting people in the poorest urban area in Zimbabwe will be expanded next year, the World Food Programme (WFP) has announced.
The UN agency said severe drought, economic downturn and the impact of Cyclone Idai pushed roughly eight million Zimbabweans into severe hunger this year, more than two million of whom live in urban areas.
Since June, some 19,000 residents of Epworth, a sub-urban district in the capital, Harare, have received monthly cash transfers through a WFP pilot project funded by the United Kingdom and the European Union.
WFP recently completed its last cash distribution for 2019 and plans to expand the programme across eight districts nationwide next year.
The goal is to provide cash assistance to around 200,000 people in Zimbabwe, but WFP currently has enough funding to support half this number.
Dianne Penn, UN News.
