An international panel of human rights experts called today for the immediate release of political prisoners and detainees in war-ravaged Yemen to help avert a nationwide outbreak of COVID-19.
The “excessive use” of solitary confinement by the prison service in the US state of Connecticut, prompted an independent UN human rights expert to voice alarm on Friday.
Despite repeated calls, Iran continues to deny medical treatment to detainees in what amounts to “a consistent pattern”, according to eight UN human rights experts, in a statement on Wednesday.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed today the decision by the United States Government to release 6,000 inmates from federal penitentiaries in an effort to ease overcrowding in prisons and provide a degree of redress for persons who received disproportionately long sentences for non-violent drug-related offences.
With over 10 million people in prisons worldwide, prison overcrowding has reached epidemic proportions in many countries, a senior official from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said today at the 13th UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.
A United Nations human rights panel said today that Argentine authorities failed to ensure that a prisoner with disabilities was able to use prison facilities and services on an equal basis with other detainees, and urged them to take steps to rectify the situation.
The United Nations human rights office has called on Mexican authorities to conduct a thorough and independent investigation into the killing over the weekend of 44 inmates at a prison in the country’s north, apparently by members of an organized criminal group.
The United Nations human rights chief today spoke out against the failure by the United States to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and to ensure accountability for serious violations – including torture – that took place there.
Some 10 million detainees around the world are held in appalling conditions and stronger measures are needed to improve prison conditions and ensure full respect for human rights, according to a United Nations expert on torture.
Ineffective judicial systems are leading to prison overcrowding in countries with United Nations peacekeeping operations and can obstruct these blue helmet missions, senior officials have told a Department of Peacekeeping (DPKO) meeting in New York.
