Human Rights

Thousands of people have attended the candle-light vigil in Victoria Park to commemorate those who died during the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square 23 years ago. Organisers said more than 180,000 people were there, although police put the figure at 85,000. brought to our attention by Pete Spurrier, (from RTHK report).

On May 25th at around 11:30 a lawsuit was submitted to the Superior Court by the FEUQ and the FECQ to enable students to receive instruction from the institutions they attend, or the special law, deemed null and void immediately. This action is a temporary measure to avoid irreperable damages while the case is brought through the standard legal venues.

Reports Without Borders strongly condemns the arrest by Israeli troops on 17 May in the West Bank of Baha Khairi Attalah Mousa, the director of the Palestinian Prisoner Channel, a satellite television station for Palestinian prisoners. The soldiers also seized broadcasting equipment, computers, video cameras and documents.

World Health Organisation releases groundbreaking report condemning ’conversion’ therapies. We reproduce here a Press Release from [IDAHO](http://www.dayagainsthomophobia.org/Media-Release-World-Health,1557) regarding today’s statment by the WHO on a form of violence against homosexuals based on unproven and harmful “therapeutic” interventions.

Statement issued by People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) May 16, 2012 was an urgent clarification that the peaceful organisation was not party to any bomb threat but sees that allegation as a ploy by the local authorities to stifle further sit-ins and civil disobedience. There were reports in the media that KKNPP received three letters threatening bomb attacks.

In Quebec there are more than 200,000 students on strike – they are on strike saying that the student fee increase is stopping a lot of them access to college and university education. The students have been on strike for four months. The response of the Quebec government was to this day take Law-78 onto its books, to break the student union and to break the student’s strike.

After deadly clashes on 2 May near the defence ministry, thousands of Egyptians took to the streets of Cairo and Alexandria two days later to protest against the army’s hold on power.

This is the fifth such killing if a journalist this year in Somalia – as reported by Reporters Without Borders. Radio journalist Farhan James Abdulle was murdered 2nd May, in the evening, near the Galkayo capital of the north-central region of Mudug. Two unidentified individuals shot him several times in the street as he was returning to his home in the village of Garsor.

Dr Volker Jung, President, Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau, welcomes the co-operation between his church and the Green Crescent organisation and says that it is part of Evangelical understanding of the Christian faith that Protestants should be open to others. Pressenza retells his Internet posted story – copyright © Qantara.de 2012.

A senior UN official has strongly condemned the reported acts of sexual violence committed against Malian women and girls amid renewed fighting. Allegations include “abductions, public rapes and subjecting women and girls to acts of sexual violence in front of family members”.