UN Human Rights

A rise in insurgent attacks has led to a 31 per cent increase in the number of civilians killed in Afghanistan in the first six months of 2010 compared with the same period in 2009, the United Nations said in a new report released today.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged the world to step up efforts to improve living conditions of the planet's indigenous communities and to protect them, saying they continued to suffer discrimination and poverty despite a United Nations declaration that aims to promote their rights.

Addressing human rights issues and ensuring accountability for abuses is vital for the peace process in Nepal, which is trying to rebuild after a decade-long civil war, a senior United Nations official said today.

The economic empowerment of the world's poorest people will not happen unless their human rights are also considered, a senior United Nations official said today, urging governments around the world not to separate development and basic rights when devising policy.

A United Nations expert today welcomed the General Assembly's declaration this week that safe and clean drinking water is a human right, calling it a "landmark resolution" that sends an important signal to the world.

Safe and clean drinking water and sanitation is a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights, the General Assembly declared today, voicing deep concern that almost 900 million people worldwide do not have access to clean water.

The United Nations today underscored the need for all parties to the conflict in Afghanistan to ensure the protection of civilians, following reports of a large number of civilian deaths and injuries during a recent incident in the southern province of Helmand.

The United Nations group of independent experts on the use of mercenaries says it will present a proposal for a possible international convention to regulate activities of private military and security firms during its five-day meeting at the UN Headquarters in New York this week.

Migrants continue to endure multiple forms of discrimination, exploitation and other violations of human rights, a senior United Nations official has said, calling for their protection and social inclusion in communities where they live.

As "troubling" inequalities persist between Maori and non-Maori, New Zealand must press ahead with efforts to improve the human rights of its indigenous people, a United Nations independent expert said today.

The United Nations Human Rights Council today announced the names of the three experts who will serve on a fact-finding mission to investigative violations of international law resulting from Israel's interception of a flotilla of aid ships bound for the Gaza Strip, which led to the deaths of nine civilians.

The United Nations human rights office in Nepal today said that it has been assured by local Government officials that two landmark verdicts on cases involving caste-based discrimination will be swiftly enforced.

Despite Viet Nam's progress in boosting economic growth and reducing poverty, the country's ethnic minorities continue to remain the poorest of the poor, says a United Nations human rights expert, adding that bilingual education could play a major role in redressing this situation.

While welcoming United States efforts to close the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, two independent United Nations human rights experts have called on the Government to ensure that it does not forcibly transfer anyone to another State where the person could be subject to torture.

Security forces in southern Kyrgyzstan are responsible for human rights violations, ranging from arbitrary detention to torture, threatening the fragile peace in the area six weeks after it was rocked by deadly inter-ethnic violence, a top United Nations official said today.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called on Cuban authorities to take more reconciliatory measures on human rights and the rule of law in the wake of the recent release of dozens of political detainees in the Caribbean island nation.

The protection of 200,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) is an integral element of the peace-building process in the Central African Republic (CAR), a United Nations human rights expert said today following a week-long visit to the country.

The United Nations human rights representative in Nepal today underscored the importance of respecting the professional freedoms of lawyers and human rights defenders in a meeting with Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal, known as Prachanda.

An independent United Nations human rights expert has urged the Government of Ecuador to tackle the high level of impunity for killings in the South American nation, which is compounded by allegations of corruption at many levels.

United Nations human rights experts today called for ensuring that measures to protect the rights of people affected by humanitarian emergencies are integrated in all stages of the response effort.