Category Archives: Civil Rights

This is a guest post by Nada Mustafa Ali

Tomorrow, the heads of State and Government and other senior officials from countries that are members in the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR)―a regional body that includes Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia―will meet in Lusaka, the Capital of Zambia, to discuss measures to curb the illegal use of natural resources, which often fuel conflicts in the region, leading to immense human suffering, including sexual and other forms of gender-based violence against women and girls.

Today, in Khartoum, the government’s security arrested forty-six women and six men who participated in a peaceful demonstration in Khartoum, to protest the flogging of women under various articles of Sudan’s Criminal Act 1991, and Sudan’s Public Order regime which discriminates against women. A press release by Sudan’s police (in Arabic) indicated that the demonstrators were arrested in accordance with Articles 68 and 69 of Sudan’s Criminal law. These articles cover ‘public disturbance’ offences such as illegal assembly and riots against the state. The arrests are unconstitutional, as Sudan’s Interim National Constitution guarantees freedom of assembly.

Praying for the destruction of the Kufar, but not before a payout

Torture is heinous. It does not work nor does it pay. Certainly not for the British taxpayer who will have to foot the bill for millions of pounds of compensation to be paid to a crew of former Guantánamo inmates and jihad tourists:

Those detainees understood to be in line for settlements include Binyam Mohamed, Bisher al-Rawi, Jamil el-Banna, Richard Belmar, Omar Deghayes, Moazzam Begg and Martin Mubanga.

The payments will be controversial with some claiming the former prisoners are using the courts to extract cash from a British state they allegedly intended to destroy.

Others will praise the courts for forcing the UK to either openly admit the methods it had sanctioned, or else pay a financial penalty through compensation.

Watch out for a new bill to sweep away in a single repeal act all the pernicious laws against civil liberties introduced by New Labour in the last 13 years. The Con-Dem coalition could be a rare fluke which would enable such a bill, something a Lib-Lab coalition or a Conservative minority government would not have even considered, let alone passed.

Henry Porter writes in the Observer:

The Queen’s speech, now being drafted, will establish a Freedom or Great Repeal bill – the title has not yet been chosen – as a major part of the coalition’s legislative programme. All the areas detailed in the agreement between the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives, such as the abolition of ID cards and the children’s database (ContactPoint database??), the further regulation of CCTV and the restoration of right to protest will be in it. Measures that weren’t in the published agreement will reassert the right to silence and protect people against the huge number of new powers of entry into the home allowed by Labour.