11 June 202121 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Deaths in custody: Australian mother takes fight to the UN

source: BBC News
published:10 June 2021

Australian mother Leetona Dungay and a team of high-profile lawyers will take a claim over her son’s death in custody to the United Nations. Indigenous man David Dungay Jr died after being restrained by five prison officers in a Sydney cell in 2015.

The complaint argues Australia violated his human rights and failed to protect his life. The legal team is also seeking to put pressure on the government over its record on Indigenous deaths in custody. Aboriginal people have the highest rate of incarceration of any group in the world.

11 May 202121 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Demand that the National Police Chiefs Council adopts a new, eleven-point Charter

provided by: Netpol
published: April/May 2021

The government’s new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is an unprecedented attack on the freedom to protest. We have to fight against this Bill. But we need more than opposition – that’s why we’re launching a new Charter For Freedom of Assembly Rights. Please sign the petition here >

For the last decade, successive governments have been increasingly hostile towards protests. This has been matched by the way the police have interpreted “peaceful” protest so that even minor breaches of the law are treated as invalidating the collective legitimacy of protesters’ demands, justifying even more aggressive tactics and more surveillance.

29 April 202115 December 2022 4WardEverUK

UK government drops bid to shield soldiers from war crimes prosecutions

source: Middle East Eye
published: 27 July 2021

The UK government has abandoned attempts to shield members of its armed forces from prosecution for murder and war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ministers agreed to amend its deeply controversial Overseas Operations Bill following stiff opposition from members of parliament’s upper house, the Lords.

The initial proposal – to shield soldiers from prosecution for torture or genocide as well as murder and war crimes – had also faced condemnation by human rights groups and retired senior officers. This does not mean that soldiers and ex-soldiers will be prosecuted, however.