Category: HUMAN RIGHTS

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY (IDN) – Screening of secretly filmed shocking footage of abuse of juvenile prisoners in a remote northern Australian prison by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC), renowned investigative reporting program ‘Four Corners’, has outraged thousands of Australians who took to the streets to protest and forced the government to act.

The video material filmed between 2010 and 2014 at the Don Dale youth detention centre in the Northern Territory in Australia and screened on July 25 has drawn comparisons to the treatment of prisoners in the notorious prisons run by the U.S. government in Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.

Analysis by Rizwy Raheem

NEW YORK (IDN) – The world’s indigenous peoples – estimated at over 370 million living across 90 countries and accounting for 15 percent of the poorest – remain isolated, both politically and geographically.

So, nearly a thousand participants from Asia, Africa, North America, Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean gathered together to air their grievances before the United Nations at a two-week long conference, which concluded May 20.

Their plea for inclusiveness was a reiteration of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s appeal to the international community on the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for a more humane and prosperous world for all – “leaving no one behind”.

The conference ended with a resounding call for greater participation in the United Nations and in UN bodies by some of the world’s most neglected minorities who are increasingly victims of armed conflicts, corporate greed and rising economic inequalities.

By J. Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and how it relates to indigenous peoples, will feature prominently in discussions at the fifteenth session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

The Forum will also focus on issues of peace and conflict, often relating to indigenous peoples’ lands, territories and resources and to their rights and distinct identities. More than 1,000 indigenous participants from all regions of the world are attending the gathering at United Nations Headquarters in New York from May 9 to 20.

“Since its establishment, the Permanent Forum has expressed great concern over the continuation of conflicts affecting indigenous peoples in different parts of the world,” said Alvaro Pop, the incoming Chairperson of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.