Invisible People: U.S. Representative Cori Bush, D-MO, has reintroduced her landmark Unhoused Bill of Rights legislation as states across the country consider passing similar legislation. Bush’s bill would require the federal government to “permanently end the unhoused crisis” by 2027. It would also require the government to guarantee access to universal...

Invisible People: Approximately 20 homeless people die each day, but probably not for the reasons you’d expect. Many of these deaths are gruesome, violent, and, perhaps even more tragically, encouraged. A growing trend of criminalizing homeless people creates an unfathomably hostile environment for our neighbours without walls. In extreme cases, it...

PRI: In July 2023, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights presented its first-ever report detailing the scale and situation of women deprived of liberty in the Americas. In this blog post, Coletta Youngers considers its findings and their importance for efforts to reduce women’s incarceration across the region. This article...

SALC: On 16 May 2023, The Supreme Court of Namibia ruled that Namibia’s immigration laws must recognise same-sex marriages validly concluded outside Namibia, setting aside the High Court decision of 20 January 2022. Background In August 2017, Daniel Digashu, a South African Citizen and Johann Potgieter, a Namibian citizen, approached...

According to a new report from the National Homelessness Law Center and the University of Miami Law School Human Rights Clinic, the U.S. is failing to meet several internationally accepted standards for providing adequate and affordable housing. Both groups graded the U.S. in seven elements of the international human right to housing...

SALC: According to the WHO, for every suicide in Africa, there are approximately 20 attempts. While some countries have slowly moved towards repealing the criminal offence of attempted suicide, recognising it as a public health issue rather than a criminal one, others have retained the offence and continue imprisoning people...

https://youtu.be/467plXwu2bw?si=BZwGhbUhJkIhN2xp Al Jazeera: Africa's last absolute monarchy is facing criticism over its human rights record. Earlier this year, a prominent lawyer was killed in Eswatini - some say by the government. On Friday, people voted in a parliamentary election - but MPs only have an advisory role. Al Jazeera’s Fahmida...

The ICJ is concerned that the newly proposed Online Safety legislation, if adopted in its present form, would serve to crush free expression and further contract an already shrinking civic space in Sri Lanka. On 18 September 2023, the Ministry of Public Security gazetted a bill titled “Online Safety” intended to dramatically...

SERI: Protest has always been an important driver of social change in South Africa, before and since democracy. It has played a crucial role in securing and realising rights, and continues to be a frequent and powerful form of political expression. On 26 September 2023, Socio-Economic Rights Institute (SERI) launched...

IDPC: In a historical report released today, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights denounced the failure of punitive drug policies and the global ‘war on drugs’, and called for a new approach based on health and human rights, including through the legal regulation of drugs. To implement the recommendations laid down...

Amnesty International: Reacting to the news that Iran’s parliament has passed a new bill that would impose further draconian penalties severely violating women’s and girls’ rights as well as increasing  prison terms and fines for defying Iran’s degrading and discriminatory compulsory veiling laws, Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for...

In May 2023, Africa Criminal Justice Reform made a written and oral submission to parliament regarding the The Judicial Matters Amendment Bill [B7-2023] in South Africa. The Bill provides the Minister the authority to decriminalise certain minor offences and expunge existing criminal records of persons who have committed “such offences.”...

In September 2023, the Dullah Omar Institute made a submission in response to the call from the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing and the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. The submission was based on ACJR’s foci of work on sub-national governments and the...

Amnesty International: The Algerian authorities are leading a relentless crackdown on citizens for expressing any form of dissent. Be it participants in protest marches, journalists working for independent media, or people posting on social media, no-one in Algeria is safe from the claws of repression. Since the “Hirak” weekly protest...

Invisible People: How Sweeps Rarely Lead to Permanent Housing Situations for Homeless Encampment Residents. Homeless encampment “cleanups” have dirt on their name for good reason. Alternatively referred to as “sweeps” or “homeless encampment evictions,” these forced relocations of our unhoused neighbors are marketed as a constructive way to reduce or even eliminate unsheltered...

Along with partners (RE)Claim/MCDS (France), Hungarian Helsinki Committee (Hungary), Justice Collective urges the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing and the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights to demand a Europe-wide stop to the criminalization of poverty, racist police practices, and debtor’s prisons. While the...

Amnesty International: Authorities across the world are increasingly resorting to unlawful use of force and repressive legislation to crush protests, Amnesty International said today, as it launched an interactive digital map that exposes the shocking rise in the repression of protesters by states across the globe. The global map, which is...

Amnesty International: The disproportionate use of criminal law is one of the main threats facing the right to protest peacefully in defense of land, territory and environment in Mexico, Amnesty International said today upon publishing a new report. Mexico: Land and Freedom? Criminalizing defenders of land, territory and environment documents the disproportionate...

72 organisations, including FIACAT, are calling for the conviction to be quashed and for the release of two Bangladeshi human rights defenders who are about to be imprisoned. Leaders of Prominent Rights Group Convicted on Trumped-Up Charges (September 14, 2023) Bangladesh authorities should immediately release human rights defenders Adilur Rahman...

On 31 August 2023, ACJR hosted a webinar on Sub-national governance, law enforcement and oversight in Five African countries. The webinar highlighted key issues relating to sub-national law enforcement in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia, including the limited training provided to local law enforcement by local governments, the absence of...

Civil society group, Prisons Rehabilitation and Welfare Action (PRAWA), has urged federal and state legislatures to hasten the amendment of criminal laws and decriminalisation and declassification of minor and petty offences to decongest the prisons. PRAWA recommended that the laws need to be amended to reduce the kind of offenses...

People convicted of petty offences like defamation and drunken misconduct in public may soon get away with community service as a form of punishment, with Union Home Minister Amit Shah introducing the ‘Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita’ (BNS) Bill, 2023, which seeks to replace the IPC. Shah introduced three bills in the...

The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled in favor of eliminating the state's cash bail system, ending bail as a condition of pretrial release. In a 5-2 ruling Tuesday, the state's highest court overturned a ruling from an Illinois judge last December that a new state law to end cash bail was deemed unconstitutional. "Someone's...

PRAWA: The first review workshop for a Model State Law on Correctional Service was held on the 7th of August at Rockview Hotel by PRAWA and other stakeholders. The proposed Model Law is an initiative of PRAWA, a leading security and justice NGO in Nigeria, is aimed at promoteloting effective...

SALC: Country’s Council of Churches applauded 2019 decriminalization ruling. Botswana is considered a secular state and all people have equal access to religious organizations and institutions. There are three Christian umbrella bodies in Botswana — being the Botswana Council of Churches, the Evangelical Fellowship of Botswana and Organization of African...

Amnesty International: The Lebanese authorities must immediately halt all prosecutions of journalists, human rights defenders, activists, and others who are critical of state officials, Amnesty International today, as the organization launches #MyOpinionIsNotaCrime, a new campaign that calls on the Lebanese Parliament to abolish all laws that criminalize insult and defamation.  The new campaign comes...

Invisible People: Politicians are using the word ‘Unsanctioned’ in homeless legislation, suggesting Sanctioned Encampments Will Become the Norm. For time immemorial, when politicians talk about homelessness, they complain about homeless encampments. Their speeches are often riddled with lies about public safety and half-truths about hygiene that paint our unhoused neighbors unfavorably. Yet,...

We, a consortium of Institutions and Civil Society Organizations dedicated to promoting and protecting human rights, urgently call upon the Government to immediately cease the relocation of refugees and asylum seekers in Malawi. The relocation exercise, which should uphold the rights of vulnerable individuals, has been tainted by acts of...

Reposted from the Guardian: In at least 17 countries, suicide remains a criminal offence – a ‘huge barrier’ to mental health care. As Ghana becomes one of four countries to overturn its law in a year, others could follow. When Ghana’s parliament voted to decriminalise suicide and attempted suicide in March, Prof...

Invisible People: The 9th Circuit’s ruling that cities can’t force unhoused people off the streets if they don’t have adequate shelter options survived a legal challenge by petitioners from Grants Pass, Oregon. This move seems to have upset conservative judges on the Circuit. The ruling, known as Johnson v. City...

Amnesty International: On 29 October 2020, pro-democracy protesters gathered around Bangkok’s Silom Road to call for political reforms. As part of the demonstration, protestors held the ‘People’s Runway’, a mock fashion show aimed to present a satirical take on the role of the monarchy in Thailand. Noppasin ‘Sainam’ Treelayapewat was...

Penal Reform International: A resolution tabled by Canada was adopted at the Human Rights Council last week on ‘Accelerating efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls: preventing and responding to all forms of violence against women and girls in criminal justice detention’. Civil society, including Penal...

Amnesty International: Responding to the news that President Emmerson Mnangagwa has signed into law the Criminal Law Codification and Reform Amendment Bill, 2022, commonly referred to as the “Patriotic Bill”, Khanyo Farisè, Amnesty International’s Deputy Research Director for Southern Africa, said: "The signing of the ‘Patriotic Bill’ into an Act...

An Open Letter to the organisers of Women Deliver and the Generation Equality Forum calling for all High-Level Forums on women’s rights to be inclusive of all women, particularly criminalised, incarcerated and formerly incarcerated Women. The letter, signed by over 200 organisations, from across the world is in response to the exclusion of current and former female...

Amnesty International: Following the banning of a number of demonstrations protesting police violence after the unlawful killing of 17-year-old Nahel M by a police officer, Amnesty International is calling for the French government to prioritise the wholesale reform of rules governing the use of firearms and lethal force by law...

Invisible People: A new report shows why cities often respond to homelessness with criminalization and punitive punishments. Developed by Community Solutions, a nonprofit housing advocacy group, and researchers from Cornell and Boston University, the report collected survey responses from the mayors of America’s 100 largest cities and found that police departments are...

Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC) notes that the Uganda Law Revision (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act, 2023, has repealed some of the rogue and vagabond, sedition, and false news offences in its Penal Code. Uganda further repealed the offence of offensive communication in the Computer Misuse Act. SALC welcomes this development as...

SALC: Botswana’s Parliament intends to table a number of bills in the current session, one of which seeks to repeal section 164 of the Penal Code. On 29 November 2021, the Botswana Court of Appeal issued a judgement declaring sections 164(a) and (c) of the Penal Code that prohibits consensual sex between...

The Eswatini Supreme Court has controversially reinstated the state’s appeal against a liberal landmark high court judgment passed in 2016. After a lapse of six years, Eswatini’s Supreme Court has controversially condoned and reinstated an appeal by the government against a 2016 high court judgment that had declared swathes of...

Two months before presidential and parliamentary elections on 23 August, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urges Zimbabwe to abandon a proposed “sovereignty and national interest” law that poses a major threat to journalism. Freedom of expression must be safeguarded, RSF says. Zanu PF, the party that has ruled Zimbabwe since independence, used its...

On 28 June 2023, ACJR in collaboration with Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) hosted a webinar on The Right to Public Spaces and Informal Work: Key considerations for Law & Policy-Making. The laws and policies governing the use of public spaces are often developed and implemented by authorities without...

Prison Insider: Incarceration is the response that States often impose on unwanted behaviours. In many countries, criminal law and prison are used to target those who have been excluded, who do not comply with social norms, who speak out against injustice. This feeds a vicious downward spiral. Like a cyclone,...

Delegates at the recent Mental Health Conference in South Africa pushed for the decriminalisation of suicide. A media coverage from Kenya highlights the issues and challenges in the decriminalisaton of suicide. On 18 July 2023, the High Court will hear a petition brought by the Kenya Human Rights Commission challenging the constitutionality...

PRI: Pre-trial detention contributes significantly to prison overcrowding and causes a range of harms to individuals, their familes, and society. But what is driving its use? In this blog, Madhurima Dhanuka from the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative presents the findings of a recent report and explores the disproportionate impact of pre-trial detention on poor...

At the UN General Assembly High-Level Debate on Equal Access to Justice For All on June 15th, 2023, Richard Arbeiter, Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations, spoke about Canada's proposal of the historic resolution on equal access to justice for all, adopted at the 32nd...

A majority of countries in Africa¹ have some type of “vagrancy laws”, meaning laws which consider people that are or are perceived to be poor, homeless or unemployed as criminals. Examples are laws against “vagrants” or “vagabonds” defined as people who do not have a fixed home or livelihood, laws against...

Mr X is a Congolese man who was living in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In early June 2006, he lost his passport. He went to the Tanzanian police to register the loss of his passport and to the DRC embassy to request for a new passport. But on 9 June...

Some 20 years ago, Ibrahim Kingori Njoki was involved in a brawl. He was later convicted of creating a disturbance, contrary to Section 95(1) of the Penal Code. The law stipulates that when a person is convicted for this offence, he or she should serve a sentence that is not...

Hope Behind Bars Africa has said that most awaiting trail inmates in Nigeria have been languishing in our Custodial facilities for petty crimes like loitering or hawking. The human rights and criminal justice reform organisation said apart from such petty and misdemeanours cases, one would also find civil cases like...

The outrage caused by the jailing of a mother for ending her pregnancy after the legal limit should spark a wider rethink of archaic legislation. The case of a mother prosecuted for inducing her own abortion after the legal limit is tragic. Her imprisonment is unconscionable. The judge accepted that...