CONGOLESE WARLORD IN THE DOCK — Democratic Republic of Congo general and former militia leader Germain Katanga made his first appearance in front of the International Criminal Court at The Hague Oct. 22, where he will face nine counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Katanga, also known as Simba, stands accused of — among other things — organizing the massacre of 200 civilians, conscripting children for use as soldiers and sexually enslaving survivors of the brutal attack on the village of Bogoro in February 2003. “The victims of these crimes deserve to see justice for their suffering,” Param-Preet [...]
Sudan may be preparing to host the largest peacekeeping force in the world, but that hasn’t deterred the country from fueling more conflict in its war-weary western region, Darfur, and reigniting tension in its southern swath, which was wracked by war for more than two decades. Sudan’s proclivity for conflict continues to frustrate all international efforts to pacify war-torn Darfur, where besieged displaced people are dying daily as the war gets uglier by the hour. Relief organizations say malnutrition levels are climbing in the hundreds of refugee camps that dot the region and access for aid workers has worsened due [...]
Editor’s Note: Rights & Wrongs is a weekly column covering the world’s major human rights-related happenings. It is written by regular WPR contributor Juliette Terzieff. ARAB ONLINE MEDIA COVERAGE LACKING — Arab online media is not doing a thorough job of covering human rights and the issues that surround them, according to a new study by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information. The report, “Electronic Media and Human Rights,” studied a year’s worth of content on eight of the largest Arabic Web sites including aljazeera.net, alarabiya.net, naseej.com and islamonline.net. An estimated 29 million people in the Arab world regularly [...]
