Human rights

Dozens of asylum seekers are gathering in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki following a call through social media for a march to Greece's northern border with Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) to protest their inability to move to other European countries.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has rejected around 25,000 applications from Turkish citizens in relation to rights violations after the July 2016 coup attempt, according to a Justice Ministry official.

The Humanitarian Law Centre Kosovo said that school textbooks should include a chapter on transitional justice, teaching pupils about war crimes trials and how to deal with the past.

The latest spike in migrant arrivals in Greece has caught the government off guard, with critics saying it has no plan of action as the situation has become reminiscent of the crisis at the end of 2015, when thousands of people flooded into the country.

Without a concrete plan, government officials are reportedly hoping for bad weather to save the day and limit arrivals.

The United Nations has demanded that China should immediately release prominent human rights activists from detention and pay them compensation, according to an unreleased document obtained by the Guardian.

The UN's refugee agency has urged Australia to avert a "humanitarian emergency" over the closure of its detention centre in Papua New Guinea, reported BBC. 

Australia holds refugees and asylum seekers arriving by boat on PNG's Manus Island and the Pacific nation of Nauru.

Nominations for the "Person of the Year" awards - annual prizes of contributions to human rights and human rights protection of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC) are now open. By November 15, 2017, anyone can send their nominations of people and organizations whose work over the past year has contributed to the promotion of human rights in Bulgaria.

Rouse, Director of Princeton’s Department of Anthropology, gave a lecture on Constitution Day titled, “F*ck Free Speech: An Anthropologist’s Take on Campus Speech Debates,” although is still unclear why an anthropology professor was giving a lecture on the Constitution.

The secretary general of Amnesty International has visited the rights group's jailed Turkey director and called for her release, along with seven other activists being held in pre-trial detention for allegedly aiding a terror group. Salil Shetty told reporters on Sept. 9 outside a prison on the outskirts of Istanbul that Amnesty's Idil Eser was doing well.

The former spokesman of ruling SYRIZA Gavriil Sakellaridis has been appointed as the new director of rights watchdog Amnesty International's Greece section.

The 37-year-old economist, who also ran for Athens mayor in 2014, will be filling a post that has been empty for about three months following the resignation of AI Greece's former director, Heracles-Spyridon Aktypis.