UN Human Rights Chief

UN rights chief urges Israel to repeal death penalty law, warns about war crimes

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This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk holds press briefing in Geneva, Switzerland on December 10, 2025. [Beyza Binnur Dönmez – Anadolu Agency]

The UN human rights chief urged Israel on Tuesday to revoke its death penalty law, warning against legislative steps targeting Palestinians in violation of international law, Anadolu reports.

Volker Turk encouraged Tel Aviv to step back from the controversial law, which applies “almost exclusively to Palestinians.”

“It is deeply disappointing that this bill has been approved by the Knesset,” he said, highlighting that it is patently inconsistent with Israel’s international law obligations, including in relation to the right to life.

“It raises serious concerns about due process violations, is deeply discriminatory, and must be promptly repealed,” said Turk.

Noting that the controversial law provides that the death sentences, once imposed, must be carried out within 90 days, Turk warned that it is a violation of international humanitarian law.

READ: UN condemns Israeli death penalty law for Palestinians as ‘particularly cruel’

“The death penalty is profoundly difficult to reconcile with human dignity, and it raises the unacceptable risk of executing innocent people,” he added.

Turk noted that its application to residents of the occupied Palestinian territory “would constitute a war crime.”

The UN human rights chief also expressed alarm at proposals in another bill before the Knesset to establish a Special (Military) Court exclusively to prosecute crimes committed during and in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian armed groups.

Israel’s Knesset passed the law Monday, making the death penalty the default punishment for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank convicted of lethal attacks against Israelis.

More than 9,300 Palestinians, including 350 children and 66 women, are being held in Israeli prisons, according to prisoner rights groups and the Israeli Prison Service.

READ: Israeli Knesset passes law mandating death penalty for Palestinian prisoners

Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Straight of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don't need people to join wars after they've already won. He's challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Straight of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel's genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism "without qualification". Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
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Donald Trump warns against following the https://onaquietday.org blog, says that it’s easy atm, she only needs to report war crimes supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion.

Continue ReadingUN rights chief urges Israel to repeal death penalty law, warns about war crimes

Now in its third year, war in Sudan is “is far from over”

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Original article by Pavan Kulkarni republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

The violence in Sudan has pushed North Darfur’s Zamzam camp, home to over 500,000 people, into famine. Photo: WHO

“The world has completely forgotten the crisis in Sudan” where “a slow death” has become the plight of millions, decried Adam Rojal, spokesperson of the General Coordination of Darfur Displaced People and Refugees.

As the fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) intensifies in North Darfur state and the Kordofan region, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk warned on Friday, June 20 of a “further aggravation in an already brutal and deadly conflict.”

The war, which began in April 2023, has created the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, displacing nearly 13 million, leaving Sudan with the highest number of displaced people globally. 30 million, almost two-thirds of the population, need humanitarian aid, including food assistance.

The worst affected are children, amounting to half of the hungry and displaced population, the UN said last week, decrying a severe fund shortage, leaving it unable to assist over 80% of the children in need.

Children under the age of five are the largest group of victims of the measles outbreak, amounting to over 60% of the 2,200 suspected cases since the start of this year. Another 230 children have been killed and 7,300 suspected to have been infected by cholera, which broke out last July, killing over 2,000 and suspectedly infecting over 80,000 people.

The number of cholera cases sharply spiked earlier this year in Sudan’s capital region of Khartoum where over 34,000 displaced people returned mainly since March after the SAF retook control from the RSF.

Damaged in the fighting, most of the homes to which they returned lacked water or sanitation. In May, the RSF launched a series of drone strikes on water purification units and power plants, further curtailing water supply, and forcing residents to resort to unsafe sources, which caused over a nine-fold rise in cholera cases in the second half of that month.

Read more: Cholera ravages Sudan’s war-torn capital 

Last week, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) raised the alarm that the cholera wave had now reached the western semi-arid region of Darfur for the first time since the war began.

In a press statement on Sunday, June 22, the General Coordination of Darfur Displaced People and Refugees warned that diseases may spread rapidly as monsoon season has begun in Darfur, with rains lashing over the displaced sheltering only under plastic sheets with no sanitation facilities.

Particularly vulnerable to the deadly diseases are the children and the pregnant and breast-feeding women who are already suffering from malnutrition, its spokesperson Adam Rojal told Peoples Dispatch, “The world has completely forgotten the crisis in Sudan” where “a slow death” has become the plight of millions, he decried.

The Darfur region consists of five states, of which North Darfur remains the only state where the SAF has retained a foothold in its capital El Fasher. The RSF, which controls the rest of the region, has laid a siege on the city for over a year now, cutting off its supply of food and other essentials, and frequently bombarding the famine-stricken displaced peoples camp on its outskirts. Activists have warned that El Fasher itself is on the verge of famine.

Now in its third year, the war that has caused a humanitarian catastrophe on such a scale “is far from over”, a UN fact-finding mission warned last week.

After seizing the border triangle region between Sudan, Libya, and Egypt on June 14, the RSF also announced on June 16 that it captured the strategic oasis town of Karb al-Toum in the north-western desert region. This effectively severs the supply route to the SAF in North Darfur while paving the way for the RSF to advance in the Northern State.

The RSF – which the SAF claims to have killed 28,613 and wounded 43,575 since the start of the war – is also making advances in the Kordofan region in the center and southern region of Sudan. Civilians in South Kordofan’s city of El-Dibeibat – a crucial crossroad linking the state with North Kordofan and West Darfur – have been caught up in the crossfire for over two years.

Fleeing this city, thousands sought refuge in North Kordofan’s capital El-Obeid, under SAF’s control. However, the RSF has surrounded El-Obeid, “and may attack it in the coming days, as announced by the RSF commander,” the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner said on June 20. 

Original article by Pavan Kulkarni republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingNow in its third year, war in Sudan is “is far from over”