Volker Türk appointed top UN human rights chief

Jan Egeland, the Secretary-General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told The Lancet, “As humanitarians, we have high expectations of Volker Türk, especially that his office will be present in the field—with us—so that they can document atrocities, like attacks on hospitals and relief workers, publish them, and push decision makers to end these violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. “Human rights violations in conflict areas—from forced displacement to atrocities to attacks on health facilities and health workers—are such a pervasive feature of conflicts in today's world that they demand greater attention from the High Commissioner for Human Rights, including new forms of collaboration with other UN agencies including the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.” Kenneth Roth, former Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, told The Lancet, “He has a background as a quiet UN diplomat.

Tracing the Contours of Hate Speech in India in the Pandemic Year: The Curious Case of Online Hate Speech against Muslims and Dalits During the Pandemic

Though India is no stranger to either epidemics or hate speech, the COVID-19 crisis brought to the surface many of the pre-existing schisms and prejudices that subsequently led to both the Muslim minority community and the Dalit community being cast as miasmic and constant agitators against the central government. In the case of hate speech against the Muslim community, it has led to a peculiar situation wherein the invisible but pervasive Islamophobia that has been plaguing the country from the colonial times has risen it ugly head particularly across regional news channels and social media networks, making the phenomena hyper-visible. The Hindutva(1) politicians from the extreme right parties have been indulging in spreading anti-Muslim propaganda, moulding the image of the Muslim community as not only disease-bearers and super-spreaders of COVID-19 virus but also as being anti-national, as the central government has proclaimed 'a war against the COVID virus' (The Print, 2020, 26 April). During the initial spread of the virus throughout the country, there was an increasing tendency to show the Muslim community as intentionally spreading the disease or as being ignorant of current medical practices, with multiple TV channels airing the views that the Tablighi jamaat event (a religious congregation held in March 2020) was marked as a super-spreader event, and with multiple politicians engaging in rumour-mongering and hate-speech against the Muslims, framing the community as a miasmic community that needs to be cleared from India. On the other hand, the hate speech against Dalits in India is much more nuanced, indirect and layered. It began as WhatsApp and Facebook messages extolling the caste system and justifying the discriminatory practice of untouchability(2 )using the logic of social distancing and progressed to painting Dalits and Dalit spaces as unhygienic disease-scapes. This consequently led to the denial of livelihoods to thousands of domestic workers and unskilled workers who belonged to lower caste groups as they found themselves without jobs as most middle caste upper caste families and business owners fired their employees without notice. The study involves a hermeneutical analysis of news reports of the spread of COVID from newspapers and electronic media in English as well as interviews with at least 100 members of groups on social media (WhatsApp and Facebook) that propagate extremely communal and casteist material.

Introduction: Using Popular Culture to Trace and Assess Political Change

The German federal election in September 2021 marked a significant transformation for German politics. As Chancellor Angela Merkel decided not to run again, the election spelled the end of her 16-year tenure;it also signaled a major shift in the German party system. The right-populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) entered the Bundestag again after their first entry in 2017, implying—for the first time since 1949—the establishment and sustained parliamentary presence of a party on the national level to the (far-)right of the Christian Democrats. The challenges facing the new parliament and government after the election are paramount. The climate crisis looms as large as ever. With the exception of the AfD, all German parties (and a distinct majority of voters) see this as the most pressing issue to tackle. However, the scope of action will be limited as the extensive state debt accumulated through covid-19 relief measures exerts pressure on the specific German model of social market economy. Finally, the international environment has seen drastic changes in the last years: While the election of u.s. President Joe Biden as successor to Donald Trump implies a return to normal for transatlantic relations, the uk exit from the eu shifts the balance between the remaining member states. After the Euro, refugee, and pandemic crises, European solidarity is strained, complicating Germany’s role as the eu’s “reluctant hegemon” or “gentle giant.” This reluctance or restraint connotes far more than a strategic policy choice: it is deeply rooted in the German history of the twentieth century that witnessed the cruelty and atrocities of the Nazi regime.