By Sarah Marsh

Father Charles Kriel and mother Katharina Viken were returning to UK from holiday in Florida

A baby born in the UK to two parents who have indefinite leave to remain in Britain has been denied the right to live in the country in what a human rights lawyer has described as a potentially unlawful move.

Dr Charles Kriel, a US national and special adviser to a parliamentary select committee, said he was returning to the UK from a holiday in Florida with his fiancee, Katharina Viken, and their baby daughter was denied entry. The child was eventually given a six-month tourist stamp …read more

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By Sayed Alwadaei

While Bahrain imprisons and harasses its critics with impunity, Britain continues to be one of its closest allies

This week, a court in my home country, Bahrain, reached a verdict in one of the largest mass trials in the nation’s history. Jail terms were handed to 139 people, including 69 life sentences, ostensibly for terrorism-related offences. All but one were stripped of their citizenship.

In 2011, a huge number of Bahrain’s citizens took to the streets to demand democratic change from the al-Khalifa family, who have ruled the country for some 200 years. Since then, it has ramped …read more

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By Owen Bowcott Legal affairs correspondent

Human rights committee condemns punishments such as isolation that cause distress

Subjecting children to “pain-inducing restraints” in young offender institutions and solitary confinement for more than 22 hours a day should be made illegal, a report by MPs has urged.

The recommendations are contained in an investigation by parliament’s joint committee on human rights into the conditions in which about 2,500 young people are serving custodial sentences or detained in mental health units and secure children’s homes.

Related: Scandal-hit children’s prison still restraining inmates unlawfully – report

Continue reading… …read more

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By Letters

Readers share their views on the musician’s call for other artists to stay away from Israel over its human rights record

Roger Waters’ mother imploring her son to “decide for yourself” and execute the “right thing to do” was no doubt in reference to the juvenile politics of the playground (If you believe in human rights, Madonna, don’t play Tel Aviv, 17 April). Unfortunately, these simple values can not be transposed to the labyrinthine issues of the Middle East in general and the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular.

Sadly “bad stuff” occurs in all conflicts, which are not as clearcut as …read more

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By Reuters

Defendants, several of whom campaigned for right to drive, given no new date for hearing

A court in Saudi Arabia has postponed a fourth hearing in the trial of several women’s rights activists, a case that has intensified western criticism of Riyadh following the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

A court official informed some of the women’s relatives that the session would not take place, citing the judge’s “private reasons”, and could not provide a new date. The public prosecutor said last May that some of the women had been arrested on suspicion of harming Saudi interests and offering support to …read more

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By Roger Waters

Until the Israeli government recognises the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, artists should stay away

Madonna’s acceptance of an invitation to perform in Tel Aviv at the Eurovision song contest finals in May raises, yet again, fundamentally important ethical and political questions for each and every one of us to contemplate.

In Paris in 1948 the then fledgling United Nations drafted and subsequently adopted a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enshrined in international law that all our brothers and sisters all over the world, irrespective of their ethnicity or nationality or religion, have certain basic human rights, including but not …read more

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By Kate Lamb in Jakarta

Voters will decide between President Joko Widodo and former general Prabowo Subianto, and choose more than 20,000 legislators

Tens of millions of Indonesians have started voting for a new president and more than 20,000 legislative seats in the nation’s biggest – and one of the world’s most complicated – ballots.

In the world’s third-largest democracy and largest Muslim-majority nation, almost 193 million Indonesians are registered to vote across 17,000 islands. On Wednesday morning voting kicked off at 7am local time in restive Papua. It will end at 1pm in Sumatra.

Related: Indonesia: 193m people, 17,000 islands, one big election. Here’s what …read more

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By Amelia Hill

Hundreds of people who worked and lived in UK for years were told they had 14 days to leave

• Court castigates Home Office over misuse of immigration law

They are teachers, doctors, scientists and engineers. Most have British-born children. Many have lived legally in the UK for a decade or more, but all are now on the verge of destitution, forbidden from working, using the NHS, renting property or receiving benefits.

Their offence? To have made legal amendments to their tax returns. For that, the Home Office has fought – often for years – to force them to leave the UK under …read more

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By Amelia Hill

Damning verdict says use of terrorism-related rule to refuse applications is legally flawed

• How Home Office used terror law on highly skilled migrants

The appeal court has issued a damning judgment criticising the Home Office’s use of a terrorism-related paragraph of immigration law as “legally flawed” and ruling it must be changed.

The Guardian has repeatedly highlighted the Home Office’s use of the rule – designed in part to tackle terrorism – to refuse applications from hundreds of people for making legal amendments to their tax records.

Continue reading… …read more

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By Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo

Sicilian prosecutors to investigate case of 47 migrants who were not allowed off rescue ship

Prosecutors in Sicily have placed Italy’s prime minister and three senior members of his government under investigation for false imprisonment over the detention of 47 migrants who were prevented from disembarking from an NGO rescue ship.

Giuseppe Conte, deputy prime ministers Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio, and Italy’s minister of infrastructure, Danilo Toninelli, face charges for refusing to allow migrants to leave the Sea-Watch boat, which rescued them off the coast of Libya on 19 January.

Related: Italy’s Salvini refuses to back EU deal on …read more

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