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By Mattha Busby

Prison Reform Trust reveals guidance to use spray as last resort was routinely ignored

Ministers have been urged to halt the planned rollout of pepper spray to prison officers after an analysis found it was used inappropriately in more than half of recorded incidents during a pilot scheme.

After the decision to roll out Pava, a synthetic incapacitant pepper spray, was announced in early October, the prison minister Rory Stewart said it would only be used in “exceptional circumstances” to protect staff from threats of serious violence.

Related: Prison pepper spray plan risks inmate safety, rights body says

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By steine

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Original content available at: Human Rights First

By Lisa Martin

Exclusive: $20m would go to the UN relief and works agency for Palestine refugees and $10m to the Rohingya crisis

Labor has pledged a $30m boost to foreign aid to the Rohingya and Palestinian humanitarian crises if it wins the next election.

The joint announcement from Labor frontbenchers Penny Wong and Shayne Neumann comes before the party’s national conference this weekend in Adelaide.

Related: Australian dollars could be flowing to those who raped, murdered and burned Rohingya villages | Thom Woodroofe

Related: Facebook among firms named on Myanmar human rights ‘dirty list’

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By steine

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Original content available at: Human Rights First

By Rob Evans

Woman deceived into sexual relationship with Jim Boyling says judges’ ruling is appalling

An environmental campaigner who was deceived by a police spy into a sexual relationship has lost an attempt to have him prosecuted.

The campaigner, known as Monica because she was granted anonymity, said the ruling by two high court judges was “appalling and hard to hear”.

Related: UK political groups spied on by undercover police – the list

Related: Woman tricked into relationship with police spy launches legal action

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By Helen Davidson

Exclusive: Australia is potentially bestowing legitimacy on foreign security forces involved in abuses, Human Rights Watch says

Australia is potentially bestowing legitimacy on foreign security forces involved in systemic human rights abuses when it provides training without prior vetting, Human Rights Watch has said.

The organisation has written to the defence minister, Christopher Pyne, urging the government to introduce vetting procedures, citing its training support of the Myanmar military despite a well-documented history of war crimes and other abuses, including possible acts of genocide against ethnic Rohingya.

Related: Morrison government announces new federal anti-corruption commission

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By Letters

The international community stands by as families, women and children have their lives destroyed, writes Sandip Verma. Meanwhile Thanos Petouris says news outlets should stop using the grossly underestimated ‘official’ figure of 10,000 fatalities in Yemen

While Britain focuses on Brexit, the people of Yemen suffer atrocities that put our current challenges to shame (Voices from Yemen: ‘We have watched our neighbours break’, 12 December). As we head towards a no-deal of our own making, the international community stands by as families, women and children have their lives destroyed by civil unrest.

Although the UN-led peace talks in Sweden seem …read more

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By Hannah Ellis-Petersen South-east Asia correspondent

Forty-nine companies accused of human rights and environmental abuses

Facebook is among a number of companies from the US, UK, France, Switzerland and China named on a “dirty list” of corporations accused of involvement in human rights and environmental violations in Myanmar, or of doing business with the country’s military, which is accused of genocide.

A list of 49 companies, compiled by the pressure group Burma Campaign UK, reveals the global breadth of international organisations that have continued to provide arms, infrastructure, technology, engineering and expertise to the Burmese military, or supported projects that have been accused of causing environmental destruction, such …read more

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By Presented by Anushka Asthana with Damien Gayle and Soraya Chemaly ; produced by Elizabeth Cassin, Leah Green, India Rakusen and Axel Kacoutié; executive producers Nicole Jackson and Phil Maynard

The conviction of protesters who locked themselves around a deportation flight at Stansted airport has been called a ‘crushing blow for human rights’. The Guardian’s Damien Gayle has been following the case and hears from demonstrators and deportees. Plus: Soraya Chemaly on the importance of female rage

On the night of 28 March 2017, a group of activists cut a hole in a perimeter fence at Stansted airport and blocked the takeoff of an immigration removal flight. It had been chartered by the Home Office to remove 60 people to Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone.

On Monday, the group were found …read more

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By steine

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Original content available at: Human Rights First