Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Electoral Commission has asked court to dismiss an application challenging its failure to include Ugandan inmates and citizens in the diaspora in the electoral processes on grounds that the suit is incompetent. Electoral Commission lawyers led by Hamid Lugolobi told the Civil Division High …
Read More »Meet the Berlin Wall tunnel digger saved by Stasi ‘hero’
Berlin, Germany | AFP | When Berlin’s despised Wall went up in 1961, the divided city overnight became an imposing landscape of barbed wire and guards with shoot-to-kill orders. But below the earth, desperate Germans began digging dozens of tunnels to try to burrow their way to freedom, or liberate easterners …
Read More »Ethiopians strike over state of emergency
Burayu, Ethiopia | AFP | Businesses closed in Ethiopia’s capital and its largest region on Monday to protest a state of emergency declared after the prime minister’s resignation last month. Shops were shut and roads deserted in parts of the capital Addis Ababa and in towns in the surrounding Oromia …
Read More »Nigeria releases more Boko Haram suspects
Abuja, Nigeria | AFP | Nigeria has freed another 51 Boko Haram suspects in the latest round of dropped cases for lack of evidence, the justice ministry said Monday. Over the course of last week, hundreds of suspected Boko Haram extremists appeared before a court at the Kainji military base …
Read More »Ethiopia to release jailed ‘politicians’
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia | AFP | Ethiopia’s leader promised Wednesday to release “politicians” from jail and shut down a detention centre where human rights groups allege torture is routine. Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn made the undertaking in comments to reporters in the capital Addis Ababa, although he did not …
Read More »UN expert says Guantanamo torture continuing
Geneva, Switzerland | AFP | The UN’s top expert on torture on Wednesday said reports from sources indicated at least one inmate was still being tortured at the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay and reiterated his request to visit. Nils Melzer, the UN special rapporteur on torture, said he had …
Read More »Italian prisoners use Pope visit as chance to escape
Rome, Italy | AFP | Two prisoners who were invited to meet Pope Francis for lunch on his recent visit to Bologna took advantage of the occasion to escape, local media reports said Wednesday. The two men, who were being held in a rehabilitation facility for drug addicts and prisoners, were …
Read More »I.Coast officials suspect ‘inside job’ for mass jail break
Katiola, Ivory Coast | AFP | Authorities in Ivory Coast speculated Monday that a guard may have allowed nearly 100 inmates to escape a prison in the west African country, the latest in a string of jail breaks. “It’s incomprehensible,” Coulibaly Ouamien, deputy mayor of Katiola, where the escape took place, …
Read More »Attack at Kinshasa market kills police chief, administrator
Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | A deputy police commander and the administrator of Kinshasa’s central market were killed Friday in an attack by unknown assailants that also freed prisoners, police and witnesses said. The assailants attacked the administrator’s office and the police station at the market allowing inmates being …
Read More »Ghana court rules transfer of ex-Guantanamo detainees unconstitutional
Accra, Ghana | AFP | Ghana’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the transfer of two former Guantanamo Bay detainees to the country was unconstitutional without parliamentary approval. Ghana had signed an agreement with the US government in January 2016 allowing the two ex-Guantanamo prisoners to live in the country. …
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