All posts tagged: rights

A Humanist Perspective on The Death Penalty, Authoritarian Authority, and Universal Human Rights

A Humanist Perspective on The Death Penalty, Authoritarian Authority, and Universal Human Rights

Published by Sam Flores

The contemporary geography of the death penalty reveals a striking pattern. Capital punishment is increasingly concentrated in a small minority of states, many of which have political or religious institutions that place extraordinary authority in rulers, ruling parties, religious establishments, or ideological systems. At the same time, most of the world’s states have abolished capital punishment in law or practice. The most useful distinction, therefore, may not be between religious and secular societies. It may instead be between systems in which governmental or religious authority is regarded as superior to individual rights and systems in which even the most powerful institutions are constrained by rights understood to belong inherently to human beings. This distinction helps explain why radically different societies—Islamic theocracies, secular Communist states, monarchies, authoritarian republics and a small number of democracies—can retain capital punishment despite having little else ideologically in common. 1. Remarkable concentration of executions Amnesty International reported that at least 1,518 executions occurred in 2024, the highest recorded figure since 2015. That number excludes the thousands of executions believed to have …

North Korea human rights legislation remains stalled in US Congress

North Korea human rights legislation remains stalled in US Congress

Published by Sam Flores

Editor’s note: this story was translated from the original VOA Korean article. It has been more than four years since the North Korean Human Rights Act expired; with little chance the legislation will be reauthorized by U.S. Congress this year. With the expiration of the law in 2022, all major provisions that were extended during the re-approval in 2018 have passed the time limit. This includes the basis for budget approval for programs aimed at promoting human rights and democracy in North Korea and humanitarian assistance to North Koreans outside the border. As a result, the legal obligation for the administration to regularly report to the parliament on the human rights situation in North Korea and the status of North Korean defectors also has expired. Late last year, Republican Representative Young Kim and Democratic Representative Ami Bera introduced the North Korean Human Rights Reauthorization Act of 2025. The bill calls for China to immediately halt the forced repatriation of North Korean residents. It also encourages reunification of Korean American families with their war-torn loved ones. …

Netflix Takes World Cup Broadcasting Rights in Spain

Netflix Takes World Cup Broadcasting Rights in Spain

Published by Daniella Wilson

Netflix has made a major play in the live sports business in Europe, acquiring all rights in Spain and Andorra to the 2030 soccer World Cup from soccer world governing body FIFA. The deal, unveiled Tuesday, will give Netflix exclusive rights in the territories to all 104 matches of the tournament. The streamer is planing to go all in, with full live coverage of the matches and pre-game, halftime and post-game shows, as well as daily round-up show on match days. Netflix said it is also planning extensive pre-tournament programming to build excitement ahead of the event. All the matches won’t be behind the Netflix pay wall. As part of the agreement, Netflix will make one match per day available for free in Spain and will sublicense a package of matches, including every Spain match, both semi-finals and the final, to a national free-to-air broadcaster. Spain, the current World Cup champion, will also host the 2030 tournament, alongside Morocco and Portugal. 2030 will mark the 100th anniversary of the event, with celebration matches also being …

BT charged me for more than a year despite landline being dead | Consumer rights

BT charged me for more than a year despite landline being dead | Consumer rights

Published by Sam Flores

I’ve had no landline since May 2025 when BT switched it to Digital Voice. Weeks passed, and each call to BT involved at least an hour waiting on hold and answering security questions before being passed between departments. Eventually, last December, two engineers were sent and discovered that a wire had been severed during the upgrade. They said they needed a cherry picker to reconnect it to its original location and would return. They did not. Since then, I’ve called BT to no avail, and all the while I’ve been paying for a landline that doesn’t work. I am on the priority register due to serious illness and am reduced to tears of helplessness. HH, York You have been paying £32.99 a month for a dead landline and broadband, which was unaffected. BT claims it was unaware of the problem until you complained last December. You insist you had reported it before then, but do not have records of when. It turns out the case was closed in December after the engineers’ abortive visit. You …

Rob Reiner’s death changed Billy Crystal’s relationship with God

Rob Reiner’s death changed Billy Crystal’s relationship with God

Published by Daniella Wilson

Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today. Join today Already a member? Log in Billy Crystal is sharing how his faith has been changed after a series of tragedies, including the loss of his Palisades home in the Los Angeles wildfires and the December 2025 death of his close friend Rob Reiner. During an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, the 78-year-old actor admitted to correspondent Tracy Smith that he no longer has conversations with God, which he had previously chronicled in his 2004 Tony-winning one man show 700 Sundays. “No, because I — I don’t trust him,” Crystal told Smith when asked if he still talks to God. Smith asked if he was being serious, to which Crystal responded: “Yeah. Too many bad things have happened.” “The Earth is in bad shape, this is a weird, scary time,” he said. “So no, not anymore.” Billy Crystal (left) and Rob Reiner were longtime collaborators and worked together on the classic film ‘When Harry Met Sally’ …

BBC defends decision to remove trans rights slogan from Strictly Come Dancing episode | Ents & Arts News

BBC defends decision to remove trans rights slogan from Strictly Come Dancing episode | Ents & Arts News

Published by Sam Flores

The BBC has defended its decision to remove a trans rights slogan from an episode of Strictly Come Dancing, saying the move was “in line with our editorial guidelines”. The slogan “Protect the Dolls”, which appeared on a T-shirt worn by actress Bethany Antonia, was edited out of Saturday’s broadcast of the popular show. In a pre-recorded clip, the House Of The Dragon star could be seen rehearsing with professional dance partner Nancy Xu in a plain white shirt. However, in social media footage of what appeared to be the same rehearsal, Antonia could be seen wearing a T-shirt with the slogan visible. The clip had been shared by the BBC the day before the episode aired. A BBC spokesperson said: “As is standard practice on any entertainment show on the BBC and in line with our editorial guidelines, appropriate steps are taken to reduce the inclusion of any overt branding or slogans that may be present, regardless of the wording or statement in question.” “Protect the Dolls” is a slogan that originated in the …

DOJ Civil Rights Division redefines mission away from discrimination : NPR

DOJ Civil Rights Division redefines mission away from discrimination : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the US Department of Justice, during an interview in Washington, D.C., in August 2026. Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption i Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images When Harmeet Dhillon took over as the new chief of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division last April, the conservative attorney vowed to radically reshape the storied unit and its mission. Over the past 18 months, Dhillon has moved aggressively to make that goal a reality. She has pushed out hundreds of longtime attorneys, replaced many of them with inexperienced ideological allies, and used the division’s enforcement powers to pursue President Trump’s MAGA agenda, according to four current and former division officials. Three of the individuals spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution. At the root of these changes is Dhillon’s vision of the Civil Rights Division and its mission that dramatically departs from tradition. Created almost 70 years ago during the movement to end racial segregation, the Civil Rights Division historically has sought …

Navi Pillay: S.Africa’s global rights activist and Nobel winner

Navi Pillay: S.Africa’s global rights activist and Nobel winner

Published by Sam Flores

GROUNDBREAKING Born the daughter of a bus driver in South Africa’s east coast city of Durban in 1941 to a family of Tamil descent, Pillay has had a groundbreaking career. She grew up in a poor neighbourhood in the southeastern coastal city during white minority rule, and studied law at the University of Natal before attaining a Master’s and Doctorate from Harvard.  She became the first non-white woman to open a law firm in Durban where she carved out a reputation as a doughty defender of apartheid opponents. In 1973 she won the right for political prisoners in the notorious Robben Island penal colony – where jailed anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela was held at the time – to have access to lawyers.   A year after Mandela became president in South Africa’s first democratic vote in 1994, she made legal history by becoming the first woman of colour to be appointed to the country’s high court.  Soon after, the late liberation hero recommended her to serve on a United Nations tribunal trying Rwandan genocide suspects.  …

Article in Top Science Journal Endorses ‘Nature Rights’

Article in Top Science Journal Endorses ‘Nature Rights’

Published by Jenni Sidey

This article is republished from National Review with the permission of the author. The world’s two most influential professional science journals probably are Science and Nature. But they no longer limit their jurisdiction to science. Both are now highly ideological to the extent that each has now lent its august pages to boosting the “nature rights” movement. Science pushed “nature rights” back in 2019. Now Nature has jumped on the bandwagon, publishing an advocacy piece to coincide with Panama’s pushing a “Universal Declaration of the Rights of Nature” in the United Nations General Assembly. The article’s title starts out making a hubristic assumption: “Nature has Rights: It’s Time the World Recognized Them.” Image Credit: StraSyP – Adobe Stock Really? Since when? Based on what? Says who? “Nature rights” laws are meant to hamstring human thriving in the name of fighting climate change (among other environmental causes) through the means of destroying disfavored industries like oil and natural gas and undermining capitalism. From the article: As catastrophic climate and ecological change continues to unfold around us, …