Human Rights

18 August 2023; MEMO: Egyptian political prisoner, Mahmoud Abdel-Raheem, has died in the Gamasa Prison in Damietta governorate, two months after both his daughter and wife were killed in a car accident while on their way to visit him in detention, a rights watchdog has said.

The Egyptian Network for Human Rights (ENHR) said Abdel-Raheem, a former employee at the Ministry of Religious Endowments, was sentenced to three years in prison.

19 August 2023; MEMO: At least 500 prisoners in Bahrain are undergoing a hunger strike in what is said to be the largest such demonstration within the Gulf state’s prison system, amid authorities’ ongoing detention of prisoners of conscience. 

According to The Guardian newspaper, detainees began refusing food on 7 August, with increasing numbers of prisoners having joined the hunger strike throughout the following weeks.

17 August 2023; MEMO: The UK, on Thursday, criticised Israel for demolishing a school in the Occupied West Bank, calling on Tel Aviv to ensure Palestinian children’s right to education, Anadolu Agency reports.

“All children have a right to education. The UK calls on the government of Israel to uphold this right for Palestinian children,” the British Consulate in Jerusalem said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

17 August 2023; MEMO: Israeli occupation forces this morning demolished a Palestinian school in the occupied West Bank under the pretext that it lacked the necessary building license, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Education.

The Israeli authorities demolished Ein Samia School, located east of Ramallah, which provides educational services to a number of students in the Bedouin community, a ministry statement said.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition vessel Handala has concluded the first stage of the new mission to break the Israeli-led siege of the Gaza Strip. The vessel has returned to the Norwegian capital, Oslo, the International Committee to Break the Siege on Gaza said on Wednesday.

15 August 2023; MEMO: More than 900 academics and public figures engaged in cultural activities including artists, museum professionals and art historians, have signed an open letter condemning Israel’s apartheid system, New York’s Hyperallergic magazine has reported.

16 August 2023; MEMO: Israel today claimed that occupation forces targeted and destroyed a weapons laboratory and explosives warehouse belonging to the Palestinian Fatah movement.

The site, in the Palestinian refugee camp of Balata in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, was destroyed by Israel’s army and Border Police using explosives last night.

The Palestinians who investigated the blast site claimed that the location was only used as a centre by Fatah.

15 August 2023; MEMO: Former Israeli army general and ex-senior Mossad agent, Amiram Levin, yesterday said that the Israeli occupation army is a “partner in war crimes”, adding that the situation in the occupied West Bank is “total apartheid”, Kan radio reported.

11 August 2023; MEMO: Aboriginal Australian Senator, Lidia Thorpe, has urged the Australian government to acknowledge the sovereignty of the State of Palestine and the territories that have been illegally occupied by Israel since 1967.

She additionally requested that the Australian government encourage Israel to put an end to its illegal occupation and colonisation of Palestinian land.

11 August 2023; MEMO: Britain has removed migrants from a residential barge less than a week after they moved in, after Legionella bacteria was found in the water supply, the government said on Friday, Reuters reports.

Britain had begun moving some migrants on to the large "Bibby Stockholm" barge on its southern coast at the beginning of the week as part of its high-profile strategy to deter asylum seekers from arriving in the country.