Category World News

African leaders want to see crimes committed during the colonial era recognized and down.

A legal framework, according to Algeria, would make reparations neither a favor nor a gift.

How then could former colonial powers be held accountable?

Can those atrocities’ costs be estimated?

Presenter: Dareen Abughaida

Guests:

Senior research fellow in European affairs, Jacques Reland

Paul Beaver – Former soldier and analyst for the defense

Prior to and following the deadly Hillsborough football stadium crush, which resulted in the deaths of 97 Liverpool supporters in northern England in 1989, a major investigation has revealed that there were widespread police misconduct.

The UK’s police watchdog came to the conclusion on Tuesday that 12 police officers would have faced charges for gross misconduct in the country’s worst sporting tragedy after an investigation that started in 2012.

They have all retired, so no one can take any action against them, and the victims’ families claim justice has never been served.

The families’ lead attorney, Nicola Brook, stated that “not a single officer will face a disciplinary action.” She continued, “No one will be held accountable.”

Margaret Aspinall, a long-time advocate for the victims of the 18-year-old son James’ murder that day, expressed her outrage and said the 12 officers had the right to leave “walk away scot free with a full pension.”

Charlotte Hennessy, who lost her father Jimmy in the crush, reacted similarly to her complaint that she and the others “never get justice.”

On April 15, 1989, 2, 000 Liverpool supporters were permitted to enter a standing-only area behind one of the goals at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield.

As a result of the subsequent crush, almost 100 people died as a result of their team’s FA Cup semifinal encounters with Nottingham Forest fans who were trampled or caught against metal fences.

Initial inquests initially discredited the police’s claim that the incident was caused by drunken supporters, but subsequent inquests disproven this theory.

The fans were “unlawfully killed,” according to a later independent investigation from 2016 who claimed police had opened an exit gate accidentally before kickoff.

South Yorkshire Police admitted that their game policing had “catastrophically wrong” in 2023.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) reported that it had “found additional evidence” that would give a more “detailed understanding” of what transpired at the stadium.

The IOPC conducted 352 complaints about police actions, of which 92 were upheld or would have required individuals to explain their actions.

Additionally, it criticized a Hillsborough tragedy review conducted by West Midlands Police as being biased in favor of their police colleagues.

No police officer has ever been found guilty of manslaughter in connection with the tragedy, with the match’s lead officer, David Duckenfield, who was acquitted in 2019.

According to the victims’ families, Norman Bettison, one of the 12 named officers who later rose to the position of head of Merseyside Police, should not be knighted.

Hillsborough, according to British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, is a “stain on our nation’s history” that “today serves as a stark reminder of one of the most significant failings in policing the country has ever seen.”

The UK parliament is currently considering a new law known as the “Hillsborough Law,” which would make public officials, including police, legally required to be honest.

This was of “no consolation” for the victims’ families, according to Brook, the lead attorney.

The court last week approved jail sentences for opposition leaders, business figures, and attorneys accused of plotting to overthrow president Kais Saied, who has imposed years-long crackdown on opposition figures.

In a video that his family posted on his Facebook page on Tuesday, Hammami, who served as minister of human rights in 2020, announced that “if you are seeing this video, I have been arrested.”

“I’ve fought for democracy, freedom, and rights for years. He declared that he would launch a new front of struggle from his cell and declare a hunger strike.

Chaima Issa, a fellow opposition figure, was detained last week in Tunisian protests to impose a 20-year prison sentence in the same case, making his arrest follow.

Around 40 people, including former officials and Kamel Guizani, the former head of intelligence, are the targets of the sweeping prosecution.

Opposition members claim that the charges brought against them, including those that included attempts to destabilize the nation and overthrow the government, are made up and intended to oust opposition. They also claim that the measures reflect the country’s growing authoritarianism.

Najib Chebbi, the leader of the main coalition challenging Saied, is expected to be arrested by police and serve for 12 years in prison.

In what analysts describe as one of the largest political prosecutions in Tunisia’s recent history, 20 of the accused have fled abroad and received absentia sentences.

Saied insists he does not interfere with the court system, but he claimed that when the case first started in 2023, judges who found the accused guilty would be viewed as compliciters.

The convictions have been denounced by human rights organizations. According to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the sentences must be immediately overturned because they are politically motivated.

Amnesty’s Deputy Middle East and North Africa Director, Sara Hashash, criticized the Tunis Court of Appeal’s decision to uphold the unjust convictions in the so-called “convention case” for being “a blatant indictment of the Tunisian justice system. “The Appeals Court has deliberately ignored the litany of fair trial violations that have plagued this sham case from day one,” she said.

In what opponents call a “coup,” Saied suspended parliament in July 2021, before a decree-making decision. In addition to the media, activists, and lawyers who criticize Saied, many of those powers were incorporated into a new constitution that was approved in a widely boycotted 2022 referendum. These are all held accountable under a “fake news” law that was passed the same year.

Saeed’s crackdown on the opposition, which has resulted in the imprisonment of prominent politicians from all political parties, has shown no sign of slowing down.