The regional civil society call for inclusive dialogue and commitment to sustainable peace in Burundi.

The political crisis in Burundi remains unresolved and appears to deepen with each passing day. The government, regional leaders and the international community need to act before it is too late.

International and Human Rights Watch are asking NGO’s across Africa to join the call to President Robert Mugabe, to investigate and resolve the circumstances around Itai Dzamara’s enforced disappearance. Below is a brief background of Itai Dzamara and the full text of the petition.

Prominent activist Nasako Besingi has been convicted after a protracted and controversial legal process on two counts of propagation of false news against the US agribusiness company, Herakles Farms, and two counts of defamation against two employees of the company. He faces three years in jail.

President Kenyatta’s government is growing less tolerant of informed policy debate and dissent each day. This is immensely troubling. It is creating an atmosphere of state coercion and intimidation.

Free education is not only about money, resources, student to lecturer ratios, the end to the outsourcing, although it clearly does mean this. It also means an education that works towards freedom. It means working through legacies of apartheid difference that persist in the present.

Students are insisting that the social value of education must come before its commercial value. Just as land should not be bought and sold, so also education is not something that should be bought and sold.

History has time and again shown that violence does not take place in a vacuum and until the ongoing issue of an illegal and brutal occupation is addressed, there is unlikely to be peace and justice for Palestinians and Israelis, Jews and Muslims in Israel/Palestine.

The WTO is located firmly in an old ethical order which puts profit over people; where those in power make the rules to suppress the powerless; and where this iniquitous and unjust world “order” (disorder) is legitimised by the ideology of neoliberalism. Progressive people must defy this iniquitous system and overturn it; it is not reformable.

Academic staff at universities in South Africa call on their colleagues at universities and tertiary institutions around the world, members of civil society, and all who have been fortunate enough to enjoy the benefits of higher education, to sign this campaign and stand with South African students in their struggle for a democratised higher education sector. Sign the petition .

Who represents the greater “menace”: some 300,000 “illegal” refugees escaping from the countries destabilized or outright destroyed by the West, or those millions of Westerners who are annually fleeing their depressing lifestyles and selfishly over-imposing themselves on so many economically weaker and therefore more vulnerable parts of the world?

Prisons should not become a death sentence, but a platform where those who have been found to have offended are rehabilitated so they could later be integrated and play a meaningful role in our society.

Guyana’s new government has refused to allow the Commission a final two weeks to finalise the investigation for clearly political reasons. Guyanese and people around the world need and deserve a completed inquiry into this atrocity.

As a spokesperson for the South African Police Serivce, Colonel Naicker is expected to disseminate factually accurate information. But he he has conspicuously failed to do in his comments about the Glebelands violence. How on earth does SAPS expect anyone to take anything he says seriously given the disinformation he has disseminated about an extremely serious and tragic situation?

The mass abuse of female university students in Nigeria is fueled by the lack of a consistent and clear policy by university governing bodies and school authorities concerning sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape of female students.

African civil society groups have expressed disappointed at the sudden, unexpected and unexplained cancellation of the Summit that was scheduled for Nairobi this week. They say Africa had high hopes and expectations that this Summit would have reinvigorated the APRM’s purpose, institutions and processes, and addressed the critical challenges facing APRM.

Sexual violence continues to increase in Somalia following the recent impeachment against the president, which caused political instability and a crackdown on IDPs around the capital city.

The team is headed by Professor Itse Sagay, a prominent professor of law and civil rights activist. The Committee's task is to advise the present Buhari led administration on the prosecution of the war against corruption and the implementation of required reforms in Nigeria's criminal justice system.

The families of the 37 mineworkers killed at Marikana on 13 and 16 August 2012 have filed civil claims against the Minister of Police in the High Court in Pretoria. The 37 families are represented by The Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI), and the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) and Wits Law Clinic.

The proposed law contravenes provisions of the constitution that require public participation in national affairs, a culture of openness and subordination of the military to civilian oversight.