The sentencing of a young Sudanese woman to death by stoning for adultery presents numerous grave violations of domestic and international law, Human Rights Watch said. The sentence also underscores the urgent need for Sudan to reform its legal system in accordance with its human rights obligations, Human Rights Watch said. Intisar Sharif Abdallah, whose age has not been determined but is believed to be under the age of 18, was sentenced by a judge on 22 April 2012, in the city of Omdurman, near Khartoum. Since her sentencing, she been held in Omdurman prison with her five-month-old baby, with her legs shackled.

An Egypt court acquitted 13 police officers who were accused of killing six people and injuring 18 others on January 28 and 29, 2011, during the uprising that ousted the former regime, outside a police station in Giza. The six men were killed in what was known as the Friday of Anger that saw hundreds of others die at the hands of the police, who tried to suppress the uprising. The police officers defense accused the families of the dead of trying to prosecute the officers 'out of greed' as they were accused of aiming for state compensation.

The profits and riches to be gained from exploitation of Eastern Congo’s natural resources continue to propel violence, pillage and the suffering of the Congolese people.

The Freedom of Expression Institute and Section 16 have applied to become friends of the court in the hate speech case against Julius Malema. The Freedom of Expression Institute and Section 16 have applied to become friends of the court in the hate speech case against Julius Malema. 'Hate speech is a very important and delicate issue for South African democracy,' said Melissa Moore, executive officer for the non-governmental organisation Section 16.

Farm invasions are 'inevitable' should white South Africans not voluntarily hand over land to the government, says the ANC Youth League. “If they don’t want to see angry black youths flooding their farms they must come to the party. Whites must volunteer some of the land and mines they own.' Lamola was speaking at the end of a youth league policy workshop held in preparation for the ANC policy conference later this month.

The June 2012 issue of the Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter is now .

In this issue:

- Palestinians who fall under the 1951 Convention: a Norwegian case
- Legal aid profile: the Cambridge Pro Bono Project
- Ruling: the state is obligated to provide adequate translation services in RSD interviews
- Open letter to the Cyprus Bar Association
- Conference panel: the need for competent counsel for refugees
- Why immigration detention harms people and doesn’t work
- South Africa: High Court refuses to grant leave to appeal closure of refugee reception office
- Important judgement on the value of medical reports

Also in this issue are announcements, requests, Country of Origin and legal news listings, publications, opportunities, and conferences and courses.

As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions.

A university student in Swaziland was shot with a live bullet by police following campus disturbances, human rights activists report. The 23-year-old student at the Limkokwing private university in Mbabane was reportedly an innocent victim of the shooting. The Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN) said, ‘The student was on his way to his dormitory when he was struck by the live bullet in his leg.’

While both African and European leaders continue to warn against partition in Mali, the rival movements backing a new, independent state in the north of the country have failed to follow through on a joint agreement to form the Islamic Republic of Azawad, leaving the project uncertain and raising suspicions that their show of unity masked deep divisions. The Tuareg-dominated National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) was reported to have signed an agreement with the Islamic Ansar Dine movement in the northern city of Gao on 25 May. But in the days that followed, contradictory briefings, interviews and communiqués from both sides have suggested the document prepared after three weeks of talks was at best preliminary, with disagreements resurfacing as a final communiqué was worked on.

Contrary to widespread expectations and public pronouncements, the Ugandan government has pulled the plug on controversial legislation which since 2000 has granted blanket amnesty to more than 26,000 members of armed groups, most notably the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The Act was passed as part of efforts to end hostilities in northern Uganda and bring the LRA to the negotiating table. Over the following six years, several detailed accords were drawn up but LRA leader Joseph Kony repeatedly refused to sign a comprehensive peace agreement. 'There will be no blanket amnesty for anyone now,' said Internal Affairs Minister Hilary Onek, who on 25 May used his prerogative to allow significant sections of the Amnesty Act to lapse.

'The first time I saw a drone in the sky was about eight years ago, when I was thirteen. I have counted six or seven drone strikes in my village since the beginning of 2012. There were sixty or seventy primary schools in and around my village, but only a few remain today. Few children attend school because they fear for their lives walking to and from their homes. I am mostly illiterate. I stopped going to school because we were all very afraid that we would be killed. I am twenty-one years old. My time has passed. I cannot learn how to read or write so that I can better my life. But I very much wish my children to grow up without these killer drones hovering above, so that they may get the education and life I was denied.' This is one of the voices collected by the UK human rights group Reprieve and included in a lawsuit filed against the British government for aiding America’s unaccountable and illegal drone campaign.

A suicide bomber has driven a car full of explosives into a church in northern Nigeria, killing 12 people in the latest deadly attack on Christians. Security forces at a road block nearby said the bomber forced his car through the checkpoint and drove into the church in Yelwa, on the outskirts of the city of Bauchi, on Sunday. A Reuters reporter at the scene counted 12 bodies being pulled from the building.

Kenyan soldiers have killed 14 Al Shabaab fighters after the rebel force launched an attack on a Kenyan warship in the Indian Ocean. Ten other Al Shabaab fighters were injured in the attack, the first major naval operation in recent months. The Kenyan Defence Forces (KDF), which is part of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) contingent, said the Kenyan Naval Ship engaged the militants at an Al Shabaab seaport watch station on Tuesday, 29 May.

The Judges of Trial Chamber II on 30 May sentenced convicted former Liberian President Charles Ghankay Taylor to a term of 50 years in prison for planning and for aiding and abetting crimes committed by rebel forces in Sierra Leone during the country's decade-long civil war. The Trial Chamber, comprised of Justice Richard Lussick of Samoa (Presiding), Justice Teresa Doherty of Northern Ireland, and Justice Sebutinde of Uganda, unanimously imposed the single global sentence for all 11 counts of the crimes for which Mr. Taylor was convicted. These included acts of terrorism, murder, rape, sexual slavery, outrages upon personal dignity, cruel treatment, other inhumane acts, conscripting or enlisting of child soldiers, enslavement and pillage.

Clashes between two communities in western Kenya's Rift Valley Province have led to the displacement of thousands of people, the closure of several schools and calls for the government to beef up security. Relations between the Tugen and the Pokot in what is now known as Baringo County have for decades been marked by tit-for-tat cattle raids and the occasional attendant fatality. Over the years, firearms have replaced more traditional weapons, especially among the Pokot. An escalation - in intensity and frequency - of hostilities since January has, according to the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS), left more than 7,500 Tugen people displaced from their homes, living either with other members of their community or in rudimentary shelters in the bush.

On 29 May, The New York Times published an extraordinarily in-depth look at the intimate role President Obama has played in authorizing US drone attacks overseas, particularly in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. 'While purporting to represent the world’s greatest democracy, US leaders are putting people on a hit list who are as young as 17, people who are given no chance to surrender, and certainly no chance to be tried in a court of law.'

Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo has labelled rumours circulating about Rwanda's involvement in the eastern DRC as 'categorically false and dangerous'. She was responding to reports on the BBC of a UN report alleging that solders had been recruited and trained in Rwanda and then transferred to the eastern DRC to take part in the conflict between the Congolese government and rebel forces.

The UN refugee agency reported on 29 May that the recent fighting in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has left more than 40,000 people internally displaced. UNHCR staff in North Kivu province say most of the internal displacement is taking place in Rutshuru territory, north of the provincial capital, Goma. Between May 10 and May 20, one of UNHCR's local NGO partners registered more than 40,000 internally displaced people in Jomba and Bwesa sectors.

As Sudan and South Sudan sit down to peace talks they must make it a priority to sort out citizenship problems which have left hundreds of thousands of people in a 'stateless' limbo, rights activists say. People from South Sudan were left without any official nationality last year after the south became independent and the government in the northern capital of Khartoum stripped them of their Sudanese citizenship. Refugees International (RI) said as many as 500,000 southerners were still living in Sudan and warned that violence against them was on the rise. Tens of thousands have lost their jobs.

Top negotiators for Sudan and South Sudan met Tuesday 29 May for their first talks since deadly border fighting last month took them to the brink of war, even as Juba accused Khartoum of fresh air strikes. Teams from both sides are in the Ethiopian capital to restart the African Union-led talks which were stalled by heavy clashes last month, the worst fighting since the South won independence last July.

Environmental organisation Greenpeace has demanded that the government halts all discussions aimed at expanding nuclear power production in South Africa. 'Greenpeace Africa activists blockaded the premises of the IDC where the conference on 'Nuclear power's future for Africa' was taking place,' the organisation told News24. Police forcibly removed the activists from the premises of the Industrial Development Corporation in Sandton.