On 25th February 2009, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Prof. Philip Alston, released his findings on the matter of extrajudicial killings in Kenya and his recommendations include that the Attorney General, Amos Wako and the Commissioner of Police, Major General Hussein Ali should immediately be sacked by the appointing authority. His verdict on extrajudicial killings was clear – that there is indeed systematic, widespread and carefully planned elimination done at will and with utter impunity.

Hundreds of members of Women and Men of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA/MOZA) delivered a petition to the new Minister of Education, Senator David Coltart today in Harare. Whilst leaders tried to deliver the petition to the minister, with whom they had an official appointment, riot police indiscriminately beat the peaceful group that were waiting for the minister to come and address them. At least 10 members have been arrested. The full extent of the injuries sustained are not clear but at least one woman is unable to walk and an ambulance has been called for her.

Francio Guadeloupe explores the meaning of activism by reflecting upon personal encounters of human rights abuses in Brazil, South Africa, and the Netherlands. Narratives of discrimination and brutality lead Guadeloupe to believe that a clear split exists between activists in the West and the non-West, a split which we must work towards eliminating. Guadeloupe suggests that an activist recognises the equality of humanity; whether one demands the right to be perceived as human for oneself or for others, an activist, in so doing, demands human rights for all.

A man in his 50s was killed by gunshot fired "from a barricade manned by youths" on Tuesday night in Pointe-à-Pitre, according to the Prefecture's crisis unit, confirming a report made on Europe 1 radio.

The victim was a "union activist returning from a meeting" and was killed in a car in Henry IV popular district, a sensitive area of Chanzy in Pointe-à-Pitre, the source confirmed by telephone to French news agency Agence France Presse (AFP) in Paris.

Another person in the victim's vicinity at the time of the incident is currently being questioned by police.

Whilst escorting firemen coming to the aid of the victim three policemen were slightly injured that evening by lead bullets "probably from a hunting rifle" stated an official from the crisis unit.

To all celebrating Black History Month:

Black History Month is a time to not only celebrate, educate and embrace Afrikan contributions, but a time to continue upholding the legacy of our unsung Afrikan heroes, many of whom sacrificed a great deal in the times of the civil rights and black liberation movements.

1,000s of Afrikan people have been held captive as political prisoners or prisoners of war for holding America responsible for its injustices. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Kwame Ture and Huey P. Newton were all incarcerated for political reasons.

Many of the men and women who stood beside the civil rights and black liberation heroes of yesterday are still incarcerated today. Jalil Muntaqim and Herman Bell (of the San Francisco 8) are two of many who sacrificed so much during the civil rights and black liberation movements. Both have been held captive since the early 1970s.

Alyxandra Gomes Nunes (2009-02-07)

Pambazuka News’s Portuguese-language Editor Alyxandra Gomes considers the endurance of racial divisions in labour in her native Brazil. Taking off from the city of Belem's hosting of the 2009 World Social Forum, Gomes describes the persistence of slave labour practices, especially within the Amazon region, some 110 years after slavery's abolition in the country. With the overwhelming bulk of unsalaried and unofficial employees in the sugar-alcohol sector of African descent, the author argues that Brazil must overcome its vast disparities in labour practices, move towards genuine racial equality, and criminalise poverty to tackle broad socio-economic inequalities once and for all.

Leaders of the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) launched a yearly working programme at the first meeting of the Steering Committee in Dakar last weekend February 6th and 7th. The Steering Committee of the FAJ elected by congress in November 2008 in Nairobi, Kenya, convened in Dakar to examine the implementation of priorities and programmed activities for 2009 as agreed at the Nairobi Congress.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is kicking off a five-city tour of the United States aimed at highlighting the horrors faced by thousands of Congolese rape victims, while calling for an end to impunity for the perpetrators of the worst kinds of sexual violence. Simple everyday tasks, such as gathering wood and fetching water, expose thousands of girls and women to vicious abuses in the conflict-ridden eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), “where rape is used as a weapon of war,” said UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman.

On Sunday 8th February, Gugulethu SAPS burst into an Anti-Eviction Campaign mass meeting, tear-gassed and beat residents, and then arrested two AEC leaders, Mncedisi Twalo and Mbulelo Zuba. The background to the incident is that AEC members from Gugulethu, Nyanga, Langa and Mannenberg were holding their weekly meeting at the Gugulethu Sports Complex. The complex is a community centre and is the one place that is always open and accessible to community members.

On Monday 9 February (UK) and the Muslim Human Rights Forum (Kenya) released a report on Abdulmalik Mohamed, the Kenyan detained at Guantánamo Bay. The report is supplied here together with a press release urging the Kenyan government to do the right thing and appeal to the US government on Abdulmalik's behalf. Reprieve and the Muslim Human Rights Forum appeal to you to lend your voice to the calls for the return to Kenya of Abdulmalik and the upholding of his legal and human rights.

cc. Underlining South African labour’s support for the people of Gaza in an 8 February address to a Cape Town rally, Zwelinzima Vavi of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) highlights the need for growing global solidarity in standing up to Israeli oppression. The COSATU general secretary salutes the efforts of groups both within South Africa and beyond in refusing to facilitate the movement of Israeli goods, and stresses the role of international isolation in bringing down another directly comparable example of brute political force in the shape of South Africa’s erstwhile apartheid regime.

The Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) is disturbed at a growing trend in South African cities in terms of which the state forcibly removes shackdwellers from large shacks on well-located land to 'temporal housing' in transit camps (also known as 'temporary relocation areas' or TRAs) on the urban periphery. Relocation to transit camps is most often done to make way for infrastructure and development projects which will not benefit those being removed

On Monday 12 January 2009 at 7pm, of the four Gabonese civil society activists – Grégory Ngbwa Mintsa, Marc Ona Essangui, Georges Mpaga and Gaston Asseko – who had been detained in Libreville since 30 and 31 December 2008, respectively, were released from jail. This release follows days of large-scale international mobilisation by both non-governmental groups and French authorities in Paris and Libreville.

Representatives of independent Sudanese civil society organizations, media and rights activists called on Sudanese government, political actors and civil society members to urgently convene a conference to discuss the crisis brought on by the Sudanese government’s reaction to the charges brought by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court against the President of Sudan.

Social movements in Latin America have been in the “trenches of resistance” against global capitalism, and now need to move to an “offensive,” taking concrete steps toward the creation of alternatives to capitalism, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez expressed during a speech to thousands of participants in the World Social Forum Thursday in Belém do Pará, Brazil. “Just like Latin America and the Caribbean received the biggest dose of neo-liberal venom, our continent has been the immense territory where social movements have sprouted with the greatest strength and begun to change the world,” said Chávez.

Abahlali baseMjondolo have been to the Durban High Court this morning to hear the judgment being handed dawn by the KwaZulu-Natal President, Judge Vuka Shabalala. On the 6 November 2008 the Movement had applied to the Durban High Court for the KwaZulu- Natal Elimination and Prevention of Re-Emergence of Slums Act 2007 to be declared unconstitutional. Full details of the Act, and the reasons for our opposition to it, and can be found on the Movement's website at

With a domestic violence bill currently under review by the government, Morocco continues to lead the Arab world in its defence of women's rights. In addition, the Union of Women's Action (UAF) organised forums across Casablanca on Saturday (January 17th) to raise public awareness of violence and to lobby local groups to protect victimised women.

Soliciting 3-minute videos on the subject of how you would prepare for a stay in one of the largest African slums, Mathare, Nairobi, Kenya, if given the prize of a visit. The award is a 10-day stay, "all inclusive", in Mathare, where this Slum-TV project is based. Interested participants need to respond to a video available online (please see the full posting for details). Responses need to be in a video format. Deadline: February 21 2009

In response to by Glen Ford:

I have lived in the US for 45 years, and conclude that the majority of white (Christian) Americans remain racists. While there is less racism toward African Americans, the bias against Muslims and especially Palestinians has grown tremendously, orchestrated by the Jewish lobby. Blacks are Christians, totally influenced by the pro-Israeli media, are anti Palestinians.

In other words they are as American as the whites and so the CBC reflects this. Just because American blacks suffered under the whites does not at all make them sympathetic to those non Africans who suffer even more so under white imperialism.

You will work as part of a Project Team and in collaboration with partner NGOs and CBOs lead on the design and delivery of campaigns and actions of the Kenya Growth Project, particularly initiatives to ensure active participation of people in Nairobi’s poor people’s settlements to secure housing rights by ending forced evictions as part of AI's Dignity Campaign.