The hundreds of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) members - men, women and children - who marched for eight blocks through central Bulawayo on May 4 to the government offices at Mhlanhlandlela, calling for a reversal to crippling school fee increases of up to 1000%, have finally been released. Having completed their march, the peaceful group were beginning to disperse when riot police arrived. Initial reports suggested that approximately 200 people were arrested, including 73 children. Follow the link for the day to day details regarding the imprisonment.

A farmer who builds gallows and has sold them to African countries with poor human rights records has been condemned by Amnesty International. David Lucas, of Mildenhall, Suffolk, said he had been selling execution equipment to countries including Zimbabwe for about 10 years. Amnesty said the export of gallows, which will be made illegal by an EC regulation in July, was "appalling".

Nigeria’s Police Service Commission (PSC) held its first official joint advisory committee meeting with civil society organizations on April 11, marking an important step forward in increasing police transparency. Civil society organizations including the Justice Initiative used the inaugural meeting to recommend that the PSC be authorized to investigate extrajudicial killings, torture and rape allegedly committed by police in Nigeria.

The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), in the framework of their joint programme, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, has expressed their deep concern over a Bill that would introduce criminal penalties for public advocacy or associations supporting the rights of lesbian and gay people, as well as for relationships and marriage ceremonies between persons of the same sex. As a consequence, human rights defenders and organisations defending those rights will be at a greater risk of criminalisation.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame said on Monday he was considering a plea for clemency from the nation's first post-genocide president, in jail for crimes including inciting ethnic violence and embezzling state funds. Pasteur Bizimungu, who in February received a 15-year term for the crimes committed after his resignation in 2000, said his release would be "for the good of the nation" in a letter printed by local newspapers last week. “It is true that I received the letter of Mr. Bizimungu but I am yet to think about it and analyze its content," Kagame told reporters. "I will let you know if I make a decision," reports Reuters.

Alaa Abd El-Fatah, one of the Egyptian political activists, and one of the first bloggers in Egypt was arrested today (May 8) together with around ten more activists during a peaceful demonstration in solidarity with sixty activists who were arrested over the past two weeks in a non-violent sit in, as well who were held in custody for two weeks under investigation for “crimes” that if anything would raise only mockery including, humiliating the president, possession of “publishing equipment”(graffiti spray) and blocking traffic.

The death toll continued to rise in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, as fighting between rival militias entered its third day, local sources said. "As of last night [Monday], the death toll stood at 41. It will get higher, since the fighting is still going on," said a doctor at Keysaney Hospital in the north of the city, where most of the injured were being treated. "If the fighting continues, the hospitals will not be able to cope," the doctor said. "Some of the hospitals have already run out of medicines," warned the doctor.

Media houses and media practitioners in East Africa are increasingly coming under scrutiny from informed consumers and must maintain ethical practices and high standards to survive. It emerged at the first East African media conference held in Nairobi last week that while the power of the media to set the national agenda is growing tremendously, the media is increasingly coming under scrutiny from different directions, mainly from the consumers of its content.

Highlights include a requirement for complete, verfiable disarmament of Janjaweed militia by mid-October, 2006. Provides milestones such as the containment of Janjaweed and other armed militias into specific restricted areas prior to disarmament, removal of heavy weapons, specific assurances of security in assembly areas of the rebel movements, and other steps to contain, reduce, and ultimately eliminate the threat posed by such forces. Places restrictions on the movements of the Popular Defense Forces and requires their downsizing.

The UN refugee agency is helping to move dozens of Congolese refugees who had been struggling to make ends meet in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura, to a camp in Giharo in the south-east of the country where they can get more help. The first group of 67 refugees was transferred from the city on Wednesday. Most had fled from South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in late 2005 because of continuing violence and insecurity in the area. Unable to secure their basic needs in Bujumbura, the refugees asked to be moved to a refugee camp where they can benefit from the assistance provided by UNHCR and its partners.

The first of some 850 Congolese who fled to southern Sudan over 40 years ago after the coup that brought Mobutu Sese Seko to power have returned home. Mobutu renamed the country Zaire and ruled until a rebellion in 1997 after which the Democratic Republic of Congo was pitted into a brutal five-year war. Despite continued insecurity, the refugees were determined to go back. The UN agreed to help their return to Kisangani because of their advanced age and poor living conditions in Sudan.

Following visits to three maximum prisons, the first in Tanzania by a head of state, President Jakaya Kikwete has pledged to ensure that prison conditions improve and prisoners are treated humanely. "The aim of my visit was to learn about what is going on and I promise that the government can look for solutions, particularly on the issue of overcrowding in prison," Kikwete said. For years, human rights activists have complained against appalling conditions in Tanzanian prisons.

United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland was forced to curtail his visit to a camp for internally displaced persons in Sudan's restive western region of Darfur when an initially peaceful demonstration to show support for a planned deployment of a UN peacekeeping force turned rowdy. Egeland was meeting representatives from nongovernmental organisations at the Kalma camp, near the town of Nyala, when the crowd complained that a translator working for an international NGO had not correctly interpreted what they were saying. They beat the interpreter before he was put in a vehicle and driven out of the camp.

On 13 April 2006, armed militias on horses and camels, numbering more than five hundred attacked and looted Karamagay village in North East Nyala, Southern Darfur State. During the attack, the militias killed 15 people and wounded 11 others. The militias also looted over 517 cows, 850 sheep, 720 goats, 22 horses, 60 donkeys and 8 camels.

Racially-motivated killings, beatings and discrimination are on the increase in the Russian Federation, according to a new report published today (May 4). The government of the country, currently chairing the Group of the eight most-industrialized countries (G8 Group) and about to chair the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for the next six months, is failing to sufficiently challenge xenophobia and intolerance. The report examines cases of assaults, some of them fatal, against foreign students, asylum-seekers and refugees from Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America; members of ethnic groups and migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia; as well as members of the Jewish community and Roma.

Over 400,000 civilians have already died in Darfur. But, almost 2 years after the United States officially recognized it as a "genocide," almost nothing has been done to stop the killing. A relatively small United Nations peace keeping force (which wouldn't even require new US troops) could protect civilians, stop the violence, and help a real peace process begin. But it won't happen if world leaders, including ours, don't stand up and demand it.

A teenage Somali boy has stabbed to death his father's killer in a public execution ordered by an Islamic court. Large crowds gathered at a Koranic school in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, to watch Mohamed Moallim, 16, stab Omar Hussein in the head and throat. Hussein had been convicted of killing the boy's father, Sheikh Osman Moallim, after a row about Mohamed's education. Islamic courts have brought a semblance of order to Mogadishu, imposing Sharia law after years of rule by warlords. However there is some opposition to the courts.

Amnesty International today (2 May) called on the Ethiopian government to release immediately and unconditionally several opposition Members of Parliament-elect, human rights defenders and journalists whose treason trial begins today, saying that they are "prisoners of conscience who have not used or advocated violence."

A press release by the Congressional Black Caucus points out that: “After more than three years of suffering at the hands of the Government of Sudan and the Janjaweed, the people of Darfur are faced with a proposed peace agreement which falls short of the aim to end the violence and create a just and lasting peace in the region. The seventh round of the African-Union brokered peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria are coming to a close and the April 30 deadline for a signed peace agreement was extended…the draft peace agreement is skewed to benefit the Government of Sudan and penalize the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) - the only voices for the people of Darfur.”

African Union mediators said they had again extended the deadline for reaching agreement in the Darfur peace talks, giving negotiators a further 48 hours to strike a deal. The government of Sudan has accepted an 85-page draft settlement designed to end fighting that has killed tens of thousands. But three Darfur rebel factions refuse to sign, saying they are unhappy with the proposals on security, power and wealth-sharing.