Dhaka bans NGOs from helping Rohingya

Bangladesh has ordered three international charities to stop providing aid to Rohingya refugees crossing the border from Myanmar where they have fled persecution and violence.

Local administrator Joynul Bari said on Thursday that France's Doctors without Borders (MSF), Action Against Hunger (ACF) and Britain's Muslim Aid UK have been told to suspend their services in the Cox's Bazaar district bordering Myanmar.

"The charities have been providing aid to tens of thousands of undocumented Rohingya refugees illegally. We asked them to stop all their projects in Cox's Bazaar following directive from the NGO Affairs Bureau," Bari told the AFP news agency. Bari said the charities "were encouraging an influx of Rohingya refugees" from across the border in Myanmar's Rakhine state in the wake of recent sectarian violence that left at least 80 people killed.

Al Jazeera

Secret prisons in Europe

Six years after the first revelations about the abduction, torture and detention on European soil of terrorism suspects by the CIA, the European Parliament is preparing a new report about the scandal. Hearings were organised with NGO’s and human rights institutions to gather additional data about some member-states governments alleged complicity in the rendition programme. The report investigated claims arrangements existed in Lithuania, Romania, Poland, Denmark, Finland and Britain.

“Nothing has been done in member states to truly investigate and get to the bottom of the problem. There is an obligation not only not to torture or to be an accomplice in torture, but there is an obligation to investigate, to ensure accountability,” said Gerald Staberock, Secretary General of the World Organisation Against Torture.

EuroNews