A land deal finalized this week between Paraguayan authorities and a land owner in the country’s central region will allow a long-displaced indigenous community to rebuild in safety and dignity, Amnesty International said today.

For almost two decades, the Yakye Axa indigenous community have fought a legal battle to return to their ancestral lands while around 90 families were forced to live in destitute conditions alongside a nearby highway.

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The new authorities in the Maldives must avoid persecuting members of outgoing president Mohammed Nasheed’s political party, Amnesty International said today, after Mr Nasheed resigned following a police mutiny in the country.

The former leader said in a televised statement on Tuesday that he was resigning “to prevent violence”, after a group of police officers joined opposition-led protests and took control of the state broadcaster in the capital Male.

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The Egyptian authorities should scrap a Mubarak-era law used to prosecute civil society and ensure its planned replacement upholds the right to freedom of association, Amnesty International said today.

The call follows yesterday’s announcement that 43 people have been referred to a criminal court for trial as part of an investigation into the funding and registration of NGOs.

Amnesty International has called for the charges against them, based on Egypt’s repressive laws on civil society registration and foreign funding, to be dropped.

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Uganda’s Parliament today re-introduced a proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill which Amnesty International considers a “grave assault on human rights” that must be rejected.

Under the bill, gay and lesbian people in Uganda could face the death penalty for so-called “aggravated homosexuality” – a definition which includes consensual sexual conduct.

“It’s alarming and disappointing that Uganda’s Parliament will once again consider the Anti-Homosexuality Bill,” said Michelle Kagari, Deputy Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International.

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Members of the Indian army must stand trial when facing charges of serious violations of human rights, instead of hiding behind the controversial  Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA), Amnesty International said today.

On 4 February, India’s Supreme Court stated that the Indian army could not invoke the AFSPA to avoid the prosecution of eight officers charged with the March 2000 killing of five Kashmiri villagers at Pathribal.

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