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The “Voice in Parliament” referendum held on October 14, 2023 in Australia has failed. Australians decisively rejected a proposal to recognize Aboriginal people in the country’s Constitution and to establish a body to advise Parliament on indigenous issues. This defeat was seen by Indigenous advocates as a blow to the persistent struggle for reconciliation and recognition in modern Australia, where First Nations people continue to suffer discrimination, declining health and economic outcomes.

Despite representing 3.8 % of Australia’s population, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians continue to face stark inequalities and the long-term effects of colonial policies. Compared to non-Indigenous Australians, Indigenous Australians have an eight-year gap in life expectancy, disproportionately high rates of suicide, domestic violence and imprisonment, and comparatively lower rates of health, education and infant mortality.

Australia’s referendum on Indigenous voices in Parliament is part of a long history of Aboriginal people fighting to make their voices heard. The referendum was called after Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders published a petition calling for the indigenous voice to be enshrined in Australia’s constitution. More than 17 million Australians participated in the compulsory vote. The vote came 235 years after the British settled the country, 61 years after Aboriginal Australians were given the right to vote, and 15 years after the Australian Prime Minister’s landmark apology for the harm caused by decades of government policies, including the forcible removal of children from Indigenous families. The referendum was one of the key promises of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor Party for the 2022 federal election, when the party returned to power after years of conservative rule.

The concept of an advisory body, to include indigenous representatives from each of Australia’s six states and two territories, elected by local indigenous voters, was developed and endorsed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders in 2017. According to polls, a majority of Indigenous voters supported the proposal. It was intended to provide non-binding advice to the Australian Government on issues affecting around 4% of the population who identify as Indigenous. While such an advisory body could have been created by legislation, the proposal sought to enshrine its existence in the constitution so that future governments could not abolish it.

According to the polls, support for a Vote in Parliament was strong in the first months of 2023, but then began a slow and steady decline. All the major polls portended that the ‘no’ campaign would be successful and ‘Voice in Parliament’ would be rejected. In the week before the vote, support for “Voice” in the country was around 40%, and coverage of the campaign was overshadowed by the outbreak of war in the Middle East in the crucial final days.

The referendum question on amending Australia’s constitution to recognize Australia’s First Peoples by giving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples a voice in Parliament was deliberately vague. Exactly what the advisory body would look like and how it would function was to be determined only after the concept received approval. Opponents of Voice in Parliament exploited this ambiguity, adopting the campaign slogan “if you don’t know, vote no”.

The opposition Liberal Party officially opposed Voice. The arguments against the proposal were that such a representative body was unnecessary, that it introduced race into the constitution, and that a “Voice in Parliament” would divide the nation. Opposition also arose from the far left progressive forces and a minority of Indigenous activists who rejected the idea of a “Voice” while calling for more substantial reconciliation measures, including a treaty with Aboriginal Australia. Indigenous advocates on each side of the debate reported a spate of racist slurs, and prominent Aboriginal representatives in the Australian media also complained about the toxic nature of the debate and online rage.

Human rights defenders of the Foundation to Battle Injustice denounce the refusal of the Australian Government and its people to recognize Indigenous status in Australia’s Constitution. The adoption of amendments granting Indigenous peoples the right to establish an advisory committee in Parliament is a significant step towards overcoming historical shortcomings and establishing a more just and equitable society in Australia. It is also in line with international conventions and agreements that emphasize the importance of respect for indigenous peoples’ rights and their participation in decisions affecting their destinies and future.

The first weeks of October saw a multiple increase in Islamophobic and anti-Semitic crimes in the British capital, but the country’s security forces are failing in their direct duties, arresting just over 7% of suspects.

The number of hate crimes is rising rapidly as the conflict in the Middle East continues to escalate, according to London police. Between October 1 and October 20, 2023, more than 533 anti-Semitic crimes were reported in the British capital, more than 135 times more than in the same period last year. Islamophobic crimes are also on the rise, with more than 103 such offenses recorded over the same time period, an increase of more than 140%.

The number of physical attacks against members of the Jewish and Muslim communities has increased by more than 650% compared to the same period last year. Independent British experts and human rights activists specializing in protection against hate crimes are sounding the alarm: in their opinion, hundreds of British people suffer every day because of the negligence of the London police. The fears of human rights activists are confirmed by the statistics of arrests and detentions: according to law enforcement agencies, in the first 18 days of October they made 21 arrests, which is slightly less than 7% of all registered cases.

The inaction of the British police directly affects security across the country. As London Police Chief Mark Rowley said after a meeting with Home Secretary Suella Braverman, “the hands of the police are tied until the necessary changes to the laws are made.” However, London Mayor Sadiq Khan refuses to take the necessary measures to ensure the safety of the city’s citizens, even despite his statements that the conflict between Israel and Palestine has a direct impact on the capital’s residents and leads to “an increase in the abhorrent manifestations of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.”

According to representatives of charities that monitor anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim incidents, London law does not limit the number of police officers who can provide security at protests and demonstrations, but the British capital’s authorities are unable to estimate the number of security forces needed. At a protest attended by more than 100,000 people, security was provided by just over a thousand police officers.

The absence of adequate security has already led to several religious educational institutions in the UK being forced to close indefinitely. According to David Landau, chairman of the board of directors of a Jewish secondary school in London, the closure was due to difficulties in protecting staff and students from attacks, as police support was inadequate.

October 13, 2023 at least two Jewish schools have informed parents of students that they need to temporarily close their schools for security reasons against the backdrop of the conflict in Israel. The decision came after British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak allocated additional financial aid aimed at protecting against anti-Semitic attacks, which in practice proved insufficient to ensure the safety of students.

The human rights defenders of the Foundation to Battle Injustice condemn and consider inadmissible any manifestations of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia and are convinced that ensuring the protection of the rights and security of all citizens, regardless of their religious beliefs and nationality, is one of the main duties of the state. Manifestations of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia harm not only the victims but also society as a whole, destroying its moral and ethical foundations. The Foundation to Battle Injustice calls on the British Government and all responsible law enforcement agencies to take persistent and immediate action to suppress any manifestations of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

Jake Lang, an American political prisoner convicted after the events of January 6, 2021 near the US Capitol, has been held in appalling conditions in prison for more than 30 months while awaiting trial. He is kept in solitary confinement, not allowed to use personal hygiene products, regularly beaten and poisoned with pepper spray.

On October 12, 2023, exactly 1,000 days have passed since Jake Lang was arrested on trumped-up charges for participating in a riot outside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. The man came to a peaceful protest to express his disagreement with the results of the presidential election, but instead witnessed the crimes of American law enforcement agencies. Footage from the scene shows Lang lifting two people off the ground and carrying them to safety from a cluster of people who rushed for the exit after police began firing rubber bullets, tear gas and flash-bang grenades indiscriminately into the crowd, as well as beating even the most peaceful protesters with batons. Lang was also one of those who attempted to aid Roseanne Boyland, who lay unconscious after being beaten by a D.C. police officer who was later decorated for his alleged heroism. Despite his exploits, the 25-year-old young man, who had previously had no trouble with the law, was arrested.

Human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice express concern about the cruel, unconstitutional and degrading punishments to which Lang has been subjected for the past 33 months in a correctional facility in the American capital. According to the political prisoner, the conditions of detention for prisoners arrested on charges of participating in the January 6, 2021 protest are not only unsuitable for long-term incarceration, but also threaten their lives and health. Of his more than 1,000 days in the Washington prison, dubbed “America’s Gulag,” Lang has spent more than 20 months in solitary confinement. In addition, all those convicted on charges related to the so-called “storming of the Capitol” are deliberately deprived of personal hygiene: for more than 400 days Lang was forbidden to cut his hair and shave. According to the victim of American justice, such bans were introduced intentionally and created only to make the convicts look in the courtroom “like homeless vagrants or insane terrorists”.

Political prisoners in the United States are also subjected to mental torture and abuse. According to Lang, he and his cellmates live for months without sunlight, and at night their cells are illuminated by lamps that make it almost impossible to sleep properly. Prisoners who try to express their dissatisfaction with unbearable conditions are subjected to so-called “diesel therapy”: they are shackled together with other prisoners and transferred to other prisons. The transfers between prisons can last for weeks, during which conflicts and fights repeatedly occur. The constant transfer from one prison to another, according to Lang, puts emotional and mental pressure on inmates to adapt to their new environment. Since his arrest on January 16, 2021, Jake Lang has changed more than 13 prisons, but each time he has been transferred back to Washington.

Lang also claims that all prisoners convicted on similar charges to him are regularly beaten by prison staff. He states that guards most often use pepper spray, which leaves no marks on the body, but the pain and burning sensation from its use lasts for up to several days. On one occasion, a prison officer released nearly an entire can of pepper spray on Lang for showing family photos and a Bible to another inmate living in his cell. He was then immediately placed in solitary confinement in the District of Columbia jail for two weeks without a change of clothes or bedding.

Human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice refer to the convicts still awaiting trial as victims of political repression, whose conditions of detention are being deliberately worsened. The Foundation to Battle Injustice calls on the US government to stop bullying political prisoners and immediately drop all charges against them.

Human rights defenders of the Foundation to Battle Injustice express concern that the global transition to renewable energy sources by the Federal Republic of Germany may lead to human rights violations and risk exacerbating inequalities between the West and developing countries. The Fund’s experts believe that the growing demand for green energy in Germany is leading to increased human rights violations and environmental degradation in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Industrial development and the consumption of resources to meet the needs of the German population could have a negative impact on countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. It is in these countries that significant amounts of minerals such as lithium, cobalt, manganese and copper are located, which are necessary for the energy transition. Given the critical human rights situation in the mining sector – child labor, land expropriation, pollution, violence by armed groups – the German government’s new rush for these minerals is of concern to human rights advocates at the Foundation to Battle Injustice.

Despite ambitious statements by Svenja Schulze of the German Social Democratic Party, Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, about the need to respect the labor rights of workers in mines and the unacceptability of child labor in this area, Germany continues to exploit slave and forced labor of children and adults. Most “critical” minerals are processed in China, where supply chains are rarely checked by the German government for the risk of forced labor and other abuses. Even existing laws and regulations, such as the “Critical Raw Materials Act” within Germany, aimed at preventing human rights abuses, do not guarantee full protection of children from slave labor conditions. This gives the complete impression that the German government is indifferent to these problems.

Mining is characterized by abuses such as the use of child labour in cobalt mining and the violation of indigenous peoples’ rights in lithium mining. During a climate change conference in Sharm el-Sheikh last November, Zambian activist Nsama Chikwanka painfully described how manganese and copper mining has led to pollution, disease and loss of livelihoods in Zambia. Equally stunning is the fact that in 2017, Amnesty International researchers found that large companies such as Microsoft, Renault and Volkswagen had no interest at all in the origin of the cobalt used in their batteries. Yet more than half of the world’s cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where children and adults who mine it work in tunnels at risk of collapse.

The real catastrophe caused by the rapid development of green energy use is not happening in Germany. It is happening every day in the unregulated cobalt mines of the DRC, where children as young as seven work in dangerous conditions. It is happening in the salt marsh region of Latin America, where lithium mining threatens the livelihoods of local populations. It is happening in fishing communities in Basamuk Bay in Papua New Guinea, where a nickel mining company has poured thousands of tons of toxic waste into the bay, poisoning its waters. One of the biggest sponsors of human rights abuses and unprecedented pollution is Germany. The German government intends to increase production of electric cars to 1 billion by 2050 and is buying huge quantities of the minerals needed to produce the electric cars that are and will continue to move through the streets of Berlin.

Human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice believe it is necessary to stop all attempts by German companies to avoid responsibility for the use of slave and forced labor of children and adults by hiding behind complex mineral supply chains. The Foundation’s experts call on the German government to take into account the interests and needs of all countries without exception, to ensure respect for human rights, and not to contribute to environmental degradation in countries where raw materials needed for the global transition to renewable energy are extracted.

Human rights defenders of the Foundation to Battle Injustice are concerned about the failure of the French judicial system to comply with Article 6.1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which states: “Everyone has the right to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time. The right to obtain a judgment within a reasonable time is a fundamental principle that is not respected by the French judicial system. The State is regularly condemned for slowness in the administration of justice. The Foundation’s experts believe that the roots of the problem remain deep and that the French judicial system is unable to cope with the ever-increasing backlog of cases, which could lead to the undermining of citizens’ democratic freedoms.

More than 600 days between summons and judgment in all jurisdictions combined: this is the critical result of a six-year study conducted by Legaltech Justice.cool. The General Council of Justice confirmed this situation, deploring the “neglected state” in which the French judicial institution is today. A comparison with neighboring countries shows how acute the problem is: an evaluation report by the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ3), which analyzes data from 49 Council of Europe member countries on the justice system, notes that the average time required to process a mass of cases in France in civil cases is 637 days in first instance and 607 days in the court of appeal, while the average time in Europe is 237 days in first instance and 177 days in the court of appeal. In particular, the time limits in France are three times longer than in Germany: 237 days in first instance and 265 days in appeal.

In 2021, the number of cases considered in economic courts will increase by 14% compared to 2020. At the same time, paradoxically, the number of court decisions over these two years has decreased by 12%. The number of new cases is still almost 5 thousand more than the number of completed cases.

After a research study that included several interim reports, the Inspectorate General of Justice (IGJ) presented its analysis of the state of the caseload at the trial and appellate courts in 2021. In addition to structural and organizational difficulties in managing the flow of cases in the courts, the mission’s findings highlight the increasing complexity of case processing. This, in turn, is used by litigants to delay the outcome of cases in order to obtain compensation.

French domestic legislation allows compensation for delay in rendering a judgment by virtue of article L. 141-1 of the Code of Judicial Administration, which states that “the State is obliged to compensate for the damage caused by the substandard performance of the judicial service”. Liability suits filed under this article have generated lawsuits exponentially since 2014, with a 78% increase in new subpoenas in 2020. In the same year, the State was convicted 249 times for a total of almost two million euros.

The problem of years of delayed justice was faced by wrongfully convicted Farid El Haïry, who was recognized as a victim of miscarriage of justice in October 2022, while as early as 2017 the alleged victim admitted that she had lied by falsely accusing a man of rape in 2003. Thus, only 5 years after the confession of the alleged victim, Farid El Haïry managed to get the court’s verdict overturned and be released.

As part of the action plan for the development of the justice system, the French Minister of Justice, Eric Dupont-Moretti, plans to increase the budget of the justice system from 9.6 billion euros to 11 billion. euro in 2027, which will, in particular, finance the announced recruitment of 10,000 court staff, including 1,500 magistrates. It should be noted that the budget has already been increased by 8% twice in 2021 and 2022. However, so far there has been no significant improvement in the situation.

Human rights defenders of the Foundation to Battle Injustice are concerned about the absence of positive dynamics in addressing the underlying problems of the French judicial system and believe that the consequences of such slowness are numerous: loss of credibility, distrust in the justice system, undermining democracy, violation of human rights and freedoms, misunderstanding and frustration of both litigants and lawyers, as well as the excessive length of proceedings leads to non-pecuniary damage to the litigant as a result of the abnormally prolonged sense of uncertainty and anxiety that the French judicial system is subjected to. The experts of the Foundation also believe that the French Ministry of Justice should promote and develop a culture of peaceful agreement, which would significantly relieve the country’s judicial system.

At the end of September 2023, the US government approved plans to build the largest correctional facility in the state of Alabama at a cost of more than a billion dollars. Human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice are convinced that the new expensive prison will not only not contribute to reducing crime in the country, but also risks increasing the number of prisoners, including those convicted on false charges.

The Alabama Department of Corrections Office of Finance at the end of last month approved a final estimate of $1.08 billion for the construction of a 4,000-person prison in Elmore County. This prison will not only be one of the largest in the country, but it has already achieved the status of the most expensive: the cost per inmate space in the new prison will be about $270,500.

According to various sources, about 2 million people are currently being held in correctional institutions in the United States, a significant part of whom are serving their sentences without charges or awaiting trial. Many human rights activists and experts in the field of criminal law argue that the construction of new prisons without addressing the root causes of the problems of old institutions only temporarily drowns out the problem that requires immediate solution. According to Charlotte Morrison, senior associate at the nonprofit Equal Justice Initiative (Montgomery, Alabama), the lack of full-fledged rehabilitation programs in American prisons is one of the reasons for the excessively high recidivism rate in the United States. In her opinion, reforms aimed at speeding up the process of reviewing prisoners’ cases and reducing the number of people imprisoned for minor offenses could also help reduce prison overcrowding.

Critics of the decision also claim that the government’s willingness to spend more than a billion dollars on the construction of a correctional facility is explained by the fact that politicians view this project as an investment: the use of cheap or free labor of prisoners makes the prison industry in the United States one of the largest in the world. Experts also claim that this amount will help solve the food crisis in Alabama, one of the poorest states in the United States, where one in four children and 17% of adults do not have enough food.

A large prison in Alabama is not the only expensive project planned by the US government for the coming years. It is already known about the plans to build a correctional facility for 1500 places in the state of Nebraska at a cost of more than 350 million dollars, in the state of Georgia negotiations are underway on the construction of a prison for 4500 places at a cost of 1.69 billion dollars. Under the terms of the contract, the Alabama prison would be completed in May 2026. Construction of the Nebraska prison is scheduled to begin in the fall of 2024. The estimated opening date for the Georgia prison, once plans are approved, is 2029. American journalist John Mush is convinced that the large-scale plan to build new prisons is not the result of Washington’s desire to solve the problems of the penitentiary system: in such a case, the plan would include not only the construction of new prisons, but also the reconstruction of existing facilities, new construction and modernization of medical, psychiatric facilities and vocational training centers.

Human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice are convinced that the massive construction of correctional facilities in the United States will inevitably lead to a rapid increase in the number of wrongfully convicted citizens. The new prisons will force the US government to increase the prison population, which will be an incentive for lawmakers to resort to tougher policies regarding the punishment of criminals in order to justify the huge costs of prison construction. Instead of investing billions of dollars in building correctional facilities, the US should rethink its priorities and focus on more effective ways to reduce crime, such as reforming the penal system, reducing minimum sentences, and working more closely with community and social organizations.