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	A Practical Guide to Fighting Corruption with a Human Rights-Based Approach by FIDH, Transparency International   June 2026   Against a backdrop of rising corruption worldwide, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Transparency International and Transparency International France have joined forces to produce a guide for civil society organisations involved in the human rights and anti-corruption movements.   Corruption is not a victimless crime. When it allows funds intended for public services to be misappropriated, it deprives people of their rights—including the right to healthcare, justice, education and a healthy environment. Moreover, when it leads to the capture of public institutions, it undermines the rule of law, restricts access to justice and enables impunity.   The guide "Breaking the Silos: A Practical Guide to Fighting Corruption with a Human Rights-Based Approach" offers practical tools to better document the impacts of corruption, pursue redress and strengthen the accountability of those responsible, whether they be individuals, companies or states.   It emphasises the importance of placing victims at the centre of efforts and of promoting access to justice and redress. The guide is available in English, French and Spanish.   This guide is based on a simple conviction: the movements fighting corruption and defending human rights must join forces to strengthen our actions and develop joint strategies to confront a phenomenon that inflicts profound harm on societies around the world.   "It is with this in mind that our organisations have joined forces to produce this guide. It aims to provide human rights defenders and anti-corruption activists with practical tools to promote accountability for grand corruption and the devastating human rights harm it causes. It sets out strategies for holding corrupt individuals to account and raising awareness of the violations that result from their actions", declared Gillian Dell, global advocacy lead, Transparency International.   According to Jimena Reyes, director for the Americas, FIDH, "The world is facing a polycrisis: pollution, climate change and the overexploitation of natural resources. At the same time, the very foundations of democracy —an independent judiciary, free and fair elections, and respect for the rule of law— are being profoundly undermined in many countries. Autocrats are clinging to power. The plague of corruption —involving kleptocratic elites, businesses or organised criminal groups— is one of the main causes of these phenomena. In the face of the devastation caused by grand corruption, doing nothing is not an option."   Sara Brimbeuf, head of advocacy on illicit financial flows, Transparency International France, explains that "Transparency International France’s experience in cases involving ill-gotten gains shows that asset recovery is a vital part of the fight against grand corruption. Identifying, seizing and returning misappropriated assets is not enough: it is also essential to ensure that their return is transparent, accountable and geared towards the needs of the affected communities. Only then can the fight against corruption help to redress the human rights violations it causes."   The guide covers the steps involved in linking incidents of corruption to human rights abuses and developing strategies for accountability and redress, including:   Understanding the links between corruption, human rights, victims and causality; documenting human rights violations and patterns of grand corruption; protecting individuals, data, sources and whistleblowers; holding individuals, companies and states to account; using advocacy mechanisms and quasi-judicial channels; using asset recovery as a tool for justice and redress.   Recognising that corruption fuels human rights abuses is vital to protecting human dignity. By placing victims at the centre of efforts, the anti-corruption and human rights communities can make progress in combating grand corruption and its impact on people and their rights.   http://www.fidh.org/en/issues/corruption/fidh-and-transparency-international-join-forces-to-tackle-corruption Visit the related web page
	The African Court needs more support for its human rights mandate by Amnesty International, BBC World News   July 2026   The African Court needs more support for its human rights mandate, by Japhet Biegon. (Amnesty International)   African Union (AU) member states must ensure full political, legal and financial support for the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Court), to enable it to effectively carry out its mandate to protect human rights, Amnesty International said today as it launched a new report marking the Court’s 20th anniversary.   Released on World Day for International Justice, the report, ‘20 years of the African Court – Protect the Court, Protect the People’, examines the successes achieved and the challenges faced in two decades by the Court, which serves as an important regional judicial avenue for individuals and civil society organizations.   “The African Court is an essential judicial avenue for individuals and civil society organizations who cannot obtain prompt, effective and adequate remedy for human rights violations in their own countries. Despite its challenges, the African Court has demonstrated dynamism and agility in examining the cases brought to it, developing strong jurisprudence and expanding the protection of human rights in Africa,” said Japhet Biegon, Deputy Regional Director for East and Southern Africa at Amnesty International.   “It is vital that every AU member state ratifies the African Court Protocol and makes the declaration that would allow individuals and NGOs to directly access the Court, so that the African Court is able to continue to protect human rights in a meaningful way for decades to come.”   Since becoming operational in 2006, the African Court has finalized over 250 cases, including almost 150 in which it determined whether one or several human rights violations had been committed. Many of the Court’s final judgments relate to the rights to a fair trial, to dignity and to be free from torture and other ill-treatment for detainees, and to election-related matters.   In addition, the African Court has issued several landmark decisions, including concerning the protection of the most vulnerable.   Among them, the Zongo and Konate judgments against Burkina Faso in 2014 strengthened media freedom in the law and the fight against impunity for attacks against journalists in the country. The Ogiek case against Kenya in 2017 affirmed the recognition of the rights of an indigenous community while the 2023 judgment against Côte d’Ivoire concerning the dumping of chemical waste by privately-owned Probo Koala cargo ship developed crucial jurisprudence for the protection of the environment and peoples’ right to health.   Most recently in 2025, the Court issued an important decision related to combating discrimination and attacks against persons with albinism in Tanzania.   More support needed from AU member states   Twenty-one AU member states have yet to ratify the Protocol establishing the African Court. Only a dozen have ever made the requisite declaration allowing individuals and NGOs to petition the Court directly. Of these, five states (Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Tunisia) withdrew the declaration, depriving their people of an avenue for justice.   Other actors entitled to bring cases directly to the African Court such as AU member states, African intergovernmental organizations and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights have rarely done so. The Commission, another AU body charged with promoting and protecting human rights, has only referred three cases to the African Court over the last 20 years.   “Limited access remains one of the African Court’s biggest obstacles. We join with civil society organizations, bar associations, academic institutions, and people across the continent in calling for AU member states to enable the African Court to fully live up to its promise. Enabling and protecting the Court would contribute to protecting the rights of the African people,” said Japhet Biegon..   http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/07/african-court-support/   12 July 2026   Muslim judge in India faces death threats after convicting 'cow vigilantes', by Cherylann Mollan for BBC World News   An Indian judge has become the target of online abuse and death threats days after she sentenced 14 men to life imprisonment for lynching a man to death.   On 12 June, the additional district and sessions judge of a court in Madhya Pradesh state, Tabassum Khan, found the men guilty of offences including murder, attempt to murder, rioting and wrongful restraint.   The crime took place in 2022, when 50-year-old Nazir Ahmad was transporting cattle at night and was intercepted by a group of self-styled "gau rakshaks" (cow protectors), armed with sticks and rods. Hindus consider cows sacred and killing them is illegal in many states.   The men dragged Ahmad and his two companions out of the vehicle and brutally assaulted them on suspicion of smuggling cows. Ahmad later succumbed to his injuries while his companions survived to tell the court what happened.   In her judgement, Khan noted that the crime was a clear case of mob lynching.   But the verdict has made her the target of religious hate. In the days following the judgement, numerous videos abusing and threatening Khan, a Muslim, surfaced online. The videos implied that Khan had acted against the men because they were Hindu.   While judgments are often criticised, the attacks on Khan have focused not on her legal reasoning but on her religion. The scale of the abuse has prompted leading judicial bodies to rally behind her, and she has been given police protection.   The attacks on Khan began soon after the verdict, when family members of the convicted men gathered outside the courtroom reportedly protested against the judgement and attempted to stop the police convoy from transporting the men to prison. They alleged that the men were being punished for "saving cows".   Then began an online campaign of abuse, as videos of Hindu right-wing influencers abusing Khan with communal slurs and issuing rape threats and death threats against her began to surface.   In one video, a man warned of "bloodshed" across the country unless the convicted men were freed within 10 days. At the time of writing, many of the videos remained online, attracting thousands of likes and shares. The speakers' faces and social media handles were clearly visible as they issued threats and incited violence.   An anchor of Sudarshan News, a right-wing Hindi news channel, expressed solidarity with the families of the convicted men, saying that "they might have never imagined that their family members, who had put everything on the line to save cows, would be imprisoned for it". He also urged his viewers to "speak up" as "now was the time to fight for the sake of the protectors of cows".   Many self-described cow protection organisations and Hindutva groups also held massive protests against the verdict.   On 22 June, the Gau Raksha Parishad (which roughly translates to the council of cow saviours) staged a protest in Punjab state during which protesters assaulted and burnt an effigy of Khan. Three days later, the Rashtriya Bajrang Dal held a protest in Uttar Pradesh state, demanding that the "cow protectors" be freed.   In a post on social media, former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju noted how these videos and protests did not merely criticise the verdict but sought to "delegitimise Judge Khan's authority as a judicial officer by reducing her identity to her religion".   "Her Muslim identity became the principal basis upon which the legitimacy of the judgement was questioned. This represented a dangerous inversion of justice. Judicial decisions are meant to be evaluated through legal reasoning, not through the religious identity of the individual delivering them," he wrote.   Katju later said Khan had sent him a message thanking him, saying that the abuse had traumatised her and made her feel like she had committed a crime by delivering her verdict.   Khan has also received support from prominent judicial organisations - the Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association (SCAORA) and the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) have condemned the threats against her and demanded that action be taken against the culprits.   Vikas Singh, president of the SCBA, told the BBC that threats against a judge were a grave issue as the judiciary was interlinked with the fundamentals of democracy.   "If we allow this to happen, no judge will be able to dispense justice," he said. "In a democracy, a judge must be able to perform their duty without fear or favour."   Meanwhile, police official Sudhakar Baraskar told the BBC that a case had been registered under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and two people had been arrested. He said the cyber cell was tracing those sharing inflammatory videos and continuously monitoring social media for more such content.   But Supreme Court advocate Sanjay Hegde argued that the state and the judiciary should do more to ensure Khan's safety.   In an article in Live Law, a legal news website, Hegde gave the example of how another case involving threats against a former judge was dealt with recently.   Gautam Patel, a former judge of the Bombay High Court, and his family were facing threats for more than 10 months following his 2024 judgment in the a succession dispute within a Muslim community.   Following a public interest litigation filed by three judicial organisations, the Bombay High Court ordered the Maharashtra government to provide protection to Patel. It told the Mumbai police commissioner to supervise the investigation and demanded a status report.   "If a retired judge of a high court deserves state protection and judicial supervision of his case, so does a serving sessions judge in a district court. The principle cannot bend to rank. It cannot bend to religion. It cannot bend to the political weather around a particular verdict," Hegde wrote.   Last week, the Madhya Pradesh High Court asked senior officials to explain what steps had been taken to protect Khan and identify those behind the threats. It also ordered that her police protection continue. http://tinyurl.com/4dmjbd58 Visit the related web page
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