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Articles by Kartik Raj
African News Agency : Welcome
Germany/Coalition Back [Published: Saturday April 19 2025] German Coalition’s Troubling Plans on Social Security By Kartik Raj, Human Rights Watch NEW YORK, 19 April.
“It Tears You Apart”
I can’t afford to properly feed my children. It’s a bitter feeling when all we have at the end of the month is bread and butter … It tears you apart. I feel like I’m not doing justice to anyone, not to the children, not to the household or life in general, and certainly not to myself. — Lisbeth C., a 43-year-old working single mother of three sons living in a rural town in Saxony, February 10, 2023 I’m a pensioner, and the support from the government simply isn’t enough. Life is expensive.
“We Can’t Live Like This”
Food insecurity and poverty are enduring problems in Spain. Just over a decade ago, the 2008 global financial crisis sharply exacerbated both food insecurity and poverty. And just as people’s living standards seemed to improve, the Covid-19 pandemic and its economic impact have made both poverty and food insecurity worse once more. At the start of the pandemic, the Spanish government expanded existing unemployment support programs and introduced a new flagship social assistance program.
Solidaridad en tiempos del COVID-19
Una mujer de la unión de vendedores ambulantes de Barcelona confecciona mascarillas para los profesionales de la salud, que se están quedando sin material. Marzo 2020. © 2020 Sindicato Popular de Vendedores Ambulantes/Top Manta Ante la sombría realidad de una tercera semana de confinamiento para los residentes de Barcelona, incluida mi familia, los gestos de solidaridad comunitaria son soplos de esperanza y dignidad. El virus COVID-19 mató a más de 8.000 personas en España en marzo.
UK School Closures Could Leave Children Hungry
From left, Chief Medical Officer for England Chris Witty, Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance speak during a press conference about coronavirus in 10 Downing Street in London, Monday, March 9, 2020. © 2020 AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali The United Kingdom is considering public health measures to contain and delay transmission of the coronavirus.
How Nativist Populism Is Going Mainstream in Europe
Women wearing the Islamic veil, the niqab, sit in the audience seats of the Danish Parliament, at Christiansborg Castle, in Copenhagen, Denmark, May 31, 2018. Denmark joined some other European countries in deciding to ban garments that cover the face, including Islamic veils such as the niqab or burqa. © 2018 Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix via AP Over the last decade nativist populists across the European Union have grabbed headlines .
Human rights are at stake in Europe’s fight against nativist populism going mainstream ǀ View
Over the last decade, nativist populists across the European Union have grabbed the headlines. But the cost of that political attention has been less focus paid to how their ideas have entered the mainstream, as establishment parties, left and right, across the European Union have adopted anti-rights, populist positions. Take two examples from recent weeks.
French Police to Stop Using Explosive Tear Gas Grenades
Protester picks up a tear gas grenade during a police charge on December 8, 2019 on the Champs Elysees, Paris. © 2018 Kartik Raj/Human Rights Watch This week, France’s Interior Minister Christophe Castaner announced that French police would stop using the controversial GLI-F4 tear gas grenade. This move is long overdue, but doesn’t address serious concerns about other weapons French police still use to control crowds.
Going to the Bank for Food, Not Money: The Growing Reality of Hunger in “Rich” Countries
In 2020 you should be watching for… more people going hungry and relying on aid to feed their families in the world’s wealthiest countries. The United Kingdom offers a stark example, as Human Rights Watch has documented.
Going to the Bank for Food, Not Money
Abdalkarim Sama, a volunteer at Sufra Food Bank, sorts through tinned food in the storage section on site at Sufra Food Bank, in Brent, Northwest London, October 9, 2019. © 2019 Human Rights Watch/Kartik Raj In 2020, you should be watching for more people going hungry and relying on aid to feed their families in the world’s wealthiest countries. The United Kingdom offers a stark example, as Human Rights Watch has documented.
Soaring food bank use: the growing reality of hunger in ‘rich’ countries ǀ View
More people are going hungry and relying on aid to feed their families in the world’s wealthiest countries. The United Kingdom offers a stark example, as Human Rights Watch has documented. Since cuts in public spending on welfare for the poorest families began in 2010, use of the country’s largest network of food banks — making up an estimated two-thirds of the country’s food aid distribution - has skyrocketed 50-fold to 1.6 million three-day emergency packages handed out this year.
Revealed: The Stark Truth of No-Deal Brexit
The UK government has been forced by Parliament to make public its contingency plans in the event the UK leaves the EU without a deal. The “Operation Yellowhammer” document sets out the risks in a “no-deal” Brexit scenario. The document makes clear the severe implications for the human rights of people in the UK, and UK nationals in the EU. A British flag flutters in front of a window in London on June 24, 2016, after Britain voted to leave the European Union in the EU BREXIT referendum.
UK’s Unfair Child Welfare Support Rules
Volunteers at the Wisbech food bank, Cambridgeshire make up an emergency parcel suitable for a large family, April 2019. This food bank can sometimes offer families with children an additional £5 voucher to be redeemed at the local butcher or greengrocers. © 2019 Human Rights Watch/Kartik Raj Imagine you and your partner work but don’t bring home enough money to support your two children, so you rely on social security assistance to help cover basic necessities like food and housing.
UK’s Unfinished Reckoning on Overseas Torture
A motorboat passes by the MI6 building in London August 25, 2010. © 2010 Reuters The British government is expected to announce this week whether an independent inquiry will resume into the UK’s involvement in overseas torture and transfers (known as “renditions”) in US-led counterterrorism operations after the 9/11 attacks. If it does, it may help bring justice for victims who suffered terrible abuses in which UK officials were complicit.
High Time for the UK Government to Face Facts on Hunger and Social and Economic Rights
Volunteers at the Wisbech food bank, Cambridgeshire make up an emergency parcel suitable for a large family, April 2019. This food bank can sometimes offer families with children an additional £5 voucher to be redeemed at the local butcher or greengrocers. © 2019 Human Rights Watch/Kartik Raj (London) — It may only be a couple of hours away by plane, but the grand buildings of the United Nations in Geneva seem a world away from the grinding reality of poverty and deprivation in the UK.
No Time for Complacency over Radical Right Populists
Setting the stage for European Parliament election night, Brussels, May 24, 2019. © 2019 Virginia Mayo/AP Photo (London) —The doomsday prediction that radical right populists would double their seats in last month’s European elections did not materialize. In fact, the picture was mixed. But to sit back and celebrate would be premature. Radical right populists increased their vote share from around 20 percent to 25 percent, but Greens and Liberal parties also made significant gains in many EU states.
Interview: Scraping Together Pennies for a Loaf of Bread
Just how bad is food poverty in the UK? It’s really shocking that a rich country like the UK, with a large national income and well-developed health and education system, can find itself in a position where 50 times more people need emergency food parcels compared to just a decade ago. That’s a damning statistic and should make people sit up and realize that even in countries where things seem to be fine, they really aren’t. Families that had been just about scraping by are now being sucked under.
[Opinion] The test for Sweden's new government
September's election resulted in neither the traditional left or right alliance able to command a majority government. All the establishment parties seemed agreed on is creating a 'cordon sanitaire' around the radical-right populist party, the Sweden Democrats, who had become the third-largest party in parliament. In the end the incumbent Social Democrat-Green coalition formed a weakened minority government reliant on support in parliament from the centre-right Centre and Liberal parties.
UK Government Has Changed Its Tune on Poverty
Staff at the Goodwin Hub in Hull make up parcels for members of a low-cost food pantry scheme. © 2019 Kartik Raj/Human Rights Watch Just weeks after the United Nations’ poverty and human rights expert gave a damning assessment on poverty in the UK, the government appears to have ended its “complete disagreement” with his conclusions – for now.
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The UN is Right: Families in UK Are Going Hungry
Sign outside Wisbech food bank in Cambridgeshire, UK © 2018 Human Rights Watch The United Nations expert on poverty and human rights has warned that the UK government is inflicting “unnecessary misery” on people living in poverty.
UK and its Intelligence Agencies Slammed for Role in Ill-Treatment of Terrorism Suspects
Today, the UK Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee confirmed that, while cooperating with US-led post-2001 counterterrorism operations, the UK took and tolerated actions that were “inexcusable”. For those unfamiliar with polite euphemisms in British English, some of the actions the report is talking about were torture and other ill-treatment, acts which are illegal under international law. This is exactly what nongovernmental organizations and journalists have documented for years.
Saving European Democracy Starts at Home
Among media analysts and academics, there is a widespread belief that one man, President Emmanuel Macron of France, can stem the tide of radical right populism in Europe. Macron burnished his credentials as the continent’s leading defender of liberal democracy in a major speech at the European Parliament on April 17.
Libyan Torture Victims get Long Overdue Apology from UK
Fatima Boudchar, wife of Libyan politician Hakim Belhadj, stands with their son Abderrahim, as she holds a letter of apology from Prime Minister Theresa May outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London, Britain, May 10, 2018. © 2018 REUTERS/Hannah McKay Today, the British government apologized unreservedly to Abdul-Hakim Belhaj and Fatima Boudchar for the UK’s role in the “harrowing experiences” and “mistreatment” they suffered during their March 2004 rendition by the CIA to Libya.
Truth and justice ‘come dropping slow’ - in memory of Gerry McKerr
Photo: Gerry McKerr pictured at the "Hooded Men" press conference in Dublin in November 2014. © Amnesty International By Kartik Raj, EU Campaigner/Researcher at Amnesty International. Gerry McKerr, one of the “Hooded Men” – a name now used to describe the group of detainees subjected to the UK security forces’ infamous “Five Techniques” of interrogation in Northern Ireland – passed away this week, aged 71.
Austrian coalition tests Europe's human rights values
Over the weekend, Austria's radical populist right Freedom Party (FPO) became part of the governing coalition, gaining control of the interior, foreign, and defence ministries. The last time the party joined a coalition, Austria's government was shunned by its European partners and threatened with EU sanctions. This time the reaction has been muted, perhaps because radical right populism in European politics is increasingly accepted as the norm. What will the FPO's impact on law and policy be?
Radical Right Populist Success in Elections Endangers Human Rights in Europe
Earlier this year, a political theory emerged predicting that we had hit “peak populism.” In Austria, voters twice rejected a far-right president in favour of one from its Green party. In France, Marine Le Pen’s Front National was defeated. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders' Party for Freedoms (PVV) failed to win expected votes. The centre ground was winning once again, the theory went.
France’s Counterterrorism Bill Normalizes Emergency Practices
France’s draft counterterrorism bill is now in its final stretch before becoming law. The fast-tracked bill is widely expected to pass a vote in an extraordinary session of the National Assembly on October 3 – despite concerns that it encroaches on people’s rights. The bill doesn’t prolong France’s two-year-long state of emergency, which will formally be over when it becomes law. What it does is rather more unsettling.
France’s Counterterrorism Bill Normalizes Police State
France’s draft counterterrorism bill is now in its final stretch before becoming law. The fast-tracked bill is widely expected to pass a vote in an extraordinary session of the National Assembly on October 3 – despite concerns that it encroaches on people’s rights. The bill doesn’t prolong France’s two-year-long state of emergency, which will formally be over when it becomes law. What it does is rather more unsettling.
Europe Should Stand Firm Against Torture at NATO Summit with Trump
European leaders will sit down with President Donald Trump at the NATO summit in Brussels on Thursday. [5/25] High on the agenda will be how the new US administration and its European partners cooperate on counterterrorism. That conversation should include how to ensure that torture has no place in counterterrorism efforts.
How a family man in Cyprus ended up in a Hungarian jail cell accused of 'terrorism'
One summer's evening, last year, Ahmed was at home in Cyprus with his wife Nadia and their young children when he received the call that would turn his life upside down. "It was his mother calling from Syria," Nadia recalled. "She told him there was a lull in the bombing of their town and that they were leaving. They needed help." The call set in motion a chain of events that would land Ahmed where he is today: locked in a Hungarian jail charged with an act of terror. Tomorrow he will know his fate.
Truth and justice ‘come dropping slow’ - in memory of Gerry McKerr
Photo: Gerry McKerr pictured at the "Hooded Men" press conference in Dublin in November 2014. © Amnesty International Gerry McKerr, one of the “Hooded Men” – a name now used to describe the group of detainees subjected to the UK security forces’ infamous “Five Techniques” of interrogation in Northern Ireland – passed away this week, aged 71.
Truth and justice ‘come dropping slow’ - in memory of Gerry McKerr
Gerry McKerr, one of the “Hooded Men” – a name now used to describe the group of detainees subjected to the UK security forces’ infamous “Five Techniques” of interrogation in Northern Ireland – passed away this week, aged 71. I first met Gerry last November, at a press conference in Dublin, where Amnesty International joined the surviving Hooded Men in calling on the Irish government to seek a reopening of a 1978 European Court of Human Rights case.
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