Teacher, education adviser and politician who worked tirelessly to improve the lives of children in Britain and abroad Doreen Massey, Lady Massey of Darwen, who has died of cancer aged 85, devoted a long and busy working life primarily to improving the lives of children and young people in Britain and, subsequently, as a member of the Council of Europe, further afield. She believed in an inclusive society and sought to challenge discrimination, to defend human rights and, whenever possible, to speak on behalf of those who did not themselves have a voice. Massey was acclaimed for her considerab ..read more

Exclusive: One detainee recorded as being involved in ‘over 3,000 incidents’ in a year – an ‘incredibly unfeasible’ scenario, FOI documents say Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast The secretive risk assessment tool used in Australia’s immigration detention centres could not be replaced by a better model due to insufficient data collection by Australian Border Force, documents reveal. The security risk assessment tool (SRAT) is meant to determine whether someone is low, medium, high or extreme risk fo ..read more

Alan Miller to go to death in September as state rejects warnings that gas-mask method represents cruel and unusual punishment Alabama has scheduled its second execution of a death row prisoner using the novel technique of nitrogen gas, brushing aside objections that the procedure is a form of cruel and unusual punishment banned under the US constitution. Barring last-minute judicial moves, Alan Miller, 59, will be put to his death on 26 September, after an execution date was set on Thursday by the state’s Republican governor Kay Ivey. Should it go ahead, the anticipated killing would be excep ..read more

My poems were written in anger after Tiananmen Square. But what motivates most prison writing is a fear of forgetting. Today I am free, but the regime has never stopped its war on words Most of my manuscripts are locked up in the filing cabinets of the ministry of security, and the agents there study and ponder them repeatedly, more carefully than the creator himself. The guys working this racket have superb memories; a certain chief of the Chengdu public security bureau can still recite the poems I published in an underground magazine in the 1980s. While the literati write nostalgically, hopi ..read more

Llamas report focuses on responsibilities to workers Amnesty International calls on Fifa to reveal findings Fifa must publish an independent report into its responsibilities to migrant workers in Qatar and begin the process of providing financial compensation, Amnesty ­International has said. The human rights organisation has called on Fifa to finally publish the report by Michael Llamas, president of the Gibraltar Football Association, before its congress in Bangkok next week. It claims the Llamas report has found Fifa has a responsibility to provide financial remedy to workers or the famil ..read more

Ceasefire and divestment calls have spread beyond US campuses, with more expected as Rafah offensive begins University campuses around the world have been the stage of a growing number of protests by students demanding academic institutions divest from companies supplying arms to Israel. The protests, which first spread across college campuses in the US, have reached universities in the UK, the rest of Europe, as well as Lebanon and India ..read more

Shaima Dallali, ousted as NUS president in 2022, said to have accepted ‘substantial’ settlement before tribunal A former president of the National Union of Students is said to have accepted accepted a “substantial” settlement to end her legal action against the union following her dismissal over allegations of antisemitism. Shaima Dallali was ousted as NUS UK president in November 2022 after an investigation claimed she had made “significant breaches” of the union’s antisemitism policies. But shortly before Dallali’s legal challenge was to be heard by an employment tribunal, the NUS and Dallal ..read more

More than 200 expected to join protest calling for climate action and to cut ties with Israeli institutions Israel-Gaza war – live updates More than 100 students have occupied Ghent University in the first European protest to fuse demands about Gaza and the climate crisis. Ghent’s centrepiece UFO building was peacefully taken over by students calling for concrete action to meet the university’s 2030 climate plans, and asking the university to cut ties with institutions connected to the Israeli military ..read more

In an age of climate crisis and AI, equal treatment is nothing less than essential In the three decades since I became a lawyer, human rights – once understood as an uncomplicated good, a tool for securing dignity for the vulnerable against abuses by the powerful – have increasingly come under assault. Perhaps never more so than in the current moment: we are constantly talking about human rights, but often in a highly sceptical way. When Liz Truss loudly proclaims “We’ve got to leave the ECHR, abolish the supreme court and abolish the Human Rights Act,” she’s not the fringe voice she ..read more

Authoritarian governments are extending their pursuit of critics far beyond their borders Forty-five years ago, the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was killed in London with a poison-tipped umbrella as he made his way home from work. The horrifying case transfixed the British public. So transnational repression is not new, including on British shores. But unless its target is unusually high-profile, or it uses startling tactics such as those employed by Markov’s killers – or in the attempt to assassinate Sergei Skripal – much of it passes with minimal attention. Do you have an opinion on the ..read more