ISTANBUL | 06-12-2013 | DESA, producing for many well-known brands such as Prada, Gucci, Debenhams, Whistless, Marks and Spencer, is one of the leading exporting companies in the leather sector in Turkey with three factories in Istanbul, Duzce and Corlu employing around 2,000 workers. Deri-Is and its members have faced increasing and systematic discrimination by DESA since the union established a ...

PRATO | 05-12-2013 | At least seven migrant garment workers of Chinese origin died and three were injured in the blaze on 1 December 2013 in an industrial zone of the town of Prato in Tuscany region of Italy. The fire happened on Sunday morning in a warehouse of a textile factory, on top of which according to local mass ...

SOUTH-AFRICA | 05-12-2013 | South African President Jacob Zuma confirmed Mandela’s death at a press conference on Thursday. The anti-apartheid leader passed away peacefully at his home in Johannesburg. Mandela had been critically ill with a lung infection for the past five months. “We’ve lost our greatest son,” said Zuma. Known to many around the world by his clan name, ...

COLOMBIA | 13-11-2013 | Trade union member Oscar López Triviño was killed on 9 November in Bugalagrande, south-western Colombia. A day earlier, paramilitaries sent a death threat to members of the union to which he belongs. Other members of the union are at risk. On 9 November a man shot and killed Oscar López Triviño in a billiard hall in ...

INDIA| 12-11-2013 | The arrest of an Indian MP’s wife for allegedly torturing her maid to death and a recent report on global slavery has shed light on the need to protect the vulnerable. The abuse and exploitation of domestic workers in India continues to rise in the absence of a law to safeguard their rights. The surging demand for ...

TURKEY | 12-11-2013 | The March 26 bombings of Kuskonar and Kocagili – Turkish villages close to the borders of both Syria and Iraq – caused at least 38 deaths. The Turkish government blamed the attack on the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (KWP), who from 1984 until March this year had fought an armed struggle for the establishment of an ...

PHILIPPINES | 10-11-2013 | Thousands of people are feared dead in the Philippines as a result of one of the worst typhoons ever to hit the archipelago. The resulting destruction is making it difficult for rescuers to reach the affected areas. A senior police officer in the Phillippines said on Sunday that around 10,000 were feared dead on the island ...

ISTANBUL | 20-09-2013 | Istanbul 19th Court of First Instance has sentenced world-renowned pianist and composer Fazıl Say to ten months in prison for allegedly insulting Islamic religious values on social network Twitter. The famed pianist was accused of blasphemy in April after he tweeted verses by Persian poet Omer Khayyam which said that ““You say its rivers will flow ...

MERSIN | 18-09-2013 | A riot policeman beat an eight year old child up after the boy refused his request to “hit his friend”. Eight year old D.Ö. was playing in front of the police station in the Şevket Sümer neighborhood of southern province of Mersin. A riot policeman asked the boy to hit another policeman standing near him. The ...

IRAN | 17-09-2013 | Sotoudeh fell foul of Iranian authorities after representing several activists in recent years and highlighting execution of juveniles. Prominent Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been temporarily released after spending more than two years in jail, according to her husband. Sotoudeh left Tehran’s notorious Evin prison on Thursday and was reunited with her husband and ...