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  Nizar Banat, an outspoken critic of the Palestinian Authority (PA), was beaten on the head and body during   a raid in June 2021 in the occupied West Bank . His family urged the ICC to prosecute those responsible, saying they had lost confidence in the PA's judiciary. It is the first time a Palestinian has referred their leadership to the court. The PA has not commented on the move, but it has apologised for Banat's death and charged 14 low-ranking security officers with taking part in the beating and other offences.  Banat, who was 42, was known for social media posts in which he accused powerful individuals of corruption and called on Western countries to stop providing financial assistance to the PA, which governs parts of the West Bank that are not under full Israeli control. He was arrested and allegedly tortured eight times by the PA's forces in the years before his death. On 24 June 2021, Banat was sleeping at his cousin's home in the southern West Bank city o...

    Egypt’s imprisoned hunger-striking activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah has started drinking water again, his family said Monday, in the first communication from the prominent dissident in over a week amid fears for his life. The announcement came in a letter the family received from Abdel-Fattah through the prison authorities, dated on Saturday. Last Thursday, the authorities said they had “medically intervened” in Abdel-Fattah’s case, without providing details and raising concerns that he was being force-fed. Abdel-Fattah’s Lawyer, Khaled Ali, was twice blocked from visiting him in prison since news of the medical intervention was announced, despite being granted permission from Egypt’s state prosecutor. One of Egypt’s most prominent pro-democracy campaigners, Abdel-Fattah had intensified his hunger strike on Nov. 6, at the start of the U.N. climate conference, known as COP27, in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, to draw attention to his case and those of other poli...

  The family had planned to bury Nika Shakarami on Monday, but her body was snatched and buried in a village about 40km (25 miles) away, the sources said. Nika went missing for 10 days after protesting in Tehran on 20 September. In her last message to a friend she said she was being chased by security forces, her aunt told BBC Persian. Nika's family finally found her body in a morgue at a detention centre in the capital. "When we went to identify her, they didn't allow us to see her body, only her face for a few seconds," said Atash Shakarami, Nika's aunt. Nika's family transferred her body to her father's hometown of Khorramabad in the west of the country on Sunday - on what would have been her 17th birthday. Under duress the family agreed not to hold a funeral but security forces "stole" Nika's body from Khorramabad and buried it in the village of Veysian, one source said.  Hundreds of protesters gathered in Khorramabad cemetery and chanted...