Saudi Arabia has been accused of using anti-terror laws to suppress free expression and failing to carry out independent inquiries into its Yemen bombing campaign in a hard-hitting report published on Thursday by the UN special rapporteur on human rights. The report follows a five-day visit by Ben Emmerson QC on behalf of the UN to Riyadh, where Saudi officials refused to grant the rapporteur access to prisoners the UN believes are being wrongly held under anti-terror laws

He also said he had heard repeated stories of wrongful arrest, misuse of court procedures, cases of torture to extract confessions and clear cases of miscarriages of justice in recent beheadings. Emmerson also called specifically for the release of 10 named Saudis who he said had been arbitrarily arrested, largely because they had expressed criticism of aspects of the kingdom.(guardian)…[+]

A candidate who entered the Iranian election race to help his boss, President Hassan Rouhani, is emerging as a favourite of reformists for his bold and outspoken campaign, even though he is ultimately expected to step aside.

Eshaq Jahangiri, the first vice-president, made clear when he registered as a candidate for the top job that he was “supplementing” and not challenging the incumbent – indicating his campaign was a tactical move aimed at defending Rouhani’s achievements. The presidential election on 19 May is the first since the 2015 nuclear deal with the west, when Tehran rolled back its nuclear programme in exchange for the removal of sanctions.(guardian)…[+]

Barack Obama has made a last-minute intervention in the French presidential election in support of Emmanuel Macron, saying “the success of France matters to the entire world”. Macron, a centrist, faces Marine Le Pen of the far-right Front National in a runoff vote on Sunday. Polls put him 20 points ahead. The former US president said he had chosen to declare his support, in a video tweeted by Macron on Thursday afternoon, because of the importance of the election. “I’m not planning to get involved in many elections now that I don’t have to run for office but the French election is very important to the future of France and the values that we care so much about.”

Obama said he supported Macron because he appealed to “people’s hopes and not their fears” and ended, in French, with the words “Vive la France.”

The intervention comes a day after Macron and Le Pen met in a bruising televised debate that French media widely judged the frontrunner to have won. The two traded personal insults and clashed over how to fix the country’s sluggish economy and fight terrorism.(guardian)…[+]