The Saudi government has announced strict restrictions for seriously ill individuals wishing to perform Hajj 2026. Under a new policy, seriously ill pilgrims may be deported back to their home countries, with the cost of travel to be borne by the pilgrims themselves.

Sources in the Ministry of Religious Affairs added that action will be taken against doctors who issue fitness certificates to individuals who do not meet the health requirements.

According to directives from the Saudi Ministry of Health regarding medical conditions for Hajj 2026, patients with kidney diseases or those undergoing dialysis will not be permitted to perform the pilgrimage.

Similarly, individuals with heart conditions that limit physical activity, advanced lung or liver diseases, and severe neurological or psychiatric illnesses—including memory impairment, dementia, or severe disabilities—will also be restricted.

Additionally, elderly individuals with serious age-related health conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease or epilepsy, will be barred from performing Hajj.

Pregnant women, as well as patients suffering from contagious diseases such as whooping cough, tuberculosis, or viral hemorrhagic fevers, will likewise not be allowed to participate in Hajj 2026.

Cancer patients have also been declared ineligible for Hajj. Medical officers will be authorised to prevent such individuals from travelling before departure.

Monitoring teams deployed by Saudi authorities will assess and verify the authenticity of each pilgrim’s fitness certificate.

• Hasina defies court orders that she return from India to attend trial. 
• Bangladesh remains in political turmoil since end of Hasina’s rule.
• Chief prosecutor says “justice will be served according to the law”.

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Bangladeshi judges will deliver their verdict on Monday in the crimes against humanity trial of fugitive former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, a highly anticipated ruling before the first polls since her overthrow.

Hasina, 78, defied court orders that she return from India to attend her trial about whether she ordered a deadly crackdown against a student-led uprising that ousted her in August 2024.

She faces a possible death penalty if convicted.

Bangladesh has been in political turmoil since the end of Hasina’s autocratic rule, and violence has marred campaigning for elections expected in February 2026.

The United Nations says up to 1,400 people were killed in crackdowns as Hasina tried to cling to power, deaths that were central to her trial.

“Justice will be served according to the law,” chief prosecutor Tajul Islam told reporters when the verdict date was set last week.

“We hope the court will exercise its prudence and wisdom, that the thirst for justice will be fulfilled, and that this verdict will mark an end to crimes against humanity,” he said.

Prosecutors have filed five charges, including failure to prevent murder, amounting to crimes against humanity under Bangladeshi law.

The trial has heard months of testimony in absentia alleging she ordered mass killings. She has called the trial a “jurisprudential joke”.

Her co-accused include former interior minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal — also a fugitive — and former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, who is in custody and has pleaded guilty.

Hasina was assigned a state-appointed lawyer for the trial but she refused to recognise the court’s authority and said she rejected all charges.

Hasina said in a written interview with AFP in October that a guilty verdict was “preordained”, and that she would “not be surprised when it comes”.

Deepening crisis

Security forces surrounded the court when the verdict date was set on Thursday, with armoured vehicles manning checkpoints.

Dhaka Municipal Police spokesman Talebur Rahman said the force would be on high alert for Monday’s verdict, with checkpoints at key intersections across the capital.

Almost half the city’s 34,000 police would be on duty, he said.

Interim interior ministry chief Jahangir Alam Chowdhury told reporters the government was prepared and there was no cause for concern.

Crude bombs have been set off across Dhaka this month, mainly petrol bombs hurled at everything from buildings linked to interim leader Muhammad Yunus’s government to buses and Christian sites.

Bangladesh’s foreign ministry summoned India’s envoy to Dhaka this month, demanding that New Delhi block the “notorious fugitive” Hasina from talking to journalists and “granting her a platform to spew hatred”.

Hasina remains defiant.

She said in October she “mourned all the lives lost during the terrible days” when students were gunned down in the streets. Her comments enraged many who said she had made a ruthless bid to maintain power at all costs.

Hasina also warned that the ban on her former ruling party the Awami League by the interim government was deepening the political crisis in the country of 170 million people before the elections.

• Govt seeks changes to the interpretation of human rights laws.
• UK toughens stance as polls point to immigration concern.
• Changes to refugee status part of planned shake-up.

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Britain will overhaul its approach to human rights laws to make it easier to deport migrants who arrive in the country illegally as part of a major shake-up of asylum policy to be set out on Monday.

Interior minister Shabana Mahmood will outline changes to how the European Convention on Human Rights will be interpreted by courts, the government said.

“These reforms will block endless appeals, stop last-minute claims and scale up removals of those with no right to be here,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement.

In what the government claims to be the most sweeping asylum policy overhaul of modern times, Mahmood will also announce plans to make refugee status temporary and to quadruple the length of time refugees will have to wait for permanent settlement in Britain.

Britain’s Labour government is taking a tougher stance as it struggles to curb clandestine migration, particularly via small boat crossings. Polls indicate immigration is a top concern of voters, and the populist Reform UK party has a commanding lead in polls.

Tougher stance

The government said Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to a family life, was being misused by migrants to delay their removal from Britain.

It wants new laws to make clear that a family connection means immediate family, such as a parent or child, preventing people from “using dubious connections to stay in the UK”.

It added that Britain would also work with like-minded countries to review the application of Article 3, which prohibits torture, noting the “definition of ‘inhuman and degrading treatment’ has expanded beyond what is reasonable.”

The government has said it wants to remain in the European Convention on Human Rights, amid calls from Reform and some in the Conservative Party for Britain to leave it altogether.

However, the government’s harder stance on immigration has been criticised by charities who say it forces desperate people further into destitution.

“These proposals will punish people who’ve already lost everything,” said Sile Reynolds, Head of Asylum Advocacy at Freedom from Torture. “Stripping away protections that prevent people from being sent back to their torturers is not who we are as a country.”

Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, said Britain was a “fair, tolerant and compassionate country,” but that in a more volatile world,” people need to know our borders are secure.”

The government added that there would also be reforms to streamline the appeals system, to fast-track the deportation of criminals and to prevent against misuse of modern slavery laws to impede removals.