Saudi Arabia: 5-Year Sentence for Rights Defender
Saudi Arabia’s Specialized Criminal Court sentenced a prominent human rights activist to five years in prison on June 17, 2013, based on his writings and exposure of human rights abuses. Mikhlif al-Shammari was convicted of “sowing discord” and other...
New York: Pass Condom Law to Protect Public Health
The New York State Assembly should enact a bill that would prohibit the use of condoms as evidence of prostitution-related offenses. Assembly bill 2736 was voted out of the New York State Assembly Rules Committee on June 20, 2013 and could be passed...
US: Reject Extreme Immigration Enforcement Bill
The United States House of Representatives should reject an expansive immigration enforcement bill that would worsen existing abuses within the US immigration system.
China: ‘Benefit the Masses’ Campaign Surveilling Tibetans
The Chinese government, under the rationale of a campaign to improve rural living standards, has sent more than 20,000 officials and communist party cadres to Tibetan villages to undertake intrusive surveillance of people, carry out widespread...
UNICEF and Save the Children congratulate the National Parliament of Bangladesh
UNICEF and Save the Children welcome the passing of the Children’s Bill 2013 by the National Parliament of Bangladesh (Bangladesh Jatiya Sangsad). The new law is based on the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) and has referred to the CRC in...
Media freedom must be upheld during protests in Turkey, says OSCE media freedom representative
The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatović, speaking at the opening session of the OSCE's Internet 2013 conference at...
Communities are key to ending customs that harm children, says UNICEF
On the Day of the African Child, UNICEF joined the African Union to mark the efforts by African communities to promote social change and end practices that endanger the lives and health of hundreds of thousands of children each year.
Conflict creating unprecedented threats to children’s lives
Children living in armed conflict face unprecedented threats. These include grave violations such as the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict, sexual violence against children, killing and maiming of children, and recurrent attacks on...
UN condemns shelling of Sudan base which killed ‘blue helmet,’ injured two others
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned in the strongest terms the shelling on a United Nations logistics base in Sudan’s South Kordofan State which killed at least one UN peacekeeper and wounded two others.
Tunisia: 2 Years in Prison for a Song
The two-year prison sentence for a Tunisian rapper on June 13, 2013, for “insulting the police” in a song violates freedom of speech, Human Rights Watch said. The criminal court sentence is another manifestation of the continuing intolerance for those...
