Human Rights | WPN World People News

Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

Two new interim final rules issued by the Trump administration put many women’s access to contraception in jeopardy, Human Rights Watch said on Oct 6. The Department of Health and Human Services rules exempt nearly any employer or insurer with religious beliefs or moral convictions against contraceptives from including contraceptive benefits in their health plans.

The Egyptian government has intensified its campaign against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and their supporters, arresting dozens of people in less than two weeks, Human Rights Watch said on Oct 06. A media regulatory body has also banned all “positive” reporting on homosexuality.

Armed groups in the Central African Republic have used rape and sexual slavery as a tactic of war across the country during nearly five years of conflict, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Oct 05. Commanders have tolerated widespread sexual violence by their forces and, in some cases, appear to have ordered it or committed it themselves.

Transgender people are no longer protected by federal civil rights laws banning workplace discrimination, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday.

MEPs condemn the rise of violence against albinos in Malawi, persecutions against Crimean Tatars and crackdown on political opponents in the Maldives in three resolutions voted on Thursday.

The Burmese military summarily executed several dozen Rohingya Muslims in Maung Nu village in Burma’s Rakhine State on August 27, 2017, Human Rights Watch said on Oct 04,2017. Witnesses said that Burmese soldiers had beaten, sexually assaulted, stabbed, and shot villagers who had gathered for safety in a residential compound, two days after Rohingya militants attacked a local security outpost and military base.

Jordan’s parliament has approved a series of important human rights reforms in 2017, Human Rights Watch said on Oct 04. Positive changes include a new law that improves rights of people with disabilities, the full repeal of a controversial penal code article that allowed people who commit sexual assault to avoid punishment if they marry their victims, and new limits on pretrial detention and other criminal justice reforms.

Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), called on the Spanish authorities to ensure respect for fundamental freedoms of peaceful assembly and expression.

Efforts to bring those responsible for atrocities in Syria before European courts are starting to bear fruit, notably in Swedish and German courts, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Oct 03. While various authorities in Europe have opened investigations of serious international crimes committed in Syria, Sweden and Germany are the first two countries that have prosecuted and convicted people for these crimes.