Human Rights | WPN World People News

Thai authorities should quash the conviction and release a prominent magazine editor imprisoned under Thailand’s draconian law on insulting the monarchy, Human Rights Watch said on Feb 24.

A 14-year-old girl holds her baby at her sister’s home in a village in Kanduku, in Malawi’s Mwanza district. She married in September 2013, but her husband chased her away. Her 15-year-old sister, in the background, married when she was 12. Both sisters said they married to escape poverty.

Rustam Usmanov, a peaceful political activist imprisoned arbitrarily in Uzbekistan for 19 years and brutally tortured, was finally freed on February 13, 2017, at the end of his prison term, Human Rights Watch said on Feb 22. Usmanov, 69, a founder of Uzbekistan’s first private bank and a vocal government critic, had been imprisoned since 1998.

Bahrain’s Council of Representatives on February 21, 2017, approved an amendment to Bahrain’s Constitution that would enable military courts to try civilians, in violation of international fair trial standards, Human Rights Watch said on Feb 23. The amendment goes next to the upper house of parliament and then to King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa for his final approval.

Thousands of children in Armenia are needlessly separated from their parents and placed in institutions due to disability or poverty, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Feb 22. The government should urgently provide community-based services and quality, inclusive education so that all children, including children with disabilities, can grow up in a family.

A Malaysian court’s conviction of rights activist Lena Hendry for her role in showing a documentary film violates her right to freedom of expression, Human Rights Watch said on Feb 21. On February 21, 2017, a Kuala Lumpur court found Hendry guilty of organizing a private screening of the award-winning human rights documentary, “No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka,” without censorship board approval nearly four years ago. She will be sentenced on March 22, and faces fines and up to three years in prison.

The Sri Lankan government has not met its pledge to curtail police abuses prior to the March 2017 session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Human Rights Watch said on Feb 20. Security sector reform was one of 25 undertakings by Sri Lanka in the Human Rights Council resolution adopted by consensus in October 2015.

French President François Hollance annonces France's endorsement of the Safe Schools Declaration during the opening of the "Protect Children From War" inter-ministerial Conference co-organized by France and UNICEF in Paris, February 21, 2017.

High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein.

The Russian government appears to be breaking its promises to investigate civilian casualties from airstrikes in Syria, Human Rights Watch said on Feb 19.