Human Rights | WPN World People News

European Union leaders should signal a change in course and affirm strong human rights principles in EU asylum policy and foreign relations, Human Rights Watch said on Dec 13. Heads of state from the 28 EU countries meeting in Brussels on December 15, 2016, are expected to assess migration cooperation with selected African countries, evaluate implementation of the EU-Turkey deal to stem boat migration to the Greek islands, and discuss proposals for further reform of EU asylum rules.

The mounting use of incendiary weapons, which cause horrific wounds to civilians, should prompt countries to strengthen the law restricting them, Human Rights Watch said in a report released at a diplomatic meeting about these and other weapons on Dec 12.

Bahraini authorities should immediately release the human rights activist Nabeel Rajab, Human Rights Watch said on Dec 12. Rajab’s trial is scheduled to resume on December 15, 2016, on charges that inherently violate the right to free expression. Among Bahrain’s allies only the United States has publicly called for his release.

The European Union and United States should expand targeted sanctions against those most responsible for recent violent repression and other serious human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a coalition of 72 Congolese and 15 international human rights organizations said on Dec 09.

Governments should agree at the upcoming multilateral disarmament meeting in Geneva to formalize their talks on fully autonomous weapons, with an eye toward negotiating a preemptive ban, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Dec 09.

A migrant domestic worker watches over a child playing in the Magic Planet, City Centre Muscat, a shopping mall in Oman.

in Ukraine since the conflict started close to 10,000.

Remnant of a wing assembly that is mounted on a US-made GBU-12 Paveway II laser-guided 500-pound bomb found at the Arhab water drilling site, Sanaa governorate, where at least 31 civilians were killed in an airstrike on September 10, 2016. According to the manufacturing date as well as the national stock number, this wing assembly was produced by Raytheon Company, a US defense contractor, in October 2015.

The Philippine government is fueling a rising human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic among men who have sex with men through policies that restrict interventions proven to prevent transmission of the virus, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Dec 08.

OHCHR examines the issue of involuntary separation of Korean families from a human rights perspective.