Human Rights | WPN World People News

The commitment by European Union heads of state to triple the capacity of Frontex operations in the Mediterranean is an important step towards preventing migrant deaths at sea, Human Rights Watch said on 23 April, 2015. But the EU, at its extraordinary summit meeting on April 23, 2015, remained vague about whether Frontex ships will be deployed off the Libyan coast where migrant boats are sinking.

Ethiopian authorities should immediately release nine bloggers and journalists arrested a year ago who are being prosecuted on politically motivated charges, Human Rights Watch said on 23 April, 2015. The six bloggers, who belong to the Zone 9 blogging collective, and three journalists were arrested on April 25 and 26, 2014, in a coordinated sweep in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. They were charged under the criminal code and anti-terrorism law for having links to banned opposition groups and trying to violently overthrow the government.

Garment workers in Bangladesh face poor working conditions and anti-union tactics by employers including assaults on union organizers, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on 22 April, 2015. In the two years since more than 1,100 workers died in the catastrophic collapse of the Rana Plaza factory on April 24, 2013, efforts are underway to make Bangladesh factories safer, but the government and Western retailers can and should do more to enforce international labor standards to protect workers’ rights, including their right to form unions and advocate for better conditions.

A young Peuhl woman, around 18 years of age, held for 14 months as a sex slave by anti-Balaka fighters in Pondo, Central African Republic.

The demand for organs far outstrips what is available, leading to illegal trafficking in organs all over the world. With Europeans travelling to other countries to receive one of these illegally harvested organs, it also forms a challenge for the EU. The EP's public health committee and human rights subcommittee held a workshop on 21 April dedicated to organ harvesting in China to discuss these issues. However, MEPs warned that the problem was not limited to China.

Opening of the fourteenth session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Maltese emergency workers in Senglea collect bodies from the Mediterranean disaster which happened overnight Saturday-Sunday 18-19 April 2015.

Somali state security forces forcibly evicted about 21,000 displaced people in the capital, Mogadishu, in early March 2015. The authorities beat some of those evicted on March 4 and 5, destroyed their shelters, and left them without water, food, or other assistance. Many of those affected had fled their homes during the 2011 famine and fighting, and have been repeatedly displaced since then.

A review of the prosecution’s evidence in a mass trial of 51 alleged supporters of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood shows that the government presented no evidence of criminal behavior besides the testimony of one police officer.