Human Rights | WPN World People News

Members of Saudi al-Mujahdeen forces hold up the Saudi Arabia flag during an annual procession near Mecca, January 4, on 2006.

Justice remains elusive for the victims of the chemical weapons attacks on Ghouta, near Damascus, which killed hundreds of people, Human Rights Watch said, on the anniversary of the August 21, 2013 attacks.

Saudi Arabia has executed at least 19 people since August 4, 2014. Local news reports indicate that eight of those executed were convicted of nonviolent offenses, seven for drug smuggling and one for sorcery.

Testimonies gathered from civilians who fled the recent offensive by armed groups in the Sinjar district of north-western Iraq have revealed appalling accounts of killing, abduction and sexual violence perpetrated against women and children, according to UNICEF.

UNHCR humanitarian aid is loaded onto a Boeing 747 at the Marqa International Airport in Jordan before being flown to Erbil in northern Iraq.

Students at a school operated by Future Prowess Islamic Foundation in Maiduguri, Nigeria, which provides free primary education for orphans and vulnerable children.

The apparent execution of the freelance journalist James Foley on August 19, 2014 in Syria by the Islamic State would be a war crime if confirmed. Groups detaining journalists should immediately and unconditionally release them.

Israel should immediately allow access to Gaza for Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other international human rights organizations so they can investigate allegations of serious violations of international humanitarian law by all parties to the conflict, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said.

Workers unload trucks laden with hundreds of tents for families displaced by the recent fighting in Iraq.

The arrest of two activists involved in a play considered by Thai military authorities to be “insulting to the monarchy” shows the decline in freedom of expression in Thailand since the May 22, 2014 coup, Human Rights Watch said. At least 14 new lese majeste cases are pending in the Bangkok Military Court and in criminal courts around Thailand, according to the Internet Dialogue on Law Reform (ILaw).