Human Rights | WPN World People News

The wife and child of the local area chief of Zéré, Bouba Gai, take shelter from the insecurity in the villages surrounding Bossangoa. Anti-balaka forces killed her husband and 13-year-old son, burning their bodies and dumping them in a latrine. November 1, 2013.

Israeli authorities are effectively detaining hundreds of Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers despite an Israeli High Court order for their release, Human Rights Watch said. More than 150 of the migrants ignored the rules restricting their mobility and walked out of what they called an “open prison” in the Negev desert to march toward Jerusalem in protest. On December 17, 2013, they gathered outside the Knesset in Jerusalem, where police apprehended them.

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) should leverage their countries’ collective bargaining power to seek greater protection for their nationals working in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the SAARC secretary general. December 18, 2013 is International Migrants’ Day.

Activists in Saudi Arabia face a repressive and intolerant government as they advocate popular political participation, judicial reform, and an end to discrimination against women and minorities, Human Rights Watch said in a report released. Authorities have responded by arresting, prosecuting, and attempting to silence rights defenders and to quash their calls for change.

The Lao government should immediately disclose the fate of prominent social activist Sombath Somphone, who was apprehended at a police checkpoint in Vientiane one year ago. The official investigation of his enforced disappearance on December 15, 2012 was inadequate, and the government has yet to offer a credible explanation of Sombath’s whereabouts.

White Ribbon Award presented to OSCE delegates for outstanding contributions to OSCE efforts in promoting gender equality in 2013.

Mexican national Edgar Tamayo Arias was sentenced to death in a trial marred by substandard defense. He would have received adequate legal assistance funded by the Mexican Government had the latter been notified by the US authorities. Such notification is required under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR), of which the United States is a Party. Tamayo Arias’s case is among those raised by Mexico before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the so-called Avena case (Mexico v. United States of America).

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) treats the report by the Commonwealth Ombudsman into the use of surveillance devices by Commonwealth agencies seriously, and has responded to the recommendations made.

Forty-one donors pledged US$404.6 million to the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), an increase of $21.2 million (or 5.5 percent) compared to pledges made last year during the annual high-level conference. The pledges will allow CERF to continue helping aid agencies jump-start emergency responses during natural disasters and other crises in 2014.