Human Rights | WPN World People News

The prosecutor’s office of the International Criminal Court (ICC) should expedite its preliminary inquiry on grave international crimes committed in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch said. In its November 2013 Report on Preliminary Examination Activities, the ICC prosecutor’s office found that “[W]ar crimes and crimes against humanity were and continue to be committed in Afghanistan,” and that it would examine whether the government was taking sufficient action to investigate and prosecute these crimes.

Four journalists have been assassinated in Mosul, the capital of Iraq’s Ninewa Province, since early October 2013. Iraqi security officials have said they were investigating the killings, the most recent on November 24, but have not arrested or charged anyone in connection with the attacks.

Boko Haram has abducted scores of women and girls, used children as young as 12 in hostilities, and killed hundreds of people in recent attacks, Human Rights Watch said. The Nigerian government, meanwhile, has failed to account for hundreds of men and boys whom security forces have rounded up and forcibly disappeared during Boko Haram’s four-year insurgency.

A view of Torit prison, built in 1946 and the oldest one in South Sudan.

Egyptian police used water cannons, teargas, and batons on November 26, 2013, to disperse several hundred activists peacefully protesting military trials of civilians, Human Rights Watch said. The police assault came two days after Interim President Adly Mansour issued a new law restricting public assembly.

Women refugees from Syria are being sexually harassed by employers, landlords, and even faith-based aid distributors in Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said. Human Rights Watch interviewed a dozen women who described being groped, harassed, and pressured to have sex.

The Ukrainian authorities must refrain from using force against the Euromaidan Square protestors, demonstrating peacefully against the Ukrainian government's decision not to sign the Association Agreement with the EU, said two key MEPs responsible for the Eastern Partnership policy, Foreign Affairs Committee chair Elmar Brok (EPP, DE) and rapporteur Jacek Saryusz-Wolski (EPP, PL), who warned: "Otherwise, there will be serious consequences".

A placard with the message 'Freedom for Ales Bialiatski' at the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting, Warsaw, 11 October 2011.

UN MONUC staff visiting a women's shelter in Goma for victims of sexual abuse. The United Nations marks International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women this November 25

The Afghan government should immediately reject a proposal to restore stoning as punishment for adultery. A working group led by the Justice Ministry that is assisting in drafting a new penal code has proposed provisions on “moral crimes” involving sex outside of marriage that call for stoning.