Human Rights | WPN World People News

Tens of thousands people holding SOS sign in protest of illegal auction

Agnès Callamard, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.

Fires resulting from unchecked deforestation are poisoning the air millions of people breathe, affecting health throughout the Brazilian Amazon, the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), the Institute for Health Policy Studies (IEPS), and Human Rights Watch said in a report released on August 26, 2020. Fires and deforestation in the Amazon increased dramatically during 2019, President Jair Bolsonaro’s first year in office, and 2020 is already proving to be worse, the groups found.

Unidentified gunmen have since August 14, 2020, assassinated two protesters and wounded another four, all linked to a youth protest group with political aspirations in Basra, in southern Iraq, Human Rights Watch said on August 26, 2020. They are the most recent victims of killings of hundreds of protesters in Baghdad and southern Iraq since October 2019, including by abusive security forces.

Hundreds of people gathered in front of the Liberty Square on August 16 holding up posters of 3 people wanted: the prosecutor Hou Kuan-ren, who investigated the Zhou Ren-shen case and Tai Ji Men case in 1996; Director Lin Qing-zong and Deputy Director Chen Ying-jin of the Administrative Enforcement Agency. The people were accusing the Prosecutor who processed the case based on “a trace of shadow flashed in the eye” and stole 24 years from them. This is 21st century!

A view of the entrance to Palais Wilson in Geneva, Switzerland, headquarters of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

Myanmar authorities should immediately drop all charges against the free-speech activist and poet Maung Saungkha, Human Rights Watch said on August 20. Maung Saungkha is to appear in court on August 21, 2020 to face accusations of organizing a protest demanding an end to internet restrictions in the conflict-affected Rakhine and Chin states.

Thai authorities should immediately drop all charges and unconditionally release prominent pro-democracy activists arbitrarily detained for their role in peaceful protests, Human Rights Watch said on August 20, 2020. On August 19, 2020, Thai police separately arrested Arnon Nampha, Baramee Chairat, Suwanna Tanlek, and Korakot Saengyenphan, charged them with sedition and other offenses, and jailed them.

A street scene in Amman, Jordan.

Jordanian authorities have used a sweeping gag order, harassment, and arrests to limit media coverage of ongoing protests stemming from the arbitrary closure of the Jordanian Teachers’ Syndicate on July 25, 2020, Human Rights Watch said on August 18, 2020. Police beat two journalists who covered the protests. Restrictions on teachers’ protest coverage reflected a broader degradation of press freedom in recent years.