Human Rights | WPN World People News

A view of Jabalia refugee camp. Jabalia is the largest of the Gaza Strip's eight refugee camps. It is located north of Gaza City, close to a village of the same name.

Vietnam’s government should release all political prisoners and uphold its pledges to respect basic civil and political rights, Human Rights Watch said in a submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

A draft law being rushed through Turkey’s parliament will preserve many of the abusive powers granted to the president and executive under the country’s recent state of emergency, which formally ended on July 18, 2018, Human Rights Watch said on Jul 20, 2018.

Iraq’s National Security Service (NSS), an Iraqi intelligence agency reporting to Iraq’s prime minister, has acknowledged for the first time that it is detaining individuals for prolonged periods of time, despite not having a clear mandate to do so, Human Rights Watch said on Jul 22. NSS is holding more than 400 detainees in a detention facility in east Mosul. As of July 4, 2018, 427 men were there, some of whom had been held for more than seven months.

Rural residents are being poisoned in Brazil from pesticides sprayed near their homes, schools, and workplaces, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Jul 20, 2018. Many rural communities fear reprisals from wealthy and politically powerful farmers if they denounce such poisonings or advocate more protective laws and regulations.

Government security forces and armed separatists have committed grave abuses against residents of Cameroon’s Anglophone region, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Jul 19, 2018. The region has been rocked by protests and violent clashes rooted in long-standing political grievances by the country’s Anglophone minority.

A district court of appeal in Lebanon issued a groundbreaking ruling on July 12, 2018, that consensual sex between people of the same sex is not unlawful, Human Rights Watch said.

Vietnamese authorities should drop criminal charges and release a United States citizen and Vietnamese nationals arrested for their peaceful participation in protests in Ho Chi Minh City, Human Rights Watch said on Jul 18. William Anh Nguyen is scheduled to go on trial for “disrupting public order” under penal code article 318 on July 20, 2018. He faces up to seven years in prison if convicted.

Greece is denying thousands of asylum-seeking children their right to an education because of an European Union-backed migration policy that traps them on the Aegean islands, Human Rights Watch said on Jul 18, 2018.

Indonesia’s government should promptly and impartially investigate a surge of killings of criminal suspects by the Jakarta police, Human Rights Watch said on Jul 18, 2018. Jakarta police data indicates that police killed 11 suspects and wounded 41 others from July 3 to July 12, 2018, for “resisting arrest” as part of an anti-crime campaign linked to the city’s preparations to host the 2018 Asian Games next month. That campaign involves the deployment of 1,000 police personnel across Jakarta until the games’ conclusion on September 3.