Human Rights | WPN World People News

The European Union’s proposed deal with Turkey, announced on March 8, 2016, represents “a disturbing disregard for international law covering the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants,” Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth said in a letter to EU heads of state. Roth urged European leaders to reject the new elements of the EU’s Joint Action Plan with Turkey at the European Council on March 17-18.

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The failure of the United States government to appoint lawyers to represent migrant children facing deportation violates their basic rights under international law, Human Rights Watch said in an amicus (“friend-of-the-court”) brief filed in a federal appeals court on March 14. The Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute and the law firm Covington and Burling LLP served as counsel on the brief. Students in Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Clinic provided research and drafting assistance for the brief.

Separatist insurgents took over and damaged a hospital in southern Thailand on March 13, 2016, in violation of the laws of war, Human Rights Watch said on the day after. The attack on the hospital occurred during a resurgence of separatist attacks on civilians since the beginning of March.

President Dilma Rousseff should veto a counterterrorism bill whose overbroad and vague language could be used to undermine freedom of association and expression in Brazil, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the president on March 14.

Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran Ahmed Shaheed.

Marching in New York City for gender equality.

Security Council members vote to adopt a resolution endorsing special measures presented by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for protection from sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers.

Houthi officials in Yemen confiscated the passport of a prominent human rights advocate on March 4, 2016. The Houthis should immediately end the travel ban on Abdulrasheed al-Faqih, executive director of the Mwatana Organization for Human Rights, the country’s leading independent documentation group.

Egyptian authorities should quash blasphemy sentences handed down to four Christian children and their teacher over a video mocking ISIS. They should also revoke the penal code article that authorities use to prosecute blasphemy.