Human Rights | WPN World People News

The Argentine Senate, in a vote set for August 8, 2018, should approve a bill that would limit the country’s criminalization of abortion, which undermines the fundamental rights of women and girls, Human Rights Watch said on August 8. The bill passed the House of Representatives in June.

Tajik security services forced an activist’s 10-year-old daughter, elderly mother, and brother off an airplane at Tajikistan on August 4, 2018, seven human rights groups said on August 7. They were on their way to Europe to reunite with the activist.

Three-year prison sentences for three Congolese peacekeepers convicted for the 2014 murder of 11 civilians in the Central African Republic does not reflect the gravity of the crime. The sentences deny justice to the victims, who included women and children.

The Zimbabwe Security Forces and unidentified gunmen have intensified a crackdown on supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change Alliance (MDCA) in the aftermath of August 1, 2018 post-election protests in Harare, Human Rights Watch said. The police, soldiers, and unidentified armed men also beat up and harassed scores of people in Harare over the last few days as they searched for opposition party officials.

The Bangladeshi government should relocate Rohingya refugees living in a severely overcrowded mega camp to safer ground in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Human Rights Watch said in a report issued on Aug 05, 2018. The refugees, who fled the Burmese military’s campaign of ethnic cleansing that began in August 2017, should not have to face flooding and landslides, and should have sturdier shelters and adequate education for their extended stay.

Journalists being briefed during Intra-Syrian talks at the UN Office at Geneva in 2017.

Iranian authorities should immediately release eight environmental activists detained for six months unless they can immediately charge them with recognizable crimes and produce evidence to justify their continued detention, Human Rights Watch said on Aug 03, 2018. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence organization has arrested at least 50 environmental activists across the country since January 2018.

The People’s Protection Units (YPG), the largest member of the Syrian Democratic Forces military alliance in northeast Syria, has been recruiting children, including girls, and using some in hostilities despite pledges to stop the practice, Human Rights Watch said on Aug 03, 2018.

Anti-Slavery has worked to end state-sponsored forced labour in the cotton sector in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan for a decade. We have witnessed some changes – particularly in Uzbekistan – so, should businesses now start feeling it is safe to invest in cotton from Central Asia? Whilst there are no prizes for guessing the answers are ‘no’ for both countries, let’s analyse the level and nature of risks that businesses would face if they wanted to source cotton from them.

OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, on August 2, Harlem Désir in a letter to the Turkish authorities expressed his concern over recent judicial action launched by the country’s prosecution against two journalists of the Turkish Cypriot daily Afrika.