Human Rights | WPN World People News

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.

Parliament condemns the deteriorating climate for the media and free speech in Kazakhstan, the torture and assassination under suspicious circumstances of EU citizen Giulio Regeni in Egypt, and the worsening security and human rights situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in three resolutions voted on Thursday.

The new, civilian-led government in Burma under Aung San Suu Kyi’s leadership could herald a new era for human rights in Burma. But before euphoria breaks out, the United Nations Human Rights Council should take into account the many challenges Burma faces.

The Thai government should reopen the investigation of the enforced disappearance and presumed murder of a prominent Muslim human rights lawyer, Human Rights Watch said on March 10. The lawyer, Somchai Neelapaijit, was abducted in Bangkok 12 years ago. The government should make publicly available its information on Somchai’s fate and demonstrate its commitment to bringing those responsible for this heinous crime to justice.

At a port in Greece, a young boy and his family join other refugees and migrants trying to board a bus that will transport them to the centre of Athens.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon delivers remarks to the Security Council meeting on sexual exploitation and abuse.

The Islamic State has killed more than 200 people in Iraq, the great majority of them civilians, in bombings over the two weeks since February 25, 2016. Intentional killing of civilians is a war crime, and the widespread nature of the attacks may amount to crimes against humanity.

Masked men, armed with baseball bats, brutally attacked a group of foreign and Russian journalists and Russian activists documenting human rights abuses on March 9, 2016, in the North Caucasus. A few hours later, masked men raided the office of a nongovernmental organization in the region.