Human Rights | WPN World People News

Four members of the Hayash family who were injured in a cluster munition attack on al-Qufl village in mid-July.

A Thai court’s award of damages for the fatal torture of a Muslim detainee highlights the government’s failure to prosecute soldiers who commit grave abuses in Thailand’s troubled deep south border provinces, Human Rights Watch said on August 25. The case is a critical test of Prime Minister Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha’s vow to bring justice to Thailand’s restive southern border provinces.

Former President of Maldives Mohamed Nasheed.

Kazakh police on August 20, 2015, detained an activist who said on his Facebook page that he wanted to meet publicly with local government officials. The authorities should release him immediately.

Algerian authorities should release or try within a reasonable time in a fair and open trial a pro-Amazigh activist, Kameleddine Fekhar, and his 24 co-defendants, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday. Fekhar has since 2013 called for autonomy of the Mzab, a northern Sahara region, and has condemned the government for what he called complicity in crimes against humanity by Sunni Arabs against the Amazigh, or Berber, ethnic minority in the region.

Violence between protesters and security forces escalated in western Nepal on August 24, 2015, Human Rights Watch said Monday. The government should order an independent and impartial investigation into all protest-related deaths and ensure that security forces deployed to restore order remain disciplined and respect basic rights. Leaders on all sides of the debate over increased autonomy should refrain from further violence.

Young women and girls carry water in Nigeria.

President Thein Sein of Burma should refuse to sign into law two pieces of legislation that violate fundamental rights, Human Rights Watch said on August 23. On August 21, 2015, the joint parliament approved the Religious Conversion Bill and the Monogamy Bill, two of four contentious so-called “race and religion” laws that will entrench discrimination based on religion, and also violate internationally protected rights to privacy and religious belief.

A policeman in Kabul, Afghanistan, which remains the most dangerous country for aid workers globally.

The Israeli military unlawfully demolished at least 39 structures in Bedouin Palestinian communities in the West Bank on August 17 and 18, 2015. The demolitions left 126 people homeless, 80 of them children. Four of the communities where the demolitions took place are targeted by an Israeli government plan to forcibly “relocate” 7,000 Bedouin.