Human Rights | WPN World People News

Many Bedouin and herding communities in Area C of the West Bank are prevented from improving or building shelters by the Israeli authorities.

Following the executions of Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in Indonesia, the Australian government should redouble efforts to end the death penalty around the world, and overhaul the way it campaigns for global abolition, Human Rights Watch said on 20 May. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances because of its inherent cruelty.

Attacks on medical facilities, health workers, and patients have occurred in at least 17 countries undergoing conflict and civil unrest since January 2014, Human Rights Watch and the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition said in a joint report issued on 20 May, 2015. The report was released at the annual meeting of health ministers from around the world in Geneva from May 18-26, 2015.

Indonesian fishermen have rescued hundreds of Bangladeshis and Rohingya from Myanmar in May, including these children.

Separate Israeli Supreme Court decisions issued on May 5, 2015, open the way for state authorities to forcibly evict residents of two Arab villages from their homes. The inhabitants of both villages, one in Israel and the other in the occupied West Bank, have previously been displaced following actions by Israeli authorities.

Turkmen authorities have expanded their campaign to remove private satellite dishes from private homes in residential areas even where the satellites are not readily visible, Human Rights Watch said on 19 May.

UNICEF is distributing critical humanitarian aid for hundreds of thousands of children and affected civilians across Yemen during a five day humanitarian pause. Despite reports of heavy fighting in certain parts of the country, lifesaving supplies are reaching hospitals, health centres, affected communities and displaced people. These include medicine for childhood illnesses like diarrhea and acute respiratory infections, nutrition supplies, midwifery and hygiene kits and water tanks.

Approximately 100,000 people, the vast majority of whom are women and children, have fled violent clashes in Burundi to neighbouring Great Lakes countries including Tanzania, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). These number of refugees is expected to rise, as the situation in Burundi remains volatile.

Discrimination still takes place very often.

“Young LGBT people must never be made to feel afraid to express their sexual orientation and gender identity,” Jonas Gunnarsson (Sweden, SOC), PACE General Rapporteur on the rights of LGBT people, said today, on the eve of the International Day against Homophobia (17 May). “Sexual orientation and gender identity are matters that are indissociably linked with personal identity, and no one should ever be pressured to conform to other individuals’ or society’s expectations in this field.”