Human Rights | WPN World People News

A boy looks at the remains of a neighbouring house while sitting amid the rubble of another home destroyed in an Israeli air strike in the town of Rafah in southern Gaza.

Large-scale US surveillance is seriously hampering US-based journalists and lawyers in their work, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union said in a joint report released. Surveillance is undermining media freedom and the right to counsel, and ultimately obstructing the American people’s ability to hold their government to account, the groups said.

Torture remains a serious problem in Brazil despite recent measures to curb the practice, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the Brazilian Congress. Congress should approve a bill that would safeguard against ill-treatment of detainees by requiring officials to physically present them before a judge for a “custody hearing” within 24 hours of arrest.

A young girl sleeps surrounded by relatives in their new home, a primary school in Alqosh, Duhok, after fleeing their home in Mosul.

Beneficiaries waiting in line to collect their ration at a food-distribution taking place at the UNMISS-compound in Malakal, Upper Nile State, South Sudan (May 25, 2014).

The remains of demolished and damaged homes in Beach Camp close to Gaza City.

Marietta Karamanli (France, SOC), general rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on the abolition of the death penalty, said today that she stood aghast at news of what appears to have been yet another botched execution in the United States.

As attorneys who represent individuals on the No-Fly List, we are dismayed to read the details of how the government places people on the List based on criteria that are hopelessly vague and require no showing of a threat to aviation security. It appears that the introductory disclaimer in the guidelines that “watchlisting is not an exact science” is a gross understatement.

The past few days witnessed a sharp escalation in clashes between Palestinian civilians and Israeli forces across the West Bank in the context of protests against the ongoing Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip. Since 23 July, Israeli forces killed ten Palestinians and injured approximately 600; an additional Palestinian was reportedly killed and three injured by an Israeli settler.