As Kenyans prepare for presidential elections in August, the government is cracking down on journalists, according to a new report. Many fear that the country could see the same widespread violence that left 1,200 people dead after the 2007 election.
Amid severe backlash from human rights advocates and members of Congress, the White House is defending President Donald Trump’s decision Saturday to invite Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to Washington as a necessary move to shore up alliances against North Korea. But human rights advocates say that excuse “doesn’t pass the laugh test.”
Human Rights Watch officials say there is an unprecedented number of sick and hungry Venezuelans immigrating to a northern state of Brazil, where authorities say the health-care system is ill-equipped to help them.
Conflict in the Horn of Africa and Great Lakes Region, along with increasingly authoritarian behavior by governments, has caused a rapid decline in human rights in countries across the region, a new report says. While authoritarianism appears on the rise in parts of the Western world as well, Amnesty International says this trend in Eastern Africa is particularly worrying.
Activists accuse Syria of war crimes. The government denies the accusation. We saw this dance happen again this week, where activists level an accusation and the Assad regime side-steps with denial. In the latest accusation, Human Rights Watch said that the military used chemical weapons on Aleppo late last year. The report stated that in eight attacks that violated international rules of war, at least nine people died and hundreds were injured. Syrian officials denied the accusation, telling Agence France-Presse that the report was “unprofessional and unscientific.”
Just last week, refugee groups commended Pakistan’s decision to extend the legal stay of Afghan refugees within its borders from March 31, 2017, until the end of December. Now, Pakistan is under fire from Human Rights Watch (HRW) for “the world’s largest unlawful mass forced return of refugees in recent times,” and the U.N. refugee agency is “complicit,” the group said in a report Monday.
The United Nations human rights office and Human Rights Watch both released reports over the weekend detailing accounts of horrific abuses said to have been committed by security forces against Muslim Rohingya women, children and men in Myanmar.
Within the walls of Brazil’s overcrowded prisons the number of people – including children – who are tortured or treated inhumanely has reached critical levels, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW) in its 2017 world report.
Women and girls fleeing the brutal Islamist group Boko Haram are not finding safety in camps for displaced people. The Nigerian soldiers and police who are supposed to protect them are raping and sexually assaulting them, according to Human Rights Watch.
For this week’s podcast, Humanosphere takes a look at the current situation in Ethiopia with our guest, Hallelujah Lulie, a postgraduate at the London School of Economics and former journalist covering the political and security situation in the country.