Human Rights Watch - Page 3

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s parliament abolished a controversial article that allowed rapists to escape prison by marrying their victims.

Contents: EU countries refuge to help Italy deal with massive refugee crisis; Italy considers a ‘code of conduct,’ and possibly the ‘nuclear option’; Italy’s ‘nuclear option’ would force other countries to absorb refugees

PARIS — A major human rights group has blasted the French government for a proposed law aimed at countering Islamic terror attacks, alleging that it undermines human rights as well as the rule of law.

Swedish media and the NGO Human Rights Watch claimed that an Afghan asylum seeker deported from Sweden had been a victim of a terror attack in Kabul until evidence later showed he wasn’t among the victims. The Afghan capital of

TEL AVIV – Human Rights Watch (HRW) slammed the Gaza-based terror group Hamas on Tuesday for holding two Israeli citizens who are believed to suffer from mental illness and demanded their immediate release.

British left-wing newspaper the Guardian published a blatantly misleading sympathy piece about a deported illegal alien on Wednesday.

Gaza’s Hamas rulers hanged three men they accused of collaborating with Israel Thursday, fulfilling vows of revenge for the mysterious killing of one of their commanders last month.

Contents: Thousands flee from Myanmar into China to escape army clashes with ethnic militias; Myanmar faces an investigation for ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims

Despite pledges to allow an American employee of Human Rights Watch into the country, Israel has blocked his entry, this time on a tourist visa.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte reiterated his belief that killing drug criminals was necessary to protect his nation’s youth from the methamphetamine addiction engulfing the Philippines, declaring that killing such criminals is “not a crime against humanity.”

Israeli authorities have rejected a request from Human Rights Watch to grant a work permit to its regional director, accusing the group of engaging in Palestinian “propaganda,” the group said Friday.

Human Rights Watch is accusing the Syrian government of using chemical weapons at least eight times during the siege of Aleppo and is asking the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on the regime.

Syrian government forces carried out at least eight chemical attacks during the final weeks of the battle for Aleppo, killing nine people, among them four children, and injuring hundreds more, Human Rights Watch said Monday.

Declaring its conservative government a threat to ‘European values’, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for the European Union (EU) to consider activating a mechanism dubbed the ‘nuclear option’ against Poland.

A human rights group accused the Syrian government on Monday of conducting at least eight chemical attacks using chlorine gas on opposition-controlled residential areas during the final months in the battle for Aleppo.

The New York Times published a major article Tuesday on the White House debate over formally designating the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. It is an interesting contrast with an article on the same subject (albeit by different authors) the Times ran just a week ago.

Contents: New armed militia emerges in Central African Republic: Return, Reclamation, Rehabilitation (3R); Central African Republic crisis war continues to spin out of control

Islamist militants from the Boko Haram terror group are instructing their teenage recruits how to sexually assault women as part of their training, both as a means of terror and an incentive for the young militants.

Islamic State militants in Mosul are deliberately targeting civilians who refuse to join them as they retreat ahead of advancing Iraqi forces involved in a large-scale government operation to retake the militant-held city, an international watchdog said on Wednesday.

Contents: UN: Burma (Myanmar) committing ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Rohingyas; Bangladesh is blocking Rohingya refugees fleeing from Burma violence; Tens of thousands flee from northern Burma across border to China

Contents: Iraq sending Shia militias to Mosul, directly violating promise to Turkey; The chaotic operation to liberate Mosul

According to a complaint from Amnesty International (AI), Iraqi government forces have killed and tortured civilians in the area around Mosul as they closed in on the Islamic State’s stronghold.

On Monday, China’s Parliament passed a cyber-security law that has foreign businesses and human-rights activists nervous, as it will place even more restrictions on China’s already tightly controlled Internet when its practices are implemented next June. Many of these restrictions apply extra security measures against non-Chinese interests.

As Russia prepares to resume, and probably intensify, its war effort in Syria, human rights groups have increasingly condemned the nation for exacerbating the violence while not taking in Syrian refugees.

TEL AVIV – Turkish authorities reportedly tortured political detainees after a failed military coup led to thousands of arrests during the government-declared state of emergency, NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) has alleged.

Saudi Arabian Prince Turki bin Saud al-Kabir has been executed by his Sunni kingdom for murdering a young man after a “group fight” that occurred in the outskirts of the kingdom’s capital Riyadh.

On the eerily quiet streets of Mosul, fighters from the Islamic State group are killing suspected spies, blocking roads and planting bombs ahead of a showdown with Iraqi forces.

Women’s rights campaigners in Saudi Arabia have organized on social media to bring an end to the kingdom’s “male guardianship” system, which prohibits women from carrying out fundamental tasks without the a male relative’s permission.

Iran-linked Shiite Houthis and their allies, armed groups loyal to the former president of Yemen, have attacked an independent news outlet in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa and apprehended its manager, Saudi Arabia’s Al Arabiya News Channel reports.

GAZA CITY — The wife of a prominent Palestinian journalist and critic of the Islamist terror group that rules the Gaza Strip said Hamas has arrested her husband.

Journalists critical of Palestinian policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been imprisoned and tortured according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), a New York-based NGO devoted to human rights activism. HRW released a report August 30 documenting five instances of rights abuses against journalists.

A remark criticising Hungary’s lauded border defence against illegal migration has spurred a national politician to suggest pigs’ heads be placed on the country’s fences could be a more effective deterrent. Gyorgy Schopflin responded on Twitter to a tweet by

Contents: Russia-Iran airbase agreement further isolates Saudi Arabia; Continuing Mideast realignment: Russia and Iran vs Saudi Arabia; Generational alignments of the world’s religions – hypothesis

TEL AVIV – A leader of the Druze population in the Golan Heights refuted a United Nations statement accusing Israel of imposing economic and social hardships on his community, saying it was “a total joke” and that the UN should instead concern itself with real human rights violation such as those happening in neighboring Syria.

There is a shared policy of state-sanctioned killings behind the stark religious divisions between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran, the region’s greatest rivals.

The European Union and journalist associations expressed concern Thursday about a widening crackdown on media in Turkey, calling on Ankara to respect fundamental freedoms.