Bahrain’s revision of its restrictive kafala (sponsorship) system will dramatically improve the status of most migrant workers and reduce their risk of exploitation, Human Rights Watch said today. But the protections should be extended to migrant domestic workers, who are especially vulnerable to employer abuse, Human Rights Watch said.

Bahrain should immediately begin a thorough and impartial investigation into the abduction and torture of the human rights activist Ja'far Kadhim Ibrahim.

Bahrain's use of televised, coerced testimony and other serious flaws in the criminal trial of an opposition leader and others shows contempt for the right to a fair trial.

Bahraini officials should promptly drop the charges against the former president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, Abdul Hadi al-Khawaja, and lift a travel ban against him, Human Rights Watch said today.

Bahrain's government should withdraw a threat by the interior minister to prosecute human rights activists for having met with foreign government officials while abroad.

Repeated allegations that confessions were obtained by abuse cast doubt on sentences that a Bahraini court has handed down this week to opposition political activists over violent protests in 2007, Human Rights Watch said today. The convictions of the men rested in part on confessions obtained during their interrogation and detention.

NGOs around the world call Sri Lanka's defeat in today's Human Rights Council elections a victory for the UN body.

The first session of the new country review mechanism of the UN Human Rights Council was undermined by inconsistencies and the timidity of some governments in reviewing others, Human Rights Watch said today. On April 18, 2008 the council concluded a two-week session in which it examined the records of 16 countries as part of the new Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process.