President Barack Obama should signal clearly to people in Russia when he visits Moscow on July 6, 2009, that human rights in their country remain one of his administration’s central concerns.

The European Parliament's new members will soon be in place, some of them without a clear idea of what they can actually achieve there. They need an agenda, one that is pan-European. They should look at the problems that continue to harm and restrict women in Europe.

President Sarkozy of France has reignited the debate about how Muslim women in Europe should dress by calling for a ban on clothing that, as he puts it, imprisons women and undermines their dignity.

Since 2008, a wave of punitive house burnings has started in Chechnya, the latest chapter in the blood-soaked history of this republic in Russia’s North Caucasus. A new report from Human Rights Watch documents more than a dozen incidents of torchings in which the authorities were clearly responsible.

Russian federal and Chechen authorities should immediately put a stop to home burnings and other collective punishment practices against families of alleged insurgents in Chechnya, and ensure meaningful accountability for perpetrators of human rights violations in the region, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

After the recent assassination attempt against the president of Ingushetia, Yunus-bek Yevkurov, the question of whether Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of the Chechen republic, will be granted control over the neighboring Ingushetia has become a hot topic of debate. Yevkurov is now lying unconscious in the hospital and Kadyrov is proclaiming that President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia has given him a mandate to lead counter-insurgency operations in Ingushetia.

President Valdas Adamkus should veto a proposed law passed by Lithuania’s parliament that would ban references to gay, lesbian, and bisexual relations in public places, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to the president.