Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 19 June

In today's brief: US State Department report puts countries using child soldiers on notice; Putin's doublespeak on Syria; an extreme immigration bill in the US House; spying on Americans; social media with the Committee to Protect Journalists. The State Department report adds three new governments to the list of those using child soldiers: Chad, Rwanda and Syria.  Vladimir Putin lashed out at the European Union and the United States for considering arms shipments to the Syrian opposition, while at the same time making it clear that Russia will continue supplying a range of weapons to the Syrian government. An extreme immigration law proposed in the US House would give police broad powers to enforce federal laws... Aryeh Neier, former Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, writes about what's not new in the NSA surveillance story... HRW had the opportunity to discuss social media strategies with the Committee to Protect Journalists... CPJ does important work... Human Rights Watch has detailed an extensive political surveillance operation in rural Tibet. A new report reveals that, as part of the "Solidify the Foundations, Benefit the Masses" campaign, the Chinese government has sent more than 20,000 officials and communist party cadres to Tibetan villages. Ostensibly there to improve rural living standards, they serve as a partisan quasi-police force, scrutinizing political views and running political education sessions.