Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 31 March 2014

Nigeria, UK, CAR, Burma, Thailand, Algeria, Egypt, Syria

North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire over a disputed sea border earlier today. The shells fell harmlessly into the water but escalated tensions between the two countries just days after an historic report delivered by the United Nation's Human Rights Council acknowledged the North Korean regime's massive abuses against its own people. Importantly, that report puts top level North Korean officials, including Kim Jong-un, on notice for International Criminal Court investigations.

Some call it “the Yemen problem,” and it’s the main reason the detention center at Guantánamo Bay remains open, despite repeated pledges by President Obama to close it. Of the 155 detainees who remain there, more than half are Yemeni. While the Obama administration plans to continue to hold some detainees indefinitely, it has determined that 56 of these Yemenis pose so little threat to U.S. national security that they can be released. Why are they still stuck at Guantánamo?

President Barack Obama left Riyadh on the afternoon of March 29 apparently without raising human rights issues during talks with Saudi officials. The trip came at a time when Saudi Arabia has scaled up its persecution of peaceful dissidents and human rights activists – including one who is expected to receive a long prison sentence next week; deported thousands of undocumented migrants who have been detained in terrible conditions; and continues its systematic discrimination against women.

For two years now, the ‘foreign agents’ law has been at the core of Russia’s unprecedented crackdown on independent groups and activists. A new proposal, if it becomes law, would take the crackdown to a new, dire level.

From this morning: Increased attacks by the militant group Boko Haram and uncontrolled reprisals by Nigeria’s security forces have killed at least 1,500 people - more than half of them civilians - in the first three months of 2014, Amnesty International said in a briefing published today. The group called for a prompt, independent investigation into "acts that may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity."