Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 28 November 2014

Despite an earlier promise by Prime Minister Najib Razak to repeal the Sedition Act, Malaysia's leader now says he will keep - and even strengthen - the law that curbs free speech and has been used against opposition politicians. A shocking new public safety video produced by police in Hungary blames the victims rather than the perpetrators, saying, “You are responsible. You can do something about it.” In the Central African Republic, the warlord Abdoulaye Miskine, suspected in a string of atrocities, has been freed from prison in Cameroon after fighters loyal to him released a Polish priest they had taken hostage. Although Indonesia has long been seen as a religiously moderate country, Sunni Muslim militants are attacking minority religious communities across the nation. The law protects religious freedom, but mobs reign on the streets, and the government does little to stop the violence. A court in Pakistan has handed a 26-year sentence to actress Veena Malik for "blasphemy" related to a wedding scene in a film. The country's much-criticized blasphemy law has led to countless abuses not only by the courts, but also by the police and by extremists, all of whom use the cover and spirit of the law to attack minority communities and silence dissent. In Iran, Soheil Arabi has now had his death sentence upheld by the country's Supreme Court. He was sentenced for “insulting the Prophet of Islam” on Facebook. Thailand's junta has apparently blocked some pages of Human Rights Watch's website. A publication by the organization this week entitled, "Thailand: Unending Repression 6 Months Post-Coup," documenting the abuses of the past half year, may have been the target. When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that women and men were not equal, and that, for example, women cannot, "dig the soil, it is against their delicate nature", little did he realize he'd face a week of media condemnation and people tweeting photos under the #WomenDigging hashtag. Criticism came from home and abroad, including by archeologists, gardeners and members of the European Parliament.