Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 18 December 2014

US President Barack Obama has announced that the US will resume diplomatic relations with Cuba for the first time in over 50 years. The historic decision is a crucial step towards removing a major obstacle to progress on human rights on the island. It's now time to lift the embargo, which has "imposed indiscriminate hardship on Cubans, but done nothing to end abuses", says Human Rights Watch. A censorship spat between Hollywood filmmakers and North Korea over a new comedy has revealed the extent of Pyongyang's cyberwarfare programme. But amid the hype, it's important to remember just how awful the regime there is. The UN should freeze funding of Iran’s counter-narcotics police operations until the death penalty for drug offenses is abolished in the country, a coalition of NGOs has said. At least 318 drug offenders have been executed in Iran in 2014 alone. As Pakistan continues to mourn the 132 schoolchildren killed in a Taliban attack on a school, now is not the time to rescind the country's moratorium on capital punishment, however tempting it may seem in the midst of grief and anger. Meanwhile, President Joko Widodo of Indonesia should commute the death sentences of five people scheduled for execution for violating drug trafficking laws “as soon as possible”, Human Rights Watch said today. Is cash from the World Bank being used to fund forced labour in Uzbekistan? Without a proper investigation, it's impossible to tell if projects the World Bank financially supports are in fact contributing to forced labour and other rights violations. More than a million Uzbek citizens are "forcibly mobilized" by authorities every year to pick the country's cotton harvest. The US government collects statistics on just about everything, from how many people contracted botulism, to how many acres of corn are planted in any given year. But one thing the government doesn't count is how often police kill civilians. Why? With anti-migrant rhetoric dominating the political space in all too many countries, it's a good time to wish millions of migrants around the world a very happy Migrants Day. Afghanistan's female activists fought a long and often lonely battle for women's rights in the country. But as foreign troops withdraw, activists are increasingly being treated by international donors as a nuisance, not an asset. A second public inquiry into alleged British abuses during the war in Iraq has rejected claims of torture by UK troops. But there remain hundreds more allegations of war crimes and other abuses during the conflict, which the UK justice system should investigate at the highest level. If not, the court in The Hague will need to step in.