Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 20 April 2015

April 20 is unofficial marijuana day in the United States. The costs of criminalizing the drug are staggering, not only in terms of the billions of dollars devoted to enforcing them, but also in harm to human lives. Sudanese President and wanted ICC fugitive Omar al-Bashir cancelled an upcoming trip to Indonesia where he was to take part in an Africa-Asia summit of leaders. It would have been the first time the embattled president traveled so far from Sudan in years. The US state of California hit a milestone this month with the first release under new laws of a man sentenced as a teenager to life without parole. The number of young people being sent to adult prisons in the first place remains a major problem in California. Tens of thousands of children in Quranic schools in Senegal are being trafficked and forced to beg for abusive teachers despite a decade-old law outlawing the practice. A proposed bill to regulate nongovernmental groups would severely curb Ugandans’ basic rights, subjecting groups to such extensive government control and interference that it could negate the very essence of freedom of association and expression. From earlier today: As many as 700 migrants and asylum seekers are feared dead in a single shipwreck in the Mediterranean north of Libya at the weekend. The European Union should act immediately to prevent further deaths at sea.