The Iranian activist Kaveh Kermanshahi was free on bail in 2010 when an Iranian court sentenced him to four years in prison for his work on Kurdish and women’s rights. Kermanshahi, who was 26 at the time, decided he couldn’t return to prison, where he had been tortured, interrogated, and held in solitary confinement for four months after he was arrested earlier that year. He decided to leave Iran for Iraqi Kurdistan.

The Israeli military has since June 2012 prevented dozens of asylum seekers, most of them Eritreans, from crossing Israel’s newly constructed fence on its border with Egypt, Human Rights Watch, the Hotline for Migrant Workers, and Physicians for Human Rights – Israel said today. Israel has also unlawfully deported dozens more back to Egypt, the three groups said. Israel should stop rejecting asylum seekers at the fence unless its officials determine in a fair procedure that they do not face threats to their lives or freedom or inhuman and degrading treatment because of that rejection.

Ukrainian authorities should initiate a prompt and impartial investigation into the disappearance from Ukraine on October 19, 2012, of a Russian asylum seeker.

Egypt should use its increased security force presence in the Sinai Peninsula to free hundreds of migrants held for ransom and abused by human traffickers and other criminals. Security forces should detain, investigate, and prosecute the traffickers.