Bahrain’s Sunni ruling family and their allies in Washington and London say they are pinning their hopes on a new “national dialogue” to break the bitter stalemate with the country’s political opposition among the majority Shia population. But a just settlement will remain elusive unless the government delivers on two outstanding reforms: accountability at the highest levels of the country’s security forces for their abusive response to the 2011 uprisings, and freedom for the country’s unjustly imprisoned opposition and human rights leaders.

The government-proposed draft law in Egypt concerning public demonstrations would severely limit the right to peaceful public assembly and is open to abuse by police, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to the president and the Justice Ministry.

Saudi authorities should immediately release and drop all charges against Sulaiman al-Rashoodi, a 76-year-old former judge and president of the Saudi Association of Civil and Political Rights (ACPRA). He is one of 16 people detained in 2007 and convicted in 2011 for peacefully trying to establish a human rights organization in Jeddah. Four others also have been sentenced to long prison terms.

Qatar has not delivered on its pledges to improve migrant workers’ rights, Human Rights Watch said today at a news conference in Doha about its World Report 2013. More than two years after it won the right to host the 2022 World Cup, It is high time for Qatar to deliver on its promises for reforms to prevent the trafficking and forced labor of migrant workers, Human Rights Watch said. The Qatar Supreme Committee for Qatar 2022 – the tournament’s quasi-governmental delivery committee – has made encouraging pledges on workers’ rights, but these lack detail. Nor do they mask the failure of the Qatari authorities either to reform exploitative laws, such as the kafala system of sponsorship-based employment and the prohibition on trade unions, or to enforce the prohibition on illegal recruitment fees and the confiscation of passports.