Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 26 September

The Russian government’s insistence that chemical weapons were used by rebel forces now places it on the fringes of a serious debate over what to do next to end the atrocities in that embattled country. Human Rights Watch analyzed witness accounts of the rocket attacks, information on the likely source of the attacks, the physical remnants of the weapon systems used, and the medical symptoms exhibited by the victims as documented by medical staff. We even mapped the trajectory of the Sarin-filled rockets and all the evidence points to the Syrian government as the likely culprit.
A good deal of the “evidence” cited by Russian diplomats is clearly fabricated. It's high time the Moscow recognized that Syrian government forces carried out the chemical weapons attacks of August 21. There is an empty seat in a first-grade classroom in Uzbekistan, where 6-year-old Amirbek Rakhmatov should be sitting. He died on September 15, suffocating under a load of cotton as he slept in a trailer near the cotton fields. Photo Essay: Labor Abuses in the Cotton Fields >> Uzbekistan expects to produce 3.35 million tons of cotton this year, making it the world’s sixth largest producer and second largest exporter. Amirbek’s death should spark the International Labour Organization to ensure no more child laborers are used in the cotton fields. Today’s meeting of ministers from around the globe to end the scourge of violence and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, shows a landmark commitment to LGBT rights. In a testament to the horrors of the conflict in Syria and a reminder that the EU could and should be doing much more to offer safe haven to Syrian refugees, hundreds are arriving on Sicilian shores in vessels of all kinds. Other countries on the EU’s external borders are also seeing increased arrivals. Too often, EU solidarity has meant uniting to fortify the fortress that keeps asylum seekers out.   Congress has barred the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. for trial. But the Senate is set to consider a new proposal to lift those restrictions [LP3]  this fall. Given the monumental importance of these trials to the victims and the country, Senators would be wise to pass this new proposal.