Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 15 November

In Libya, violence erupted in Tripoli in the deadliest day in the capital since the 2011 revolution. HRW's Hanan Salah is on the ground covering the chaotic scene at the Bou Sleem trauma hospital.  The Chinese government has finally responded to years of international and domestic criticism by announcing it will abolish Re-education Through Labor. The Chinese Communist Party Central Committee also loosened the one-child policy. While a step forward, the revised policy will still wrongly limit reproductive rights, and lead to abuses. Police have long used Re-education Through Labor as an expedient tool for suppressing dissent and incarcerating government critics, petitioners, whistle-blowers, rights activists, and members of underground Christian churches or banned religious sects. The release of 69 political prisoners in Burma today is cause for optimism that the drawn-out persecution of peaceful activists, which reached its apex just a few years ago when up to 2,000 people were locked up, is drawing to a close. Now the government needs to take its reform efforts to another level. From this morning: