Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 7 May 2014

The latest episode of Saudi Arabia’s unrelenting assault on freedom of expression is the Jeddah Criminal Court’s May 7, 2014 conviction of liberal activist Raif Badawi. The court sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment and 1000 lashes for setting up a liberal website and allegedly insulting Islam and religious authorities. Badawi can appeal the verdict, but unfortunately he’ll have to do so without the help of his lawyer, human rights activist Waleed Abu al-Khair, who is currently in prison himself. In Vietnam, in the midst of an escalating crackdown on Internet activists, authorities arrested two bloggers under bogus charges of “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe on the interests of the state” based on articles they published online. During the first three months of 2014, at least six other people have been convicted for the same charge. Staying with Internet freedom, President Putin has signed a new law on bloggers that restricts freedom of expression on the Internet. The law requires bloggers with more than 3,000 daily visitors online, and could include Twitter followers,  to register with Roskomnadzor, the state body for media oversight. As if on cue, the feminist punk band Pussy Riot just joined Twitter, and at this time has 2,400 followers. As individuals, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina have over 10,000 followers each already. Iraq’s army and SWAT forces have yet to enter Fallujah in their battle against an array of Sunni armed groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham (ISIS). But their mortars fired from a military base outside the city and missiles fired from helicopters have caused at least 80 percent of the city’s population to flee. President Francois Hollande of France should raise urgent human rights concerns during his visit to Azerbaijan on May 11, 2014. Hollande is scheduled to meet with President Ilham Aliyev to discuss energy and other issues. Azerbaijan has been imprisoning activists as part of a wider crackdown and today arrested journalists simply for doing their jobs. From this morning: Fresh satellite images of the Central African Republic revealed today provide grim proof of the devastating destruction wreaked on Muslim communities in the country. Human Rights Watch has released images of the capital, Bangui, taken since January 2014. They clearly show that more than 4,000 homes, shops and mosques in Muslim areas have been reduced to burnt out shells, destroyed during waves of systematic violence and arson. Entire neighbourhoods now lie in ruins, and Bangui is almost "entirely cleansed" of Muslims, says Human Rights Watch. Tens of thousands of Muslims have fled the country in fear of their lives - despite the presence of international forces there.