Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 20 June 2014

Last week Russian state media gave big play to allegations that Ukrainian forces had used white phosphorus as an incendiary weapon in eastern Ukraine. After analyzing the LifeNews video clip, Human Rights Watch arms researchers concluded that it didn’t show a white phosphorous – or an incendiary weapon – attack. What the video actually appears to show is an illuminant or a pyrotechnic. Not content with imprisoning Burundi’s leading human rights activist, Pierre Claver Mbonimpa, the government has prohibited his colleagues from holding a peaceful demonstration to call for his release. From this morning: More than 50 million people all over the world have been forced to flee their homes. On World Refugee Day, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) announced that 51.2 million people worldwide are refugees, asylum-seekers and internally displaced persons, the highest number since World War II.  In Sri Lanka, police have arrested dozens in relation to violence that left four Muslims dead and 80 injured at the weekend. The attacks followed a rally led by the extremist Buddhist Bodhu Bala Sena (BBS) organization, and Human Rights Watch is calling for the investigation to also probe links between extremist Buddhists and the security forces.