A Swiss Red Cross worker has been killed by shelling in Donetsk, Ukraine. Both Russia-backed rebels and Ukrainian government forces have blamed each other for the attack.
In Burma, a draft government "Rakhine State Action Plan" is "nothing less than a blueprint for permanent segregation and statelessness" that would entrench discriminatory policies that deprive Rohingya Muslims of citizenship and lead to the forced resettlement of over 130,000 displaced Rohingya into closed camps. Pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong will hold talks with the government, though the city's Chief Executive, CY Leung, has rejected their calls to step down. The streets have been tense today, though the overall number of protesters seems to have decreased.Lebanese municipalities have increasingly imposed curfews on Syrian refugees, restricting their movements and contributing to a climate of discriminatory and retaliatory practices against them.
Today is the anniversary of a shipwreck the killed hundreds of EU-bound migrants. Thousands have died in the Mediterranean Sea in the year since that tragedy. Bahrain authorities have arrested a prominent rights activist after he criticized the government. Nabeel Rajab faces charges that he “offended national institutions” in tweets. Following a Conservative Party pledge to scrap the UK Human Rights Act, activists, rights experts and some media are responding vociferously to the threat. As crises elsewhere grab world attention, the Central African Republic is falling off the radar. It shouldn't... Thousands of people are in prison in Uzbekistan following flawed prosecutions on political or religious grounds, locked away on fabricated charges or ill-defined legal claims of “anti-constitutional activity” or “religious extremism.” Is the outside world paying any attention to their plight?
