Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 5 December 2014

Judges at the International Criminal Court today announced that they will drop all charges against Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta, indicted in 2012 for crimes against humanity. The Court cited the prosecution’s lack of evidence connecting the president to 2007-2008 post-election violence that included murder, displacement and rape. This decision unfortunately sets back international efforts to end Kenya’s long tradition of impunity. Protests continued today in New York City over this week’s grand jury decision not to indict a police officer in the July choking death of Eric Garner. More than 200 protesters have been arrested. Both President Obama and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed that, to help halt police brutality, police officers wear body cameras. But with Garner’s death already captured on video, will this response go far enough? With lawlessness, violence and conflict raging in Libya, governments shouldn’t force people fleeing Libya to return to their country – a move that could put them at risk of serious harm.
The Indonesian government has long sent the wrong message on women’s rights by tolerating abusive and degrading policies such as the controversial “virginity testing” for women who want to work as police officers. The new government has an opportunity to set a strong example by coming out forcefully against these policies and in support of women’s rights.
Catch up on this week’s popular posts to Twitter and the five most read Human Rights Watch Dispatches with our weekly round-ups. ' From this morning: The grand jury decision in the Eric Garner case in New York City – the second in just over two weeks in which a grand jury in the US decided not to indict a white police officer in the killing of an unarmed African American – has brought people out on the streets for a second night. The Garner case has raised important questions about one of the few concrete solutions that US officials (President Barack Obama and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, among them) have proposed for dealing with police brutality: the increased use of body cameras.