Best of Dispatches: Top News Posts This Week

The global human rights community says goodbye to a dear colleague; a new report on the current use of child soldiers offers a mixed bag of results; and the UK rejects Ai Weiwei's visa - but why? - these were among the most popular posts to Dispatches, our daily forum for breaking human rights news and commentary.

Dispatches: Remembering Jemera Rone

Leslie Lefkow
Every time I travel in South Sudan, I think of my former colleague and friend Jemera Rone, who died in Washington, DC yesterday. Jemera worked for Human Rights Watch for more than 20 years and was a true human rights pioneer, as well as a generous mentor and colleague...

Dispatches: A Mixed US Report on Child Soldiers

Jo Becker
Yesterday the United States State Department released a new snapshot of how governments around the world are doing in ending their use of child soldiers. Its 2015 list names eight governments for recruiting or using children in their armed forces, or supporting militias or other armed groups that use child soldiers...

Dispatches: UK Restricts Ai Weiwei's Visa - Ignorance or Politics?

Maya Wang
In a gesture of either craven capitulation to Beijing or inexcusable ignorance, UK immigration officials have denied a six-month business visa to the Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei on the grounds that he failed to declare “a criminal conviction in China.”...

Dispatches: Lebanese Need Justice, Not Executions

It reportedly began as a traffic dispute and ended in a vicious public murder, a man stabbed to death in broad daylight on a busy sidewalk in central Beirut...

Dispatches: Cameron Should Call Out Malaysia's Abuses

Mickey Spiegel
Having just given a speech in Singapore on corruption, British Prime Minister David Cameron is scheduled to meet with his Malaysian counterpart, Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is mired in a corruption scandal...