Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 3 February 2016

A prominent banker's death remains a mystery in China. Yang Zezhu had been under investigation for corruption, before he fell to his death in January. Even more mysterious, though, is the scope of that investigation. Azerbaijan marks a grim milestone this week. llgar Mammadov, a prominent political analyst, was arrested on February 4, 2013 and has been in jail ever since. He is one of many victims of Azerbaijan's vicious crackdown on civil society. Peace talks in Syria have halted as the forces of President Assad advance. This delays yet again a possible end to the war, keeping hundreds of thousands of civilians in harms way and even more fleeing the country to safety. The massive flow of refugees to Europe over the last year has been handled by most countries with chaos and mismanagement. That chaos is a big part of the crisis itself. The good news is that if the EU simply implemented its common asylum policy and distributed responsibility fairly among its members, the situation could become a win-win for all involved. Human rights activists in Turkey are looking to Germany for help, as the Turkish government continues a crackdown on rights. From earlier today: Norway should stop fast-tracking the return of asylum seekers to Russia based on the presumption that it's a safe country for them, Human Rights Watch said today. Late last year more than 5,500 migrants and asylum seekers crossed the Arctic border between Russia and Norway by bicycle, yet several have been returned to Russia and scores more may be removed in the coming days.