Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 9 February 2016
Abuses under the state of emergency law in France; Uganda prepares for the polls; Syrian airstrike hits hospital; UN accuses Syrian government of "extermination"; Europe's panicked response to refugees; flawed counterterror law in Indonesia; facing 5 years for protest in Burma; journalist on trial in Morocco; incarceration anniversary in Malaysia, and volleyball in Iran.
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In France, the Senate voted to extend the country's state of emergency law, set in place following the Islamic State's November 2015 attacks in Paris. France has carried out abusive and discriminatory raids and house arrests against Muslims under the sweeping law, originally used during the Algerian war of independence in the 1950's.
Uganda's presidential elections are set to take place on February 18, but increased threats of violence against those who might protest the outcome have many concerned.
For his work monitoring local corruption and forced labor in Uzbekistan, Uktam Pardaev, a noted rights defender, has been repeatedly harassed and abused, and is facing possible prison time if he breaks the unlawful restrictions put on his movement by Uzbek authorities.
A Doctors Without Borders-supported hospital in Syria was hit by an airstrike, the 13th time a health facility has come under fire this year already. Indiscriminate bombing in Syria remains one of the most serious threats to civilians trapped by the conflict.
From earlier today: A new United Nations report says the Syrian government was conducting “inhuman actions” against civilians on a scale that “amounts to extermination.” Tens of thousands of newly displaced people have been fleeing the assault on the northern city of Aleppo, but are still being blocked by Turkey at the border. The Syrian-Russian joint military operation in Syria has included indiscriminate attacks on civilians using internationally banned cluster munitions.
In response, EU leaders seem to come up with one bad idea after another to address the refugee flow...