Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 1 April 2016

As the European Union and member state Greece are planning to send the first groups of refugees back to Turkey on Monday, a new report by Amnesty International exposes fatal flaws in the deal that was struck last month by the EU and Turkey. Under president Erdogan press freedom in Turkey has been under constant attack. Not just inside the country, but now also cross the borders. On Thursday, Erdogan's bodyguards roughed up reporters outside a building in Washington DC where their boss was giving a speech. Meanwhile in Turkey, the flawed trial against two prominent reporters continues. Authorities in Yemen should drop all charges against Hamed Kamal Muhammad bin Haydara, a member of the Baha’i faith. Prosecutors are expected to seek the death penalty in a court hearing on Sunday, apparently because of his religious views. Why did US president Barack Obama and John Kerry, his minister of Foreign Affairs, grant Azerbaijan's autocratic leader Ilham Aliyev photo opportunities during the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington DC? And did they ask the questions that Khadija Ismayilova, an imprisoned investigative journalist in Azerbaijan, suggested in this Washington Post op-ed? HRW also weighed in before Obama and Kerry met Aliyev. US leaders aren't the only ones cozying up to autocratic rulers. Here's Jean Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, next to Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev, in power since 1989: