Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 29 April 2016
Hospitals, patients & doctors are #NotATarget; UN police force needed in Burundi; G20 & abuses in China; UK may join Belarus on rights; glimmer of hope for US military rape victims; great news on same-sex marriage in Colombia.
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Next week, the United Nations Security Council will vote on a resolution that reaffirms hospitals, patients and doctors can never be a target in conflicts like the war in Syria. Doctors Without Borders has launched a campaign and a video to support the resolution.
According to the United Nations, 31 people have been killed in Burundi in April. But that is just the tip of the iceberg in a conflict that has been going on for a year. The UN Security Council should act now, and vote to send a strong UN police force to Burundi.
Will leaders of G20 countries apply pressure on President Xi Jinping during their next meeting in Hangzhou, China? They should for a number of reasons, such as a newly adopted law against foreign NGO's, argues HRW's China-director Sophie Richardson.
Will the United Kingdom really withdraw from the European Human Rights Convention, as Home Secretary Theresa May suggested earlier this week? It is a terrible idea that would damage the UK’s credibility and standing on human rights internationally. The only European country outside the ECHR today is Belarus, where opposition is silenced and the death penalty is still in place.
When members of the United States military report a sexual assault, they often experience terrible retaliation from colleagues. A bill introduced into the US Senate could help stem this harmful practice.
And a reason to celebrate in Colombia, where the Constitutional Court ended years of uncertainty for same-sex couples and bolstered the rights of LGBT people when it upheld the validity of same-sex marriage yesterday.