Fleeing ISIS; Blogging in Vietnam; Snatched by China: HRW Daily Brief

Civilians fleeing ISIS-held areas in Iraq face torture, disappearance and death in revenge attacks, a report released by Amnesty International today found. The report raises alarm about the risk of mass violations as the military operation to recapture the ISIS-held city of Mosul gets underway. While the battle to retake the city is only a couple of days old chilling stories of civilian suffering are already emerging. Vietnam has used its vaguely defined penal code not only to silence outspoken critics but to imprison people suspected of preparing to criticize the government. The country’s National Assembly is now considering revisions to the code, which has created many political prisoners. Its latest victim: prominent blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, known as “Mother Mushroom”, who was arrested in October for “conducting propaganda against the state”. A year ago the first of five Hong Kong booksellers, all linked to the same bookstore known for publishing books on China’s political intrigue, disappeared under mysterious circumstances and later resurfaced in China. One of the five, Gui Minhai, a Swedish national, remains in custody to this day. Gui had gone missing from Pattaya, Thailand, on October 17 last year, and later appeared on Chinese state TV “confessing” to drunk-driving charges. The Australian government runs an "open-air prison" on the island of Nauru to keep refiugees and asylum seekers away from its shores, a new Amnesty International report found. The consequences for children in particular are dire, Amnesty and Human Rights Watch warned in an earlier report this year. Four days after he was kidnapped from his home in Turkmenistan and beaten by unknown men, Altymurad Annamuradov, the brother of an exiled dissident journalist from Turkmenistan, died. His death, Human Rights Watch said today, smacks of targeted retaliation against a political dissident. The Constitutional Court in Democratic Republic of Congo has approved a petition by the electoral commission to delay presidential elections initially set for November, allowing President Joseph Kabila to remain in office beyond his second-term, which ends on December 19. The ruling could bring the country closer to the precipice. Climate change is “a major and growing threat to global food security”, as food production could become impossible in large areas of the world, a new UN report warns. In previous reports, Human Rights Watch had documented how climate change disproportionately affects already vulnerable people, especially in countries with limited resources and fragile ecosystems. In week 4 of our #FreeThem campaign, we ask the authorities in Uzbekistan to release Muhammad Bekjanov, a journalist unjustly jailed since 1999. Bekjanov is one of the world’s longest-imprisoned reporters.