Journalists Abused in Kenya; Ice Cream Shop Bombed in Iraq: HRW Daily Brief

The Intercept reports that a Fortune 500 company bought the services of a security firm known as TigerSwan to undermine protesters of the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock. The report is based on a cache of leaked documents. The United Nations warns that Yemen is headed toward "total collapse" with 17 million people facing severe food shortages amid continuing violence. Nevertheless, President Trump plans to go ahead with a more than $100 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia, leader of the armed coalition pummeling Yemen and its civilian infrastructure. Activists, politicians and journalists in Venezuela, critical of the Maduro government, have faced a vicious crackdown in the country for months. Now it appears President Maduro will go after critics abroad as well. A journalist in Georgia has been forcibly returned to Azerbaijan. Mr. Mukhtarly said people speaking Georgian put a bag over his head and beat him. Were Georgian authorities complicit? HRW is extremely concerned about Mr. Mukhtarly’s safety. From this morning: A new report by Human Rights Watch and ARTICLE 19 EasternAfrica, documents a wide range of abuses faced by Kenyan journalists and bloggers reporting on sensitive issues in the run up to elections slated for August 8. So far, hardly any of the beatings and harassments have been investigated. Concerned about reports of disproportionate use of force by state officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the European Union has adopted new sanctions against 9 DRC officials. The nine join seven others on whom sanctions had been imposed in December last year. A nationwide poll suggests a vast majority of Congolese fear for the country’s future.