UN Aid Flight Carrying Reporters To Yemen Is Blocked: HRW Daily Brief

A UN flight carrying aid workers to Yemen's capital Sanaa was grounded because three international journalists were on board the aircraft, the UN has confirmed. A Saudi-led coalition, which controls the airspace over Yemen and has been embroiled in a two-year war in the country, blocked the flight from taking off from Djibouti by claiming it "could not guarantee the security" of journalists in rebel-held areas of the country. But others say the flight grounding was part of a wider plan by the Saudis to prevent media coverage of the war. Amnesty International has urged the British government to end its silence over Turkey’s slide into authoritarian rule after the group's local director and five other activists were remanded in custody on accusations of belonging to a terrorist organisation. Chechnya's strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov has long been making vile and despicable statements, and his latest outbursts on gay rights are, sadly, nothing out of the ordinary. There is welcome news from Angola, where the Constitutional Court has ruled that a presidential decree that would impose severe restrictions on civil society groups violates the country's constitution. An initiative from Azerbaijan’s government to grant free flats to journalists has sparked fierce debate. Some journalists hail it as a form of wealth redistribution, while others see it as yet another attempt to smother media freedom in the country. Childhood should be a time of innocence, play, and learning. But 15-year-old Subekti has spent the past six years shackled to the floor of his family’s house in Indonesia because his parents believe he has a spiritual problem. Shackling of people with suspected mental health problems is a massive problem worldwide. A controversial bill to toughen France's security laws cleared its first hurdle this week when the country's Senate approved the legislation by a majority. The new laws in the bill will replace the state of emergency - imposed after the November 2015 terror attacks that left 130 people dead - under which authorities can place people under house arrest, order house searches, and ban public gatherings. WhatsApp, the popular messaging app widely used across the globe, has been partly blocked by Chinese filters, leaving many in the country unable to send videos and photos and some also unable to send text-based messages.