Saudi Women Activists Arrested: Daily Brief
Women activists arrested in Saudi crackdown; killings & abuse in Burkina Faso; Maduro wins Venezuela elections amid vote-rigging claims; apology - but no justice - for 30 children killed in Afghan government helicopter attack; "repugnant" campaign against Uighur Muslims in China; homeless people being fined in UK; Thai dissident released from military detention after outcry; plight of Palestinians stuck in Syria's Yarmouk refugee camp; & rights in Russia ahead of football World Cup...
Several well-known women's rights activists have been arrested in Saudi Arabia, accused by authorities of undermining national security and branded as "traitors" in pro-government newspapers. The state-led crackdown against activists, which includes women who first led protests against the Kingdom's ban on women driving decades ago, comes just weeks before Saudi is set to lift its ban on women driving. Saudi's Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has cast himself as a reformer but human rights groups say these latest arrests shows those promises to be falling flat.
Armed Islamist groups in Burkina Faso have executed suspected government collaborators, intimidated teachers, and spread fear among civilians throughout the country, HRW said in a new report today.
Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro has won re-election to another six-year term, in a vote marred by an opposition boycott and claims of vote-rigging. Amid food shortages stemming from a severe economic crisis, turnout was low.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has apologized to the families of civilians killed and injured in an April 2018 attack in Kunduz province, when Afghan air force helicopters fired heavy machineguns and launched unguided rockets at an outdoor religious ceremony. Thirty of the 36 people killed were children, some under age 10 – in an attack the government claimed was targeting senior Taliban leaders. While the apology is welcome, there was no mention of a possible war crime having been committed.
China is undertaking a "repugnant campaign to destroy the identity of a minority people", the Uighur Muslims of Xinjiang province in the far northwest of the country, according to this hard-hitting article.
Growing numbers of vulnerable homeless people in the UK are being fined, given criminal convictions and even imprisoned for begging and rough sleeping, an investigation has found.
A dissident in Thailand has been released from military detention after reportedly being detained for providing loud speakers at an anti-junta rally. This week marks four years since the military junta seized power in a coup.
The battle between ISIS and the Syrian regime continues in the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, outside Damascus, with some residents still trapped in the fighting, unwilling or unable to leave their homes.
And finally, with the football World Cup kicking off in less than a month, Russia experts go behind the spin and the sport to analyse the host nation’s social and political landscape.