Ultranationalists attack Roma in Ukraine; government undermining rule of law in Poland; holding those using chemical weapons in Syria and elsewhere to account; fleeing violence in Central America, traumatized in the US; arrested for being poor in the Philippines; Zimbabwe elections under threat; fighting stigma in Malawi and torture in Uganda.

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An ultranationalist attack on a Roma settlement in western Ukraine, which killed one person and injured several others, was the sixth such attack in the past two months. Radical groups have been emboldened by the fact that so far nobody has been held accountable for these attacks. 

The European Commission will be discussing the state of the rule of law in Poland today. Since the “Law and Justice Party” came to power in 2015, the government has been carrying out a sustained assault on the independence of the judiciary. Meanwhile, people in Poland have taken to the streets to fight for their rights.

When a chemical weapons attack was launched on a building in Douma, a neighborhood near Damascus, Syria, last April, killing at least 34 people, the Syrian government denied the bombing took place. Now, a New York Times investigation not only proves that it happened, but that president Bashar al-Assad gassed his own people.

Meanwhile, at an emergency meeting of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague today, the UK is pushing for a vote that would give the body wider powers to identify those guilty of using chemical weapons in Syria and anywhere else.

Boys coerced to join gangs, girls facing rape by gang members, parents extorted and killed: these are some of the reasons why families flee Central America to the US. Fleeing this kind of violence, they should have the chance to seek protection without being criminalized or having further trauma inflicted on their children.

Philippine police have arrested more than 8000 poor people in the last two weeks simply for congregating in the streets. Many have been detained in detention facilities that are already dangerously overcrowded.

Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Nelson Chamisa fears that next month’s elections could turn violent after an explosion at a ruling Zanu-PF party rally narrowly failed to kill President Emmerson Mnangagwa on the weekend.

With 22 recorded murders in the past four years, and dozens reported missing, Malawi is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for people living with albinism. Now a local association of people with albinism has announced it will put forward six candidates for next year’s presidential and parliamentary elections, in an unprecedented move to combat stigma.

Uganda’s new police leadership has expressed a willingness to address police torture and mistreatment of suspects.  On June 26, the UN International Day in Support of Victims of TortureHuman Rights Watch offers five concrete actions the country’s senior police leadership should take.

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