Help Crime-Fighting Heroes: Daily Brief

Help for crime-fighting heroes; will US try to send Yemenis back to a war zone?; European politicians playing the fear card; Uganda's new tax on free speech; digging up the evidence - read, bodies - of ISIS war crimes in Syria; proof that dedicated governments can make schools in war zones safer; and what to get the International Criminal Court for its 20th birthday... 

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Undocumented immigrants in the US who are brave enough to come forward to report crime, need to know they can safely approach police without fear of deportation, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Congress should preserve and expand provisions in the Violence Against Women Act - in particular, the "U visa" - that allow courageous undocumented immigrants to safely report crime.

Staying with the US, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is expected to announce a decision on July 5 regarding the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) given to Yemenis living in the US. Hopefully, they will renew it. Anyone forcibly returned to Yemen faces serious risks to their personal safety from the ongoing armed conflict and laws of war violations by the warring parties.

Europe's migrant numbers are way down, but political fear-mongering is rising - with disastrous policy results. At a migration summit last week, EU leaders agreed on little except to further empower Libyan coast guard forces to intercept boats in international waters and tell NGO rescue boats not to intervene. Never mind that everyone taken back to Libya is locked up in horrific prisons where they face filthy conditions and risk torture, sexual violence, forced labor, and extortion

The Ugandan government has begun to implement a troubling new set of tax rules requiring social media users – including of popular apps like WhatsApp, Twitter, and Facebook - to pay a daily fee of 200 Ugandan Shilling (US$0.05). The government claims the taxes will raise revenue for the benefit of everyone in the country, but the new fees actually appear to be just another way for authorities to stifle free speech.

A local group working to uncover mass graves in the area of northeastern Syria once controlled by the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) needs international support and technical assistance to preserve evidence of possible crimes and identify the remains.

Some good news: incidents of armed groups – be they government forces or rebel groups – using schools for military purposes are down 14 percent from the previous year, with 188 schools affected.

As the International Criminal Court marks its 20th anniversary, many are calling on the European Union to appoint a Special Representative for International Humanitarian law and International Justice.

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