Saudi Arabia's "Unrestrained Despotism": Daily Brief
Saudi seeks death penalty for peaceful activists; women to be caned for same-sex relations in Malaysia; report says Facebook usage helped to "fuel anti-refugee violence" in Germany; no justice for Syria's chemical weapons victims; rejected asylum seekers denied food in Hungary; Libya sentences 45 people to death in mass trial; Cambodia should release jailed opposition leader immediately; & journalist who reported on Xinjiang abuses forced to leave China...
Saudi Arabia is seeking the death penalty against five activists, including the female human rights activist Israa al-Ghomgham, HRW has confirmed. The activists, along with one other person not facing execution, are being tried in the country’s terrorism tribunal on charges solely related to their peaceful activism.
Two Malaysian women are each set to receive six strokes of the cane and be ordered to pay a US$800 fine for same-sex relations. They were convicted under a Shariah law that criminalizes sex between women.
Facebook use allegedly "fuelled anti-refugee attacks" in Germany, a landmark new study has found. Researchers from the University of Warwick found that towns where Facebook use was higher than average "reliably experienced more attacks on refugees".
It is now five years since scores of Syrians were killed in a chemical weapons attack in eastern Ghouta, but not a single person has yet been brought to justice.
The government in Hungary has "stooped to a new inhumane low" by refusing food to rejected asylum seekers who are being held on the Hungarian-Serbian border.
Libya's judiciary has convicted 99 defendants in a mass trial, sentencing 45 people to death and another 54 to five years in prison. The judiciary has a record of conducting unfair trials.
Cambodian authorities should drop all charges and immediately release the opposition leader Kem Sokha, who has been jailed for 11 months now on "preposterous treason charges".
And finally, a journalist for Buzzfeed News who spent six years reporting from China - including on sensitive issues such as Xinjiang province and surveillance technology - has had to leave the country after her visa was not renewed by authorities.