Tweets on Trial in Israel: Daily Brief

Human Rights Watch is appealing attempts by Israel to revoke the work permit of, and expel, our Israel and Palestine director Omar Shakir. The state’s case appears to rest mainly on tweets by Shakir espousing a well-known position taken by Human Rights Watch, that businesses should halt their activities in illegal West Bank settlements because not doing so makes them complicit in violating the rights of Palestinians.    

A commercial oil tanker rescued 23 migrants off the western coast of Libya earlier this week, after they’d been drifting at sea for several days. But the migrants’ relief would have been short-lived, because after their rescue they were promptly returned to Libya, where migrants face torture and inhumane conditions in detention.

Many children with disabilities in Kazakhstan remain “on the margins of the education system, and of society as a whole”, a new Human Rights Watch report today has found. Most of these children are not getting a good quality and inclusive education, research shows.

Armed police in Mozambique broke up a children’s march and tried to block a march to celebrate International Women’s Day. Stopping women and kids from demonstrating shows just how repressive Mozambican authorities have become.

Safe access to legal abortion is crucial to reducing maternal mortality in Kenya. Unsafe abortions are the leading cause of preventable death and harm for Kenyan women and girls.

China, which as a UN member is undergoing its 5-yearly review of its internal human rights record, has rejected dozens of recommendations from other governments as to how it can reform.

And finally, a veteran human rights defender from Chechnya is facing the very real prospect of spending the next four years in jail.