Deadly Airstrike in Libya Should Be Wake-up Call for EU: Daily Brief
Yesterday's devastating airstrike on a migrant detention center in Libya, in which dozens of people were killed and scores injured, should be a wake-up call for the European Union.
Staying with migration and refugee issues in Europe... A recent visit to Lesbos by HRW's Eva Cossé brought home that life for asylum seekers and migrants trapped on Aegean Islands is now getting worse not better. Whoever wins Greece's elections should make tackling the issue a renewed priority.
In Nineveh, Iraq, extremely overcrowded detention facilities are holding thousands of prisoners, most on terrorism charges, for extended periods in conditions so degrading that they amount to ill-treatment. Human Rights Watch has previously documented deaths in custody in Nineveh stemming from severe overcrowding.
Since the Easter Sunday bombings in April 2019 that killed over 250 people, which was claimed by Islamist militants, Sri Lankan Muslims have faced an upsurge in violations of their basic rights and assaults and other abuses from Buddhist nationalists.
Guinea’s president should not put into effect a new law that gives gendarmes too much discretion to use firearms and could shield them from prosecution in case of unlawful killings, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said today. Guinea’s security forces have a record of using excessive force in responding to often violent street protests
The United Kingdom Home Office, the country’s interior ministry, came under heavy criticism from the Nigerian anti-trafficking agency and UK politicians, human rights lawyers, and non-governmental groups for claiming Nigerian women and girls trafficked to Europe can return home “wealthy from prostitution” and “enjoy high social-economic status.” The fact is, they suffer horrible abuses at the hands of their traffickers - raped, beaten, threatened with death, held in debt bondage, and not allowed to communicate with families - and the abuse does not end after returning home.
The governments, worker representatives and employer organisations which make up the International Labour Organization have voted for a new treaty tackling the scourge of violence and harassment at work.
And some more good news... Last week, Tanzania’s Parliament passed an amendment to its troubling Statistics Act, which removes a threat of prison for civil society groups that publish independent statistical information.