Muzzling Free Speech in Israel: Daily Brief
Democracy at stake & Palestinian homes bulldozed in Israel; newly elected UK Conservative Party leader Boris Johnson set on delivering Brexit; ripping more families apart in the US; Syria’s president might still have his Nuremberg moment; Indian transgender bill raises rights concerns; LGBT rights activist murdered in Russia; deadly crackdown on Shia protesters in Nigeria; and European Union countries agree on new migrant allocation system.
Israel’s efforts to deport Human Rights Watch country director Omar Shakir is an attempt to muzzle free speech and criticism, says Shakir in Forward.
Meanwhile, Israel has started to bulldoze dozens of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem.
Newly elected UK Conservative Party leader Boris Johnson says it is time to deliver Brexit. But will he honor the rights and protections derived from EU law after the UK leaves?
The Trump administration pushes on with its crackdown on migrants, making people living in US communities subject to an opaque deportation process that bypasses immigration courts. Expanding already existing fast-track procedure to apply anywhere in the US will rip thousands more families apart.
A veteran Canadian war-crimes investigator and his team are building a case for Syrian war-crimes based on thousands of smuggled documents.
While India’s Transgender Persons Bill should be a remarkable achievement for a long-persecuted community, the present draft raises concerns that transgender people will be required to have certain surgeries before legally changing gender.
A prominent LGBT rights campaigner has been found brutally murdered in the Russian city of St Petersburg. Harassment and violence against LGBT people in Russia has intensified ever since Russian authorities passed a “gay propaganda law” six years ago.
Six people have been reported dead in the Nigerian capital of Abuja following a government crackdown on supporters of the lslamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN). The group that represents Nigeria's minority Shia Muslims was protesting the detention of Islamic scholar and IMM founder el-Zakzaky.
And some potentially good news: Fourteen member countries of the European Union have agreed to a new “solidarity mechanism” to allocate migrants across the bloc.