Window For Change Closes in Thailand: Daily Brief

Thai authorities prosecute peaceful critics; victory against child marriage in Tanzania; inside Bosnia’s nightmare camp for migrants; illegal deportations of Syrian refugees by Turkey; call for action against domestic violence in Armenia; Sakharov Prize for China's unjustly jailed Ilham Tohti; crackdown on protestant faith in Algeria; and when will world football federation FIFA ever do the right thing regarding human rights?

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Authorities in Thailand have criminalized peaceful expression and prosecuted numerous peaceful critics of the government since the May 2014 military coup. This "only makes a mockery of claims that democratic rule has been restored,” says Linda Lakhdhir, Asia legal advisor at Human Rights Watch and author of a new report on the topic, published today.

There's very good news from Tanzania, in the fight against child marriage.

A new, disturbing BBC video shows the dire humanitarian situation for people trapped in a camp for migrants and refugees in Bosnia. HRW has visited the camp and has called for its immediate closure.

New reports from HRW and Amnesty International document how Turkey has unlawfully detained and deported dozens of Syrians and possibly many more to northern Syria in the past months. 

A human rights expert body has hopefully put to rest harmful myths circulating in Armenia about a European treaty on combating violence against women.

The unjustly jailed economist Ilham Tohti has been awarded the 2019 Sakharov Prize from the European Parliament for his committed work fighting China's repression in Xinjiang against the Muslim ethnic Uighur minority. 

The recent closure of three Protestant churches and a police assault on worshipers at one church in Algeria are the latest examples of the repression of this tiny religious minority in the country.

And another public relations disaster is in the making for world football federation FIFA.