ISIS’s Missing Captives: Daily Brief

Thousands of ISIS captives still missing; Lebanon protests escalate; UK proceeds with Jamaica deportations despite concerns; no justice for stabbed gay man in Russia; muzzling the media in the Philippines; culture of suppression blamed for China's coronavirus crisis; police torture in Nigeria; shocking inequality in South Africa; and celebrating courageous people at London Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

Get the Daily Brief by email.

Thousands of activists, aid workers, journalists and people living under ISIS control have disappeared after having been kidnapped by the Islamic State (ISIS) while the group controlled parts of Syria. Almost a year after ISIS’s defeat authorities have yet to uncover information about what happened to them.

Security forces in Lebanon’s capital Beirut have used tear gas and water cannon to disperse groups of protesters who had gathered near parliament to try and stop a confidence vote on the new government. Lebanon has been gripped by anti-government protests since October. Angered by corruption and the country’s dire economic situation, demonstrators are calling for sweeping reforms.

The UK went ahead with the deportation of what the government claims are "foreign national" offenders to Jamaica today amid concerns that some deportees may have arrived in the UK as children and were being deported for one-time drug offences. After a court last night upheld a legal challenge, only around half of those due to be deported were flown to Jamaica.

The acquittal by a Moscow jury of a man who fatally stabbed a gay man in the stomach demonstrates yet again that LGBT people in Russia still struggle to enjoy the same fundamental protection as everyone else

The Philippines government is seeking to nullify the franchise of the country’s largest broadcast network, ABS-CBN, which has long faced President Rodrigo Duterte’s ire for criticizing his “war on drugs”. The Duterte administration’s apparent efforts to intimidate and control ABS-CBN mimic its actions against the news website Rappler.

A prominent Chinese intellectual, Xu Zhangrun, has publicly blamed China’s President Xi Jinping for the coronavirus crisis, blaming Xi and the culture of suppression and “systemic impotence” that he has created for the epidemic. Meanwhile a citizen journalist who had been reporting from the centre of the coronavirus outbreak has gone missing.

BBC Africa Eye has uncovered shocking video evidence that torture is being used by multiple branches of the Nigerian police and armed forces.

Twenty-five years after the end of apartheid rule, South Africa remains one of the most unequal countries in the world, new data from the International Monetary Fund reveals.

And lastly: Tickets for the London Human Rights Watch Film Festival (HRWFF) have gone on sale. The festival, which runs from March 12 to 20, features empowering documentaries and dramas celebrating courageous people from 14 countries.

Region / Country