South Sudan Silences Critics: Daily Brief
Plus: Uganda authorities should stand with sexual violence survivors; no reprieve for detained Iranian environmentalists; Turkey silences activists; EU ignores abuses in Eritrea; heightened risk of crackdown in Guinea; EU’s mission on the Mediterranean won’t save lives at sea.
Urgent reforms are required to end arbitrary detentions by South Sudan’s National Security Service which uses its powers to target political opponents and government critics.
Turkey should not use the fight against terrorism to target human rights defenders.
Police in Uganda can take a stand against sexual violence by treating it as a crime and not excusing it based on discriminatory and misinformed attitudes.
Iranian authorities failed to produce any evidence to support their charges against members of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, and yet a court has declined to free the environmentalists.
As Eritreans flee abuses in their country, major development partners like the European Union continue to look the other way.
The European Union has chosen to launch a mission in the Mediterranean Sea to enforce the Libyan arms embargo on the condition that it not focus on saving lives at sea.
And finally, tensions rise in advance of the March 1 referendum in Guinea, the risk of a further crackdown by the security forces increases.