D-Day for Kremlin Critic Navalny: Daily Brief
Russian court to decide fate of opposition leader Alexei Navalny today; US threatens to reinstate sanctions against Myanmar; crackdown on journalists in India; equitable Covid-19 vaccine distribution plan needed for Syria; activists have the right to call for peaceful boycotts of Israel; UN member countries blast Rwanda’s abysmal human rights record; and opposition to “killer robots” strong, survey shows.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny faces a court hearing today that could end with him being sent to prison for years. His alleged crime: Not to have reported to his parole officer while recovering from a bungled attempt to fatally poison him. The ruling is bound to fuel more protests in Russia.
US President Joe Biden has threatened to reinstate sanctions on Myanmar after the country's military seized power on Monday, and detained de-facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other elected officials. Sanctions had only recently been eased, after the country began emerging from a decades-long military dictatorship.
Journalist associations and opposition political parties in India have widely condemned the crackdown on a number of journalists who reported on protests by Indian farmers against a new farm bill as politically motivated and baseless.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF should use their ongoing dialogue with the Syrian government to push for an equitable distribution plan of Covid-19 vaccines both within government-held Syria and in areas where other groups maintain effective control.
US president Joe Biden should defend free speech rights, which include the right to call for peaceful boycotts of Israel by activists critical of its West Bank settlements.
United Nations member countries have called on Rwanda to end torture and ill-treatment, and investigate cases of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, and deaths in custody.
And lastly: More than three in five people responding to a new online survey in 28 countries oppose using weapons systems, commonly called “killer robots”. The survey was commissioned by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, a rapidly growing coalition of 172 nongovernmental organizations in 65 countries that is working to ban fully autonomous weapons.