Afghan Women Take to the Streets: Daily Brief

Afghan women take to the streets calling for their rights; sick deprived of medical care in Egypt’s prisons; US Supreme Court refuses to block Texan law that bans abortions; hospitals in US should cease harmful surgeries on intersex children; prisoners in Australia’s state of New South Wales denied access to Covid-19 vaccines; pro-democracy figures jailed in Hong Kong, and looted funds returned in Equatorial Guinea.

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As the Taliban are about to form their new government in Afghanistan and have already said that women will not be included in senior government positions, Afghan women in Herat have taken to the streets calling for women’s right to freedom, study and work.

The Egyptian government has deliberately let 69-year-old Abd al-Moniem Abu al-Fotouh, a former presidential candidate and widely respected political figure, languish behind bars without proper medical care.

The US Supreme Court has refused to block a new law in Texas that bans abortions for most women. The law is the strictest law against abortion rights in the United States since the high court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.  

Intersex advocacy groups in the US, as well as a range of medical and human rights organizations, are demanding to cease medically unnecessary surgeries on children born with intersex traits.

Covid-19 vaccination rates for prisoners in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) are much lower than those for the general population even though prisoners are at a far greater risk of contracting the virus.

A Hong Kong court has sentenced seven pro-democracy figures to between 11 and 16 months in prison for taking part in pro-democracy protests in October, 2019.

And lastly: The sale of assets seized by the United States Department of Justice in 2011 from Teodorin Nguema Obiang Mangue, the eldest son of Equatorial Guinea’s president, as part of an international investigation into corruption and the looting of public funds is to pay for 1.2 million Covid-19 vaccine doses for Equatoguineans.

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