Ahead of Safe Abortion Day Beijing Curtails Abortions: Daily Brief
New guidelines in China to curtail abortions; the Taliban’s increasing threats to fundamental rights in Afghanistan need investigating; dissolution of anti-discrimination group in France has chilling effect; crackdown on independent voices continues in Russia; victims of Guinea stadium massacre still await justice; report confirms systemic abuse of teenage female basketball players in Mali; and some good news from Poland.
A day ahead of today’s International Safe Abortion Day, China’s State Council announced new guidelines to reduce “non-medically necessary abortions”. Given Beijing’s history of restricting women’s right to reproductive choice and bodily autonomy through abusive, and sometimes violent, means, this development is a grave cause for concern.
The public display of bullet-ridden bodies of four alleged kidnappers in the western Afghan city of Herat is the latest sign that the Taliban’s public pronouncements to be willing to respect fundamental human rights are meaningless. In another blow to women’s rights under Taliban rule, the group’s new chancellor for Kabul University announced that women would be indefinitely banned from the institution either as instructors or students.
Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s statement to resume the Afghanistan investigation is a critical step for justice in the face of these abuses. But by ‘deprioritizing’ investigating US and former Afghan National Security Forces he is shamefully handing them a ‘get out of jail free card.’
A French court has approved the French authorities’ December 2020 dissolution of the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), a leading anti-discrimination group. The dissolution is part of a broader crackdown by French authorities in response to attacks attributed to Islamist extremists. The ruling is likely to have a chilling effect on freedom of expression and association of those working on non-discrimination in France and elsewhere in Europe.
Russian authorities have imposed draconian bureaucratic penalties against three local human rights defenders and their organizations. Two of the groups have strong records of success in winning cases against Russia at the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of victims of torture and other grave human rights violations. The moves come amid a broader effort to eliminate critics of Russia’s authorities.
Today marks 12 years since the massacre of more than 150 people and the rape of dozens of women in a Guinea stadium on September 28, 2009. To this day, victims and their families still await justice. The recent coup in Guinea has further complicated prospects for a trial. Along with Amnesty International, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), and three local partner organizations, Human Rights Watch is calling for the trial to begin as soon as possible.
An International Basketball Federation’s (FIBA) report has confirmed that teenage female basketball players in Mali have been sexually harassed and abused for years. The report’s conclusion that child safeguarding and reporting mechanisms within the Mali Basketball Federation are ‘wholly insufficient’ should make it clear that FIBA and Mali’s government urgently need to put in place meaningful child protection policies and protections for players giving evidence.
And some good news from Poland, where four out of five regions have now revoked “LGBT-free zone” declarations over the threat of losing funds from the European Union.