Women's Tennis Association Stands Up to China: Daily Brief

The Womens Tennis Association has announced that it will pull all tournaments from China and Hong Kong after weeks of increasing concern and calls for information on the whereabouts of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai. Peng Shuai had stated on social media that she had been sexually assaulted and forced into a sexual relationship with Zhang Gaoli, one of the Chinese Communist Party’s former top officials and leader of a State Council working group overseeing Beijing 2022 Olympic preparations. The International Olympic Committee should immediately stop supporting China’s strategy of suppression and start prioritizing protecting athletes and upholding its human rights obligations.

The Saudi government is using the inaugural Formula One Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and associated concerts and events between December 3 and 5, 2021, to deflect attention from its pervasive human rights abuses. To live up to its human rights commitments and avoid contributing to laundering the Saudi government’s reputation, the Formula One Group and participating artists should urge Saudi authorities to free unjustly detained Saudi dissidents and human rights activists or refuse to participate in Formula 1 events.

Governments should agree to open negotiations on a new treaty to retain meaningful human control over the use of force. Countries will be meeting at the United Nations in Geneva this month to decide whether to begin negotiations to adopt new international law on lethal autonomous weapons systems, also known as “killer robots.” Human Rights Watch and the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic released the new report “Crunch Time on Killer Robots: Why New Law Is Needed and How It Can Be Achieved,” calling for stronger and clearer international law to protect humanity from the dangers posed by weapons systems that select and engage targets without meaningful human control.

New research by Human Rights Watch shows Myanmar security forces deliberately “kettled” protesters and used lethal force during the March 14, 2021, anti-junta protests in Yangon’s Hlaing Tharyar township. Soldiers and police armed with military assault rifles fired on trapped protesters and on those trying to assist the wounded, killing at least 65 protesters and bystanders.

Instead of receiving community-based services for their mental health needs, many people in Canada face law enforcement and other approaches that are not always suitable, like “wellness checks” by the police. According to data issued by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the police respond to 2.8 million mental health-related calls on average each year.

Governments in the Sahel region should adopt measures to better protect civilians, ensure that counterterrorism operations respect rights, and fully investigate abuses by all sides. During 2021, armed Islamist groups have killed over 800 civilians in attacks in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. In recent years, government security forces and pro-government militias in these countries have unlawfully killed hundreds of terrorism suspects and civilians, fueling recruitment into these groups.

Finally, authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo confirmed that they had opened an inquiry following allegations of high-level corruption. Investigators from 18 countries, working with 19 media outlets and 5 nongovernmental organizations, spent months going through 3.5 million leaked documents to produce “Congo Hold-Up,” a stunning account of corruption under former president Joseph Kabila.