Disappeared and Tortured in Uganda: Daily Brief

Uganda’s security forces torturing detainees: Satirical writer and government critic Kakwenza Rukirabashaija has described to Human Rights Watch how he was forcibly disappeared by military officers and tortured. In December, they broke into his home in Kampala, beat and blindfolded him, confiscated his phone, and drove off with him to an unknown location where he was kept for 14 days without access to family or lawyers. He detailed the brutal treatment, including beatings, being plucked with pliers, and being injected with unknown substances. On January 11, the police charged Rukirabashaija with “offensive communication” over his tweets criticizing President Yoweri Museveni and his son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba. Rukirabashaija has now fled the country to seek medical treatment for the injuries.

France to help Syria victims seek justice: In a positive development, there are new legislative changes afoot in France that will allow greater use of the country’s courts to try cases of serious international crimes, bringing justice a step closer for some victims of mass atrocity crimes in Syria. The National Assembly has adopted a bill to authorize judicial cooperation between the French government and the UN-mandated International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) for Syria. The bill next goes to the Senate. These moves come after criticism from Human Rights Watch and others that France has not been using all the legal tools available to help prosecute war criminals.

France aiding Egypt’s torturers: Paris is coming under new EU pressure for reported sales of surveillance tech to Egypt, where the authorities under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi routinely prosecute peaceful activists and critics, forcibly disappear people and torture people in custody. It follows similarly misguided French arms sales to Cairo, which also enable abuses in Egypt. France is not alone, of course: the US, Italy and other countries all sell arms to Sisi, apparently unaware of – or, more realistically, simply accepting – the extreme human rights crisis in Egypt.

Mass displacement in fighting over Yemen city: Oxfam is drawing attention to the devastating human impact caused by the battle for the city of Marib in Yemen, where some 100,000 people have been displaced, many of whom have fled multiple times from fighting elsewhere in the country. Last month, 43 airstrikes hit civilian targets, and civilians also face danger from ground-fired missiles and shells, as well as landmines & improvised explosive devices.

EU parliament to launch Pegasus probe: Members of the European Parliament are planning to set up an inquiry into Pegasus spyware. It’s good news – if it's a step toward a ban on the sale, export, transfer, and use of surveillance technology until human rights safeguards are in place.

EU not buying Sri Lanka’s promised “reforms”: Sri Lanka’s government has recently unveiled a bill to amend its abusive Prevention of Terrorism Act, with the Foreign Ministry hailing it as a “most progressive step” towards bringing the notorious law in line with “international best practice”. But the European Union is – rightly – not falling for it, and the country is now at risk of losing its tariff-free access to the EU market under the bloc’s GSP+ trading scheme, which is conditioned on respect for human rights.

New flights from Xinjiang to the EU: Two new air cargo connections from the city of Kashgar in China’s Xinjiang province, to Liège in Belgium and Budapest in Hungary are renewing debates in the European Union about how to ban goods made with forced labor. The Chinese government is committing crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang. The authorities' widespread and systematic attack not only includes forced labor, but also: mass arbitrary detention; torture; enforced disappearances; mass surveillance; cultural and religious erasure; separation of families; forced returns to China; and sexual violence and violations of reproductive rights.

What does “vaccine hesitancy” really mean? It’s a phrase that’s thrown around a lot these days, but those who hesitate or resist vaccination are too often treated as the source of the problem, when the reality is not that simple. Many of the conditions that deter or prevent people from getting vaccinated are also classic barriers to wider healthcare access, which governments have a human rights obligation to address. We offer three thoughts. First, blame and punishment aren’t effective strategies. Second, targeting hesitancy risks missing wider problems. Third, the meaning of “fully vaccinated” itself is changing.