Taliban Push Women Further out of Public Life: Daily Brief

In Afghanistan, the Taliban have announced yet more repressive measures against women. The new decree called on women not to leave their homes if possible and demands that all women cover their faces in public. It adds to measures already in place that restrict women’s right to travel, work outside healthcare or education, and acquire secondary education.

The Sri Lankan president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has declared a state of emergency, following extensive protests and a general strike that shut down schools, businesses, and transport services.

Nigerian authorities have done nothing to ensure justice for the killing of protesters in Lagos state in 2020, six months after a judicial panel implicated security forces in the abuses. The authorities should act on the panel’s recommendations and hold those responsible to account.

Candidates for Lebanon’s May 15 parliamentary elections should be making firm commitments to strengthen human rights protections during these difficult times for the country. Yet, sadly, only nine candidates and one political party were willing to respond to a Human Rights Watch letter.

Jordan should commit to fully ending debt imprisonment before the present moratorium expires in June 2022. The parliament has passed amendments to the main law that mandates debt imprisonment in Jordan. While the amendments are an improvement, they fall short of ending debt imprisonment, which is prohibited under international law.

A new report from the “i” paper in the UK has detailed 66 locations inside Russia where Ukrainians are being sent by the Russian government after having to leave Ukraine. Tanya Lokshina, associate director for Europe and Central Asia at Human Rights Watch, told the paper: “There is ample evidence that thousands of Ukrainians were taken to Russia under duress. When people are only given a choice to stay under increasingly heavy shelling or to enter the territory of an occupying power, it constitutes forced transfer under international humanitarian law. We are extremely concerned this is happening.”

After a four-day visit to Kyiv and the surrounding region, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, highlighted the, “deliberate targeting by Russian forces of civilians and journalists, increasingly reported instances of sexual violence by Russian soldiers, as well as reports of many missing persons, widespread arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, and torture and ill-treatment of Ukrainian local government officials, journalists, human rights defenders, and activists in areas newly occupied by Russia…”

This Europe Day, celebrating "peace and unity in Europe" after centuries of wars, comes at a difficult time. Outside the EU, the continent is once again suffering a brutal conflict. And inside the EU, civil society – a key guardian of democracy – is facing threats in a number of member states.