• Avoidable domestic violence deaths in Turkey;
  • Bulgarian authorities beating & robbing asylum seekers;
  • Authoritarian rule reconfirmed in EU member Hungary;
  • Afghan women refuse to be silenced;
  • Seeking justice for massacre of health care workers in Somalia;
  • What exactly is the UN rights chief doing in China?
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The Turkish government is failing victims of domestic violence. That’s the stark conclusion of a new report from Human Rights Watch this morning, which highlights how courts are not enforcing restraining orders designed to protect women. This leaves women open to continuing abuse from current or former husbands and partners. In some cases, women have been killed despite having obtained restraining orders against their murderers.

Bulgarian authorities are violently assaulting asylum seekers and migrants, and then pushing them back to Turkey without any formal interview or asylum procedure. Human Rights Watch has documented a litany of abuses and violations of rights, and – as is too often the case – the EU seems less than concerned about the criminality of national authorities on its borders.

Hungary’s authoritarian leader has renewed his emergency powers, this time using Ukraine as an excuse to rule by decree rather than the pandemic as before. That leaders in the EU and its member states not only let Hungary become a dictatorship but in some cases actually supported the rise of the dictatorship has been a deep stain on the bloc, which claims to have democracy and human rights as its core values.

Women will not be silenced in Afghanistan. The Taliban have banned unauthorized protests, and harassed, threatened, beaten, pepper sprayed, abducted, illegally detained, and coerced confessions from women’s rights protesters. Undeterred, Afghan women are still protesting.

Why does justice take so long? Two years ago, the village of Gololey in Somalia’s Middle Shabelle region was shaken to its core by the chilling massacre of eight health workers. The killings devastated this small community, which reeled from the loss of their loved ones, and for months, the area was without essential health care. The killings also sent shockwaves throughout the country, but despite both regional and national authorities initiating investigations, nothing has come from the probes yet – despite the reported involvement of government security forces in the killings.

Checking back: In Monday’s Daily Brief, we asked if the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights would say what needs to be said during her visit to China this week, in particular about the Chinese authorities’ crimes against humanity in the Xinjiang region. We noted that her credibility is at stake. How’s it looking now, on Thursday? Not so good…

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