• Positive step in investigating Thai activist’s murder; 
  • Myanmar junta retaliates against former leader;
  • Time to stand with Afghan women and girls;
  • Cameroon arrests peace activist again;
  • Israel could deport human rights lawyer.
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Thai park officials arrested and murdered environmental activist Porlajee “Billy” Rakchongcharoen in April 2014, for alleged illegal possession of a wild bee honeycomb and six bottles of honey. Thai law does not recognize enforced disappearance as a crime, and officials have hindered investigations through cover-ups, exploiting legal loopholes. But in a positive step for justice, the Attorney General formally decided to indict four park officials accused of Billy’s abduction and murder. “The authorities can right this wrong by ensuring that the attorney general’s decision to indict four officials moves promptly to an effective and fair prosecution,” said Elaine Pearson, HRW’s acting Asia director. 

Since staging a coup in February 2021, Myanmar’s military has brutally cracked down on millions of protestors across the country. In line with the junta's repression, former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, already serving an 11-year sentence, was recently served a new 6-year sentence.

The US used the plight of Afghan women and girls under the Taliban to help build support for war in 2001, after 9/11, only for it to become clearer and clearer as the years went by that the war was never about women’s rights or promoting gender equality. Women and girls have not received sufficient support and solidarity from groups in the US and the West. But the The Taliban cannot kill the spirit of Afghan girls and women who continue to fiercely protest the regime, organize, and attend underground schools. The UN Security Council should impose travel bans and other sanctions on Taliban officials implicated in rights abuses, and show solidarity with women and girls who are on a lonely fight against the brute force of the Taliban regime.

Karim Ali advocates for peace in Cameroon. In September 2019, he was arrested and held for five days without access to his lawyer. Last week, he was arrested again. Ali has not been charged, and his lawyers were not allowed to view his file. He is reportedly accused of “apology of terrorism” for possessing a video on his phone showing alleged human rights abuses committed by a Cameroonian soldier against civilians in the country’s English-speaking regions. In Cameroon, many people perceived as opposing the government are held on bogus charges related to national security or terrorism. Cameroon should either bring forward a genuine charge against Ali, or release him.

And finally, Israeli authorities have held French-Israeli human rights worker Salah Hamouri for 5 months. His detention - without charge or trial - came after Israeli authorities revoked his residency for "breaching allegiance to Israel". Hamouri is a lawyer who works with the Palestinian prisoner rights group Addameer, which Israeli authorities outlawed last year. Like many Palestinian human rights defenders, Hamouri’s work has been hampered and his rights to free speech and association curtailed.