Press Release Jan 4, 2018 UNWGAD Affirms HRF Petition on Detention of 18 Turkmen NEW YORK (January 4, 2018) — Last Friday, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) published a decision calling for the immediate release of 18 Turkmen individuals who were arrested for exercising their freedom of association in the fall of 2016.
News Jan 3, 2018 Ethiopia announces release of political prisoners (The Washington Post) – Ethiopia’s prime minister shocked the country Wednesday by announcing the release of all political prisoners and the closure of a notorious detention center to promote political dialogue.
News Jan 3, 2018 Somalia: UN Concerned Over Destruction of Humanitarian Infrastructure (UN News Centre) – A senior United Nations official in Somalia expressed deep concern over reports of the unannounced destruction of settlements for internally displaced persons (IDPs) as well as humanitarian infrastructure in Mogadishu.
News Jan 3, 2018 Deaths and detentions as Cameroon cracks down on anglophone activists (The Guardian) – Felix Agbor Nkongho looked over his shoulder at a secluded Yaoundé cafe. As a leader of Cameroon’s growing anglophone rights movement, he had reason to be on his guard.
Media Jan 3, 2018 World’s awkward silence over Rohingya genocide warnings A stark warning from the UN in mid-December that genocide may be taking place in Myanmar has been met by an awkward silence around the world, indicating a limited appetite…
Events Jan 3, 2018 PutinCon: First 360 View on Vladimir Putin in NYC on Mar. 16 NEW YORK (January 3, 2018) — On March 16, the Human Rights Foundation will host the world’s first Putin Conference (PutinCon) in the Hell’s Kitchen area of New York City just days before the Russian presidential election.
News Jan 2, 2018 DR Congo has shut down internet amid bloody anti-government protests (Quartz) – At the start of a new year, the Democratic Republic of Congo is being rocked by an old problem: violent protests against president Joseph Kabila who has refused to leave office after his term expired.
News Jan 2, 2018 Thousands in Hong Kong protest Beijing’s interference (Reuters) – Thousands of protestors marched to the mainland Chinese government’s liaison office in Hong Kong on Sunday, demanding universal suffrage and protesting against Beijing’s perceived interference in the territory’s recent chief executive election.
News Jan 2, 2018 ‘Worrying’ clampdown on human rights: UN condemns Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia faces new calls to release the dozens of people detained since September in what has been condemned as a “worrying” clampdown on human rights.
News Jan 2, 2018 Iran protests and death toll grow as tension rises (The Washington Post) – Anti-government protests in Iran flared on more fronts Tuesday with clashes that left at least nine people dead, state media reported, as leaders in Tehran struggled to respond to the most serious internal crisis in nearly a decade.
News Dec 28, 2017 Liberia Election Could Mark First Peaceful Transfer of Power Since 1944 MONROVIA, Liberia — Liberia has not witnessed a peaceful transition of power since 1944, and the fate of past presidents — since 1971, four of them have either died in office or been sent into exile — is so grim that many Liberians consider the presidential palace to be haunted.
Press Release Dec 28, 2017 HRF Succeeds in Petition; UN Condemns Zimbabwe NEW YORK (December 28, 2017) — The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) welcomes the United Nations’ determination that the February and September 2017 arrests and subsequent imprisonment of Zimbabwean human rights activist and religious leader Evan Mawarire were arbitrary under international law.
News Dec 20, 2017 Cambodia is systematically squashing all forms of dissent (The Economist) – The scale of the crackdown is unprecedented, says Ou Virak, a political analyst who once worked at the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, which the government recently threatened to close. Gatherings of more than five people are banned.
News Dec 19, 2017 Uzbekistan Forces State Workers to Subscribe to State-Run Newspapers (Radio Free Europe) – In Uzbekistan, where media has remained tightly controlled by the government even decades after the breakup of the Soviet Union, public-sector workers say they still don’t have the freedom to choose whether to subscribe to state-run newspapers.
News Dec 18, 2017 China tells web giants they must accept limits to access (Sky News) – Web giants such as Google, Facebook and Twitter would be welcome to operate in China if they adhered to Beijing’s strict censorship and surveillance laws, regulators have said.
News Dec 16, 2017 HRF calls on the Vietnamese government to release Nguyen Van Dai Human rights lawyer and activist Nguyen Van Dai was arrested on December 16, 2015, five days after he was beaten by a masked mob. He was charged under Vietnam’s ludicrous Article 88 for “conducting propaganda against the state.”
News Dec 15, 2017 Venezuela’s opposition wins EU’s prestigious human rights prize Venezuela’s opposition has won the EU’s prestigious Sakharov prize for freedom of thought and urged the world to keep a close eye on a forthcoming presidential election, where it aspires to end two decades of authoritarian rule.
News Dec 15, 2017 Activists Pressure Lao Government on Missing Civil Society Leader Five years ago, Shui-Meng Ng and her husband, Sombath Somphone, were driving their car through Vientiane. It was on that day that he disappeared.
News Dec 14, 2017 6,700 Rohingya Muslims killed in one month in Myanmar, MSF says More than 6,700 Rohingya Muslims, including at least 730 children under the age of five, were killed in the first month of a crackdown that started in August in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state, according to Médecins Sans Frontières.
News Dec 14, 2017 HRF in the News — En El País sobre la crisis democrática en Bolivia El historiador boliviano Alcides Arguedas relata que, tras hacerse redactar una Constitución a medida en 1868, y mientras sus diputados elogiaban sus virtudes de estadista, el presidente Mariano Melgarejo interrumpió la tertulia palaciega y dijo:
