Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 24 October

It is hard to believe that in the 21st century, Saudi Arabia is still barring women from driving. Those courageous women who defy the ban risk imprisonment or corporal punishment. Saudi women’s rights activists have called on women with international drivers’ licenses to get behind the wheel on October 26, 2013, as part of the “Women2Drive” campaign to end the prohibition on driving. In Australia, a single death on a work site is a tragedy that will make the national news. In Qatar, sadly, such deaths are all too common. As Human Rights Watch and the Guardian have both revealed, hundreds of workers leave in coffins every year. Julia Gillard must speak out on migrant labour abuses in Qatar and cannot allow her visit to burnish a government that treats workers so badly. A new United Nations' report documents a wide range of abuses occurring against health workers and highlights the need for better monitoring and accountability.  Recent examples of attacks against health workers range from physicians in Turkey and Bahrain being assaulted for aiding wounded demonstrators to Nigeria and Pakistan where armed Islamist groups are alleged to have targeted and killed polio vaccinators. From this morning: