Satellite images of the remote, gold mining village of Camp Bangui in the Central African Republic show dozens of black “burn scars” – all that is left of more than 200 homes reduced to ashes following a November 10 attack by former Seleka fighters who have been wreaking havoc in the region.
Egyptians, heralded as the "World's Best Protesters", now live under a new law that can severely restrict protesting. The law effectively grants security officials discretion to ban any protest on very vague grounds, allows police officers to use force to disperse any protest if even a single protester throws a stone, and sets heavy prison sentences for vague offenses such as attempting to “influence the course of justice.”
The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution reconfirming the “human right to privacy,” after numerous reports of US digital eavesdropping. Although the resolution is weaker than the version introduced Germany and Brazil, it’s still an important step in the right direction.
Prosecutions related to nonviolent immigration offenses are at an all-time high, according to just-released government data, and amounting to 50 percent of all federal criminal prosecutions. Human Rights Watch research found that because people deported from the US have no legal way to return, many—particularly parents of US citizen children—try again and again to reenter illegally and are prosecuted accordingly.Some two million people are employed as domestic workers in Gulf countries. Many employers no doubt treat their employees decently. Numerous domestic workers, however, report abuse from their employers: unpaid wages, confiscated passports, lack of weekly rest, and even verbal and physical abuse.
