President Obama today announced a number of welcome reforms to the National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs, but fell short on core human rights concerns: the collection of data in bulk on people worldwide, including in the US, and giving foreigners clear rights against unwarranted US surveillance.
Here’s what Human Rights Watch wants Obama to do about the NSA.
A senior UN official has warned of the possibility of genocide in the Central African Republic unless there is a more robust international response to intercommunal violence. A UN peacekeeping force is needed. In one incident highlighting the cycle of tit-for-tat attacks, the BBC has reported today how Christian militias in the town of Bozoum have been looking for revenge after the largely Muslim Seleka rebels last week burned down hundreds of homes.Syria’s blockade of aid to a refugee camp may amount to a war crime, the UN’s top human rights official said.
In other Syria news, today the International Peace Institute, together with the Permanent Mission of Liechtenstein, hosted a forum on transitional justice in Syria.
Greek justice delivered a heavy blow to free speech yesterday, when a criminal court sentenced a man to 10 months in jail, suspended for three years, for running a satirical Facebook profile making fun of a deceased Greek Orthodox monk.
Barring the unexpected, the US state of Texas will execute Mexican national Edgar Arias Tamayo by lethal injection on January 22 – even though his right to contact the Mexican consulate for assistance was denied.
On the heels of a rash of anti-gay violence in Russia, along with a stringent anti-gay law, President Putin today spoke to a group of volunteers for the Sochi Winter Olympic Games and said that LGBT people should feel safe in Russia - as long as they leave children alone.
