Best of Dispatches: Top News Posts This Week

Human Rights documentaries on the Oscars shortlist; another crackdown on protesters in Ethiopia; attacks on migrant boats in the Aegean - these were among the most popular posts to Dispatches, our daily forum for breaking human rights news and commentary.

Dispatches: 3 Films to Watch on Oscars' Documentary Shortlist 

John Biaggi
The Oscars unveiled its shortlist of 15 documentary features this week. We were thrilled that the Human Rights Watch Film Festival featured three of those films this year...

Dispatches: Yet Again, A Bloody Crackdown on Protesters in Ethiopia

Felix Horne
Student protests are spreading throughout Ethiopia’s Oromia region, as people demonstrate against the possibility that Oromo farmers and residents living near the capital, Addis Ababa, could be evicted from their lands without appropriate – or possibly any – compensation...

Dispatches: Masked Men Continue to Attack Migrant Boats on the Aegean

Bill Frelick
Two weeks ago, Human Rights Watch documented, in detail, attacks by masked men on boats with asylum seekers and migrants in the Aegean Sea. I had hoped reporting on these incidents would have mobilized [regional actors]. I was wrong...

Dispatches: Japan's Evolving Public Debate on LGBT Rights

Kanae Doi
When a local politician from Tokyo’s Ebisu district last week condemned media coverage of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights issues and called gay people “abnormal” on Twitter, it came as a reminder of times past...

Lydia Gall “I have been here for five days already, outside and without a roof over my head. I can’t sleep, it’s too cold, and I have to be awake in case they [police] call my number.”...