Best of Dispatches: Top News Posts of the Year

These were 2015's most popular posts to Dispatches, our daily forum for breaking human rights news and commentary. Read more Dispatches here. 

Dispatches: Why I Shared a Horrific Photo of a Drowned Syrian Child

Peter Bouckaert 
I thought long and hard before I retweeted the photo of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi. It shows the lifeless toddler, lying face down on a popular Turkish beach, one of eleven Syrians who have almost certainly died as they tried to reach safety in Europe by boarding a smuggler’s boat. Instead they ended up as the latest victims of Europe’s paltry response in the face of a growing crisis...

Dispatches: The Ugly Truth Behind British Tourists' Ruined Holidays in Greece

Eva Cossé
First thing this morning, I read an article in the Daily Mail about British tourists on the Greek island Kos who complained about asylum seekers ruining their holidays and turning the island into a “disgusting hellhole.”. I have just returned from Kos, where I met with asylum seekers who crossed by boat from Turkey to Greece. Let me tell you something about hellholes...

Dispatches: US May Join the Rest of the World in Offering Paid Family Leave

Janet Walsh
Millions of US workers are suffering from damaged health, drained finances, and shrinking career prospects because federal law lacks any guaranteed paid family leave...

Dispatches: Indonesia 'Virginity Tests' Run Amok

Phelim Kine
Female high school students in Indonesia’s city of Jember in east Java may have a new hurdle to graduation...

Dispatches: What Really Happened in Baga, Nigeria?

Mausi Segun
Since January 3, Boko Haram militants have attacked –almost on a daily basis –the area surrounding Baga, a fishing settlement on the shores of Lake Chad in Nigeria’s northeast Borno State...

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 Protestors 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: What the White House Isn't Saying About Israel

Bill Van Esveld
Amid the controversy around Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress, the Obama administration’s National Security Council (NSC) recentlypublished “five key facts you need to know about the US-Israel relationship under President Obama.” Here are some relevant facts it neglected to mention...

Dispatches: A Baby's Death in Russia - No Words Left

Tanya Lokshina
Umarali Nazarov was five months old when he died. The cause of his death is unknown. What is known is that he died separated from his family in a hospital in St Petersburg, less than 24 hours after police tore him from the arms of his mother...

Dispatches: Trapped in Central African Republic's Conflict Zone

Peter Bouckaert
The hands of Mamadou, a 14-year-old polio survivor, are smaller than my 2-year-old daughter’s. Every time we see each other, since we first met in June last year, we play the same game...