Xenophobia in Europe: Daily Brief
Will Hungary's xenophobic ruling party be expelled from the European People's Party?; inflammatory rhetoric about migrants in Slovenia & Italy; crackdown on protests in Morocco; free prominent Bahraini human rights defender Nabeel Rajab; major step toward ending impunity in Central African Republic; victory for intersex and transgender activists in The Netherlands; ICC is the only real hope for justice in Myanmar; never forget China's Tiananmen massacre.
Xenophobic hate campaigns, years of anti-migrant policies, attempts to silence non-governmental organizations and the independent media, and no respect for the rule of law and human rights: all is not well in Hungary. The European People's Party - an umbrella of center-right parties - is meeting today and tomorrow in Warsaw, and should expel Hungary's ruling Fidesz party from its ranks.
Anti-migrant rhetoric and policies are not only a problem in Hungary, as the latest news from Slovenia and Italy attests.
Police in Morocco have responded to protests in the impoverished mining town of Jerada with weeks of repression, Human Rights Watch said today. Security forces used excessive force against protesters, recklessly drove a police van into a 16-year-old boy, who was severely injured, and arrested protest leaders and reportedly mistreated them in detention.
Nothing that the imprisoned activist Nabeel Rajab posted on human rights in Bahrain or the humanitarian crisis in Yemen "justifies his spending a single minute behind bars", HRW has said, ahead of an appeal court's decision on his 5-year prison sentence.
Central African Republic's Parliament has adopted rules of procedure and evidence for the Special Criminal Court, a war crimes court that is part of the country's domestic justice system, but which has international support and participation. The adoption is a major step towards making the Special Criminal Court operational.
A court in The Netherlands has found that the exclusive option of ‘male’ or ‘female’ on official documents - including birth certificates - is too restrictive and should be revised, in a major victory for intersex and transgender activists.
The only real hope for justice in Myanmar is a referral to the International Criminal Court by the United Nations Security Council, says Param-Preet Singh, Associate Director of HRW's International Justice Program.
And today marks the 29th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Beijing, China.