Voice of Manus Refugees Is Finally Freed: Daily Brief
Behrouz Boochani, the Kurdish Iranian refugee and journalist who documented incarceration on Manus Island, has been freed; fresh fears over detained asylum seekers in Papua New Guinea; Algeria's crackdown on critics; UK elections about "more than Brexit"; Dutch role in deadly Iraq attack revealed; plans abandoned for coal-fired power plant in Kenya; medical workers attacked as they treat protesters in Iraq; and the dangers of agricultural work for children in the US...
"I will never go back to that place." So said Behrouz Boochani, the Kurdish Iranian refugee and journalist who became the voice of asylum seekers incarcerated on Manus Island, after he was finally freed from six years' of detention in Papua New Guinea. Booochani has landed in New Zealand, and eventually hopes to begin a new life in the US.
Meanwhile, at least 46 men are being arbitrarily detained in Bomana Immigration Centre, an Australian-funded center in Papua New Guinea, where HRW says they are "being treated like criminals".
In other news, Algerian authorities have arrested scores of pro-democracy movement activists since September 2019, a spate of arrests which looks like "a pattern of trying to weaken opposition to Algeria’s interim rulers", HRW said today.
The United Kingdom is heading for its third general election since 2015, but while Brexit - the UK's bid to leave Europe - still dominates headlines, there are serious human rights issues that voters deserve answers to as well.
Recent news reports have exposed Dutch involvement in an airstrike in Iraq in June 2015 that killed at least 70 civilians. The Minister of Defense has finally admitted - after years of denial - that the ministry had known about the deaths.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) will not fund a coal-fired power plant project in Lamu, Kenya, after a local environmental tribunal successfully intervened, citing concerns over the burning of fossil fuels.
Iraqi security forces have attacked medical workers for treating protesters, firing on medical workers, tents, and ambulances with teargas and live ammunition, HRW says. The attacks have left at least one medic dead.
And finally, new research shows just how dangerous agricultural work is for children in the United States – and how unprepared most are for what they face in the fields.