Human Rights Watch

In Riyadh, Buraida, and Qatif, security forces arrested those who were peacefully protesting the detention without trial of hundreds of people held for long periods in intelligence prisons.

News reports have shown images of protesters in Cairo being stripped, beaten and dragged through the streets.

Security force personnel have fired on people in the street who may have been protesting the election result, were preparing to protest or were simply bystanders.

The Constituent Assembly should urgently revise laws to ensure freedom of speech and the independence of the judiciary, Human Rights said in its report.

Statements by former soldiers leave no doubt that the Syrian security forces committed widespread and systematic abuses, including killings, arbitrary detention, and torture, as part of a state policy targeting the civilian population.

Torture is a chronic problem, rights activists are languishing in prison and the government has disbarred some of the country’s most outspoken lawyers, says the organisation.

Demonstrators who are demanding imposition of their own interpretation of Islam in the curriculum and in campus life have interrupted classes, prevented students from taking exams, confined deans in their offices, and intimidated women professors.

The demonstrators were protesting the 32-year rule of President José Eduardo dos Santos, whom they blame for rampant corruption, widespread poverty and political repression.

Riot police detained more than 300 demonstrators at a major rally in Moscow to protest what they contend are fraudulent parliamentary election results.

On the fifth anniversary of the coup d’etat by Commodore Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, the military government is continuing its aggressive attacks on free speech and critics of the regime.

The authorities should conduct an independent judicial review of the arrests and trial of five activists, says coalition of seven IFEX members and partners after sustained campaign leading to their release on 28 November.

Shawan Jabarin was prevented from leaving the West Bank to receive a prestigious human rights prize from the Danish PL Foundation, participate in a European Union forum on human rights, and attend a Human Rights Watch advisory committee meeting in New York City.

Lawyers are marching out of concern that the freedoms of peaceful assembly and association are under threat from a proposed law.

The discriminatory bill is a blatant attack on free expression and a thinly disguised attempt to silence Russia’s LGBT community, said Human Rights Watch.

Rafiq Tagi died in Baku on 23 November from the injuries he sustained during a brutal knife attack four days earlier.

Hossein Kazemeini Boroujerdi, an outspoken religious critic, has been detained with violent cellmates and is not receiving treatment for several serious illnesses.