Human Rights Watch

“The Houthis’ closure of organizations comes in the midst of a campaign of arrests and enforced disappearances of activists, political opposition figures and journalists.”

Russia’s prosecutor general’s office has declared the nongovernmental organization Open Society Foundation to be “undesirable,” banning its activities in the country. The move is part of a sweeping government crackdown on independent groups.

Azerbaijani authorities arrested Leyla Yunus in July 2014 amidst an unprecedented, sweeping, crackdown on government critics, including human rights defenders, independent groups, bloggers, political activists, and the like.

The current protests echo the bloody events of April and May 2014, when federal forces fired into groups of largely peaceful Oromo protesters, killing dozens.

The law – long overdue – is a significant advance for a country where civil society organizations are generally barred from operating, and activists are often jailed for speaking their minds.

International and domestic civil society organisation are calling for Pakistan’s Prevention of Electronic Crimes bill to be scrapped and the process of creating a new bill that reflects international human rights standards and respects the Constitution to begin again.

Tahir Elçi’s murder comes at a dark time for human rights in Turkey. The breakdown of the government’s peace process with the Kurds over the summer has seen a spiraling cycle of violence in the southeast.

The expanded emergency powers allow the government to impose house arrest without authorization from a judge, conduct searches without a judicial warrant and seize any computer files it finds, and block websites deemed to glorify terrorism without prior judicial authorization.