Cabinet proposals to amend and implement Egypt’s 1952 “Law on Political Treachery” have negative implications for the country’s political freedoms and upcoming election. In a televised interview on Dream TV on October 20, 2011, Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) Maj. Gen.

The League of Arab States should demand that Syria’s government allow independent, on-the-ground, civilian monitors to observe the behavior of the security services, Human Rights Watch said today. Such monitoring would be an essential step to end the violence in Syria and restore a climate of trust.

Vast amounts of unsecured explosive weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, remain unguarded in the area around Sirte, Libya. The National Transitional Council (NTC), Libya's transitional government, has promised for months that it would secure weapons facilities.

The Egyptian military’s intention to control the investigation of the use of force against unarmed Coptic Christian demonstrators during a night of clashes on October 9, 2011, raises fears of a cover-up. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Egypt’s military rulers, should transfer the investigation from the military prosecution to a fully independent and impartial investigation into the killing of unarmed protesters by military forces.

Fifty-three people, apparent Gaddafi supporters, seem to have been executed at a hotel in Sirte last week. The hotel is in an area of the city that was under the control of anti-Gaddafi fighters from Misrata before the killings took place. 

Medical staff convicted by a military court of alleged serious crimes during the period of anti-government protests in Bahrain in early 2011 were subjected to abuse and torture in detention.

The end of Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year rule over Libya offers a unique opportunity for the country to end an extraordinarily longera of human rights abuses. Media reports say forces of the National Transitional Council (NTC) or a NATO air strike wounded Gaddafi during fighting in his hometown of Sirte on October 20, 2011. He died soon after, according to these sources.

Many parties competing in Tunisia’s election for a constituent assembly on October 23, 2011, believe that basic freedoms should be protected, but they disagree about circumstances under which freedoms could be limited, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper issued today. The paper was prepared to help voters make decisions based on the parties’ stances on basic human rights and freedoms.

India, Brazil, and South Africa are not leveraging their rising global influence to help stop the bloodshed in Syria.

(Johannesburg) – India, Brazil, and South Africa are not leveraging their rising global influence to help stop the bloodshed in Syria, Human Rights Watch said today.read more

Paris-Sorbonne University and its Emirati partner, Sorbonne Abu Dhabi University, should break their six-month silence and condemn the trial and imprisonment of the Sorbonne lecturer Nasser bin Ghaith. Bin Ghaith, who has lectured at Sorbonne Abu Dhabi University since 2009, was teaching an intensive class the very week he was arrested, on April 9, 2011, according to interviews and documents obtained by Human Rights Watch.