
Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas
Civil Society
- On Wednesday, Russian security officials raided the home of well-known journalist and human rights defender Zoya Svetova. [Committee to Protect Journalists]
- On Tuesday, hundreds protested the evacuation of settlers from homes in the West Bank settlement of Ofra, after courts found the homes were built on Palestinian land in violation of the law. [CNN]
- Last Friday, United States President Trump blocked media organizations, including the New York Times, CNN, Politico, and Al Jazeera, from participating in a press briefing. [Al Jazeera]
Armed Conflict, Violence, & Humanitarian Crises
- On Wednesday, a Russian airstrike accidentally targeted Syrian Arab fighters that were being trained by the United States. [New York Times]
- On Wednesday, two attacks on security facilities in Afghanistan, for which the Taliban took credit, killed at least 16 people. [Washington Post]
- On Monday, senior Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Salam Akhund was killed in a bombing raid led by the United States in northern Afghanistan. [Al Jazeera]
- On Saturday, attacks in Hom, Syria linked to al-Qaeda killed 42 people. [Washington Post]
Activities of International Experts & Bodies
- On Wednesday, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic released a report stating that the Syrian government and allied Russian forces committed war crimes in Aleppo. [Al Jazeera]
- This week the United Nations confirmed that 1,476 boys have been recruited since March 2015 as child soldiers for use in the armed conflict in Yemen. [UN News Centre]
Migrants, Asylum Seekers, & Refugees
- Over the last week and a half, at least 26,000 Iraqis have been displaced in response to security forces’ efforts to retake the city of Mosul from ISIL. [Al Jazeera]
- On Sunday, an interior minister in Germany reported that there were 3,500 attacks against refugees, migrants, and their shelters within the country in the last year. [Al Jazeera]
- On Friday, the International Organization for Migration reported that 366 migrants died at sea during attempted migration to Europe in the first months of 2017; this figure is down from 425 last year. [UN News Centre]
LGBTIQ Rights
- On Tuesday, the Court of Appeals in Trento, Italy held that same-sex parents should have equal parental rights and that the names of both parents should appear on their child’s birth certificate. [Jurist]
- This week, United States President Trump removed federal guidelines put in place during the Obama administration that had required access to sex-segregated facilities be based on gender identity. [Al Jazeera]