Watch this space throughout the week as this post will continue to be updated with recent human rights news and alerts.
- Police in Winnipeg, Manitoba laid the province’s first Human Trafficking charge after a 38 year old woman forced a 21 year old woman to work as a prostitute. A police officer involved in the case remarked that; “The best way to describe it is that we have an individual whose human rights have been violated to an extreme.” [Winnipeg Free Press]
- The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, noted in describing a series of mass rapes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that; “the scale and viciousness of these mass rapes defy belief.” Over 3 days between July 30 and August 2 of this year, three groups of heavily armed rebel groups raped 235 women, 52 girls, 13 men and three boys across 13 villages. An additional 116 people were taken for forced labour. [AFP]
- Police brutality is increasing in both frequency and violence in Vietnam, where Human Rights Watch has document the deaths of 15 people over the past year. This includes the recent case of a 21 year old who was killed by police after being detained for failing to wear a bike helmet. No police have been convicted for the violence. [Canadian Press]
- Despite appeals from as far away as the European Union, Teresa Lewis became the first woman executed in Virginia in nearly 100 years. Lewis, who advocates noted was “borderline mentally disabled” was the subject of 7300 appeals to the State Governor and extensive entreaties from around the world. Human rights advocates campaigned for her on the basis of her gender and claims she lacked the intelligence to mastermind the killings. [MSNBC]