Two Guantánamo detainees scheduled for release boarded a plane for transfer to third countries—while a third refused, demanding repatriation to his native Yemen.
Druze elders from the Golan Heights (officially Syrian territory, but "annexed" by Israel). A plan approved by Israel's cabinet to provide half a billion dollars worth of assistance to Israel's Druze and Circassian minorities has been denounced by leaders of Israel's… Read more‘Divide and Conquer’ in Israel
A Russian military court sentenced two Crimean Tatar men to long prison terms for peaceful activities. Timur Yalkabov received 17 years and Lenur Seidametov received 13. Both were active in the Crimean Solidarity movement, formed to advocate for Tatar rights after the illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia in 2014. They were charged with membership in Hizb ut-Tahrir, a transnational Muslim civic organization that is legal in Ukraine. They were arrested in night raids on their homes by Russia's FSB secret police, in which "prohibited" literature was supposedly found. Seidametov's wife has said that the FSB agents planted the literature. Russia's Supreme Court declared Hizb ut-Tahrir a "terrorist" organization in 2003, a ruling that has been widely used to prosecute Tatars for "involvement" in the organization. Both men are recognized as political prisoners by the Memorial Human Rights Center, Russia's leading rights organization. (Photo via Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. Shirts read: "Faith is not terrorism" and "Deportation continues")
Saudi Arabia carried out at least 157 executions in 2015, with beheadings reaching their highest level in the kingdom in 20 years—overwhelmingly for non-lethal offenses.
Israel is set to declare 1,500 dunams (370 acres) in the West Bank district of Jericho as "state land"—the largest such grab in two years, decried as a step towards annexation.
