Greater Middle East
Next: Turkish spring?
Istanbul police raided a protest camp in Taksim Gezi Park, slated to be bulldozed for a new shopping mall. Demonstrations continue, and have spread to Ankara.
Tag: reproductive rights
Palestine
Israel: attack on Ethiopian Jews’ reproductive rights
A report on an Israeli TV news program charges that coercive contraception is behind a 50% decline in the Ethiopian birth rate in Israel over the past decade.
East Asia
China: Amnesty protests forced evictions
Violent forced evictions in China are on the rise as local authorities seek to offset debts by seizing and selling off land in suspect deals with developers, Amnesty International charges.
The Caribbean
Dominican Republic: denied an abortion, teen cancer patient dies
The death of a pregnant 16-year-old with leukemia has reignited controversy over the 2010 Constitution’s Article 37, which bans all abortions, even when the mother’s life is in danger.
The Andes
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The day after thousands of Peruvians filled the streets of Lima in a March Against Corruption, Duberli Rodriguez stepped down from his posts as head of the country's justice department, Poder Judicial, and president of the Supreme Court. Orlando Velasquez, president of the National Council of the Magistrature, also resigned. The justice minister, Salvador Heresi, had already been sacked by President Martín Vizcarra days earlier, amid a widening scandal concerning the perverting of the court system. The outrage was sparked when national media outlets aired a series of telephone recordings involving an extensive network of judges, businessmen and local authorities describing illegal deals. (Photo: Diario Uno)
The Andes
Jamil Khader’s denuded land
Peru's top public prosecutor Luis Landa Burgos ordered that new charges be brought against ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori over the forcible sterilization of thousands of indigenous and peasant women during his time in power in the 1990s. Three of his former ministers are also to face charges, as well as his ex-health director. Landa said he has an archive of testimony from survivors including Inés Condori, an indigenous woman from Cuzco region who was the first to speak out about the forced sterilization she underwent in 1995. Fujimori, already convicted on other rights abuses and corruption charges, was released from prison following a presidential pardon in December. Landa is now evaluating the legality of the pardon in light of new criminal charges that have been brought. (Photo of sterilization survivors in community meeting from La República via CNDH)