Human Rights Archive

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about education policy in various countries around the world. In a raid last month in Katsina, the capital of Katsina state in northern Nigeria, police freed 67 men and boys from what news reports called an “Islamic school.” The captives, who ranged in age from 7 to 40 years old, had been held in degrading conditions that included being shackled at the feet and suffering regular beatings and abuse. Hundreds more had escaped from the center in the weeks preceding the raid. In September, a police raid in neighboring Kaduna […]

MOSCOW—In late September, some 25,000 people gathered in central Moscow to demand the release of political prisoners who were jailed during the wave of demonstrations that rocked the Russian capital this past summer. At their peak, the protests, demanding fair elections, had crackled with urgent energy. But the mood on this cold, rainy Sunday was more reflective, as participants assessed the movement’s accomplishments and laid out future plans. The speakers, who stood on a stage looking out over a street named after Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, included seasoned veterans like Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition politician, and his political […]

The civilians who helped end the repressive regime of Sudan’s longtime president, Omar al-Bashir, are discovering that exercising power is often more difficult than attaining it. Barely three months after forming an uneasy transitional government with military and paramilitary leaders who tried to seize control for themselves, these revolutionaries have begun the task of undoing three decades of misrule. It is a race against time: Within three years, the transitional authorities face the challenge of instituting accountable, inclusive governance for the first time in Sudan’s history, while organizing elections and completing a democratic transfer of power. These challenges are compounded […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The space for dissent in John Magufuli’s Tanzania is closing rapidly. Amnesty International issued a report this week accusing Magufuli, who was elected president in 2015, of creating a “climate of mounting fear with growing restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.” Magufuli, who earned the popular nickname “the Bulldozer” from his time as minister of public works, was elected promising to reform Tanzania and end corruption. Instead, his administration has steadily trimmed the rights of opposition […]