Africa

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African governments should provide leadership to build on important steps during 2015 to ensure justice for grave international crimes, African and international organizations said in a letter to African International Criminal Court (ICC) members.

(Johannesburg) – African governments should provide leadership to build on important steps during 2015 to ensure justice for grave international crimes, African and international organizations said in a letter to African International Criminal Court (ICC) members that was released today.

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Democratic Republic of Congo authorities should promptly and properly exhume a mass grave that may contain the bodies of people forcibly disappeared or executed by Congolese security forces. On June 5, 2015, the families of 34 victims filed a public complaint with Congo’s national prosecutor requesting justice and the exhumation of the mass grave in Maluku, a rural area about 80 kilometers from the capital, Kinshasa.

(Kinshasa) – Democratic Republic of Congo authorities should promptly and properly exhume a mass grave that may contain the bodies of people forcibly disappeared or executed by Congolese security forces, Human Rights Watch said today.

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Daniel Bekele is the Executive Director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, where he oversees a global staff and supervises research and advocacy. He also represents the organization before national and international organizations as well as government officials.

Prior to joining Human Rights Watch, Daniel practiced law in Ethiopia as a partner at Abebe Worke & Associates. He served as the legal department director and secretary of the board for United Insurance Co., and he managed Action Aid Ethiopia's policy research and advocacy departments.

Daniel has extensively consulted with non-governmental organizations including Oxfam, ARTICLE 19, Freedom House, and PACT, as well as with USAID and the World Bank. He has worked in varying capacities with numerous civil society organizations, and led the national-level campaign for the Global Call to Action against Poverty. Daniel's focus includes promoting African civil society organizations, human rights, and good governance.

In the 2005 parliamentary elections in Ethiopia, Daniel was actively involved in promoting human rights, and independent election monitoring, as well as peace initiatives in the aftermath of the post-election crisis. However, he was arrested by the authorities and spent more than two years in prison. He was internationally recognized as prisoner of conscience, and in 2009 received the Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism and in 2010 was nominated for the Martin Ennals Human Rights Defenders Award and the Index Freedom of Expression Award. Daniel received a bachelor's in law and a master's in regional development studies from Addis Ababa University and a master's in legal studies from Oxford University, where he is completing a PhD in international law.

Last Name Bekele Type Experts Senior Management Staff Link to Profile Executive Director, Africa Division Photo Daniel Bekele DanielBekeleRegion / Country

• Africa

First Name Daniel Twitter Feed ID 608730514212679680

Language English

Peter Bouckaert, Human Rights Watch's emergencies director and an expert in humanitarian crises, is responsible for coordinating the organization's response to major wars and other human rights crises. A Belgian-born Stanford Law School graduate, specializing in the laws of war, Bouckaert is a veteran of fact-finding missions to Lebanon, Kosovo, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Macedonia, Indonesia, Uganda, and Sierra Leone, among others. Most recently, Mr. Bouckaert has been in the Central African Republic, where he has conducted investigations into ethnic cleansing and war crimes committed during the current civil war.

Mr. Bouckaert is featured in the 2014 documentary film "E-Team," which was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2011, he was in Libya, where he investigated the use of landmines, the execution of prisoners and arbitrary arrests of African migrant workers. He has testified about war crimes before the United States Senate, the Council of Europe, and at the Yugoslav Tribunal (ICTY) in the Hague, and has written opinion pieces for papers around the world. His work has been profiled in Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, The Stanford Lawyer, and The Santa Barbara Independent Newspaper. 

Last Name Bouckaert Type Experts Senior Management Staff Link to Profile Director, Emergencies Photo Peter Bouckaert - Bio bouckapRegion / Country

• Africa
• Asia
• Europe/Central Asia
• Global
• Middle East/North Africa
• Libya
• Syria

First Name Peter Twitter Feed ID 608731420916350976

• 日本語

Language English

Zama Coursen-Neff is the executive director of the children's rights division of Human Rights Watch.  She leads the organization’s work on children’s rights and chairs the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA). Coursen-Neff also conducts fact-finding investigations and is the author of reports and articles on a range of issues affecting children, including access to education, police violence, refugee protection, the worst forms of child labor, and discrimination against women and girls. She has published on op-ed pages in major international and US publications and speaks regularly to the media. During a sabbatical in 2006/2007, she ran a protection monitoring team for the Norwegian Refugee Council in Sri Lanka. Before joining Human Rights Watch in 1999, Coursen-Neff clerked for a US federal judge, advocated on behalf of immigrants and refugees in the US, and worked with community development and women's organizations in Honduras. She is a graduate of Davidson College and New York University School of Law.

Last Name Coursen-Neff Type Experts Senior Management Staff Link to Profile Executive Director, Children’s Rights Division Photo Zama Coursen-Neff ZamaHRWExternal Writing

• Schools as Battlegrounds

Region / Country

• Africa
• Somalia
• Asia
• Afghanistan
• Burma
• India
• Malaysia
• Papua New Guinea
• Sri Lanka
• Middle East/North Africa
• Israel/Palestine
• United States

Topic

• Children's Rights
• Child Labor
• Child Soldiers
• Education
• Education and Conflict
• Juvenile Justice

First Name Zama Twitter Feed ID 608692953859682306

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(Nairobi) – Burundian police have used excessive force in a crackdown on protests against President Pierre Nkurunziza’s election bid for a third term, Human Rights Watch said today.

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The next president of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) – world football’s governing body – should ensure that future host countries of the World Cup are required to comply with fundamental human rights norms, Human Rights Watch said today. The FIFA presidential election will be held in Zurich on May 29, 2015.

(New York) – The next president of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) – world football’s governing body – should ensure that future host countries of the World Cup are required to comply with fundamental human rights norms. The FIFA presidential election will be held in Zurich on May 29, 2015.

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Rome, Italy (PANA) - The number of hungry people in the world has dropped to 795 million, 216 million fewer than in 1990-92, or around one person out of every nine, according to the latest edition of the annual UN hunger report (The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2015 - SOFI). Agriculture

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Gambian authorities have detained incommunicado, depriving them of all contact with the outside world, dozens of friends and relatives of people accused of involvement in a coup attempt since January 2015. Those detained include women, elderly people, and a child, and many are believed to be in ill-health.

(Dakar) – Gambian authorities have detained incommunicado, depriving them of all contact with the outside world, dozens of friends and relatives of people accused of involvement in a coup attempt since January 2015, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said today. Those detained include women, elderly people, and a child, and many are believed to be in ill-health.

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Nigeria’s incoming president, Muhammadu Buhari, should take immediate and concrete steps to address large-scale violence, endemic corruption, a lack of accountability for abuses, and other pressing human rights problems. Buhari will be sworn in on May 29, 2015.

(Abuja) – Nigeria’s incoming president, Muhammadu Buhari, should take immediate and concrete steps to address large-scale violence, endemic corruption, a lack of accountability for abuses, and other pressing human rights problems, Human Rights Watch said today. Buhari will be sworn in on May 29, 2015.

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Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire (PANA) - The African Development Bank (AfDB) unveiled on Monday the first-ever Gender Equality Index for Africa, aimed at informing policies to transform economies and to propel governments to adopt an ambitious agenda for making gender equality a reality throughout the continent. Gender

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New York, US (PANA) - Obstetric fistula is a devastating yet completely preventable and, in many cases, treatable injury of childbirth, affecting at least two million women and girls worldwide and leaving them isolated from communities, according to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.. Health