Some (mostly) human rights links and thoughts - Friday 31st December, 2021

Some human rights (including significant, relevant links in other fields - such as geopolitics, democracy, or authoritarianism) links: 

• more refugee drownings in the Mediterranean (are nations involved doing what they are obliged to under IHL relating to refugees [which is based on the displacements caused by World War Two]? ); 
• Russia has further raised concerns about its apparent suppression of freedom of expression by fining an online tech company; 
• Poland's "President Andrzej Duda [has] . . . decided to veto a bill that would have forced the US media group Discovery to give up its controlling stake in Polish broadcaster TVN. Duda said he recognized that the bill was unpopular with many Polish citizens and would have been a blow to his country's reputation as a place to do business"; 
• "Russia's Supreme Court [has] ordered the closure of Memorial International, one of the country's most prominent NGOs. . . . Opposition groups, however, believe Memorial prompted the ire of the government by gathering information on millions killed by the state under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin"; 
• the CCP is continuing its suppression of dissent; 
• Ethiopia has taken steps towards "a national dialogue" (will that be enough to address the conflict in Tigray?);
  
• "India's main opposition party [has urged the Indian] diaspora to condemn anti-Muslim hate speech";
  
• serious concerns about India's proposed laws which are allegedly about privacy protection (but are actually, the article suggests, about government commercialisation of private data);
  
• an LGBTIQ+ refugee has been arrested on an international police warrant about which there are considerable misgivings (that the refugees' prominent family may be behind it) before she could travel to Australia. At least rights elsewhere have advanced; 
• a staggering example of blatant - and illegal - sexist discrimination in the finance sector (which the company concerned has taken action on);
  
• as expected, the misogynistic violent extremists in power in Afghanistan are tightening their clampdown on women's rights . . . and released prisoners are threatening to kill the judges who jailed them; 
• the misogynistic rebels who have power over parts of Yemen have said that they will allow aid flights to resume after a stoppage they blamed on Saudi airstrikes;
• "the problem with 'cripping up' and why casting disabled actors matters"; 
• "a man has successfully sued [a neochristian church] after a court found it had vicarious liability for sexual abuse he says he suffered from a notorious priest 50 years ago";
  
• concerns that Iran may be executing up to 100 children a year; 
• Sudan's woes now include the collapse of a "defunct" (presumably, "closed") mine, with over 30 fatalities; 
• a reminder that, whether a signatory to the convention or not, refugee protection is a global responsibility;
  
• ten concerning conflicts to watch next year - which I will also do via here, here, and here.