Human Rights Watch

The latest report from Human Rights Watch, published on Tuesday evening, says that discrimination and violence against minorities, domestic violence, pressure on media and problems with dealing with the wartime past continued to be major issues for Balkan states and Central Europe last year.

JANUARY

January 11 - Romania begins a six-month EU Council presidency amid anti-government protests at home and calls from EU leaders to respect the rule of law.

January 17 - Human Rights Watch's World Report 2019 highlights threats to journalists and minority and immigrants' rights as key problems in the Balkans.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slammed China on Dec. 28 for its treatment of minority Muslim Uighur population, calling for "respect and protect religious freedom".

"From #Tibet to #Xinjiang, the Chinese Communist Party's repressive campaigns are not about combating terrorism," Pompeo wrote on Twitter.

The United Nations on Dec. 27 approved a Russian-led bid that aims to create a new convention on cybercrime, alarming rights groups and Western powers that fear a bid to restrict online freedom.    

The General Assembly approved the resolution sponsored by Russia and backed by China, which would set up a committee of international experts in 2020.    

Hundreds of unaccompanied children are living in "inhuman and degrading" conditions in a migrant camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, putting their mental and physical well-being at risk, an international human rights organization said Wednesday.

A decade after the European Court of Human Rights first ruled that the Bosnian constitution violates the rights of minorities, Human Rights Watch, HRW, has said in a press release that Bosnia has done nothing to end second-class status for Jews, Roma, and other minorities.

More than three quarters of children living in state institutions in Serbia are children with disabilities, according to the latest United Nations Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty.

At 77 per cent, Serbia ranks joint third with Hungary behind Turkmenistan and China in a total of 57 countries analysed.

More than 270 people have been killed in the protests in Iraq that are ongoing since October 1, Rupert Colville, an official spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in Geneva.

Human Rights Watch, HRW, on Friday said Croatia should not be allowed to joint the passport-free Schengen area because of its "unlawful" and violent pushbacks of refugees and asylum seekers.

Human rights groups urged Greece on Tuesday to scrap plans they say will restrict access to protection for asylum seekers as the government said the burden of dealing with an influx of migrants was getting too heavy to bear.