Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 24 March 2014

[Jefferson23]

In today's Brief: Ukraine tensions; Russian media crackdown; Syria barrel bombs; 529 sentenced to death in Egypt with journalists still under lock and key; CAR crisis; and the meeting of China and France's leaders.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov met for the first time with his Ukrainian counterpart, Andriy Deshchytsia, about Russia’s occupation of Crimea. The meeting took place in The Hague on the outskirts of the meeting of the G7 leaders – notably no longer the G8. (Russia said it is unbothered by its exclusion from the group.) Over the past few days, Russian forces have seized Ukrainian military bases in Crimea. A monitoring mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is headed for Ukraine, though Moscow will not allow them in Crimea, which it now claims is part of Russia.

Russian authorities have blocked several independent websites and are proposing new laws that would further restrict freedom of expression. These moves, together with the detention of hundreds of peaceful protesters since early March, are part of a new crackdown on free expression and assembly.

http://www.hrw.org/the-day-in-human-rights