UN committee backs new right to privacy
UNITED NATION – The U.N. General Assembly’s human rights committee on Tuesday unanimously adopted a resolution sponsored by Brazil and Germany to protect the right to privacy against unlawful surveillance, after months of reports about U.S. eavesdropping abroad.
The symbolic resolution, which seeks to extend personal privacy rights to all people, followed a series of disclosures of U.S. eavesdropping on foreign leaders, including Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, that surprised and angered allies.
Brazil’s Ambassador Antonio de Aguiar Patriota said the resolution “establishes for the first time that human rights should prevail irrespective of the medium, and therefore need to be protected online and offline.”
The resolution expresses deep concern at “the negative impact” that such surveillance, “in particular when carried out on a mass scale, may have on the exercise and enjoyment of human rights.”
Egyptian police attack protesters in Cairo
CAIRO – Black-clad Egyptian police descended on two small anti-government rallies in Cairo on Tuesday and fired water cannons to disperse them, enforcing a controversial new law restricting protests. The heavy hand fueled a backlash among secular activists and liberals who accuse the military-backed government of accelerating down a path even more authoritarian than the Hosni Mubarak era.
The scenes of protesters being dragged away and beaten, with dozens arrested, pitted security forces against secular youth activists, in a new front after months of a heavy and far bloodier crackdown on Islamists since the army’s ouster of President Mohammed Morsi. Criticism came even from supporters of the new military-backed government, who warned that the new law will increase opposition and could push secular activists into a common cause with Islamists.
France to send troops to former Africa colony
DAKAR, Senegal – France promised Tuesday to send 1,000 troops to Central African Republic amid warnings of potential genocide in the near-anarchic former French colony.
Whether the French forces will save lives largely depends on how far the foreign soldiers venture outside the capital, Bangui, to the lawless provinces where mostly Muslim rebels have been attacking Christian villages, and Christian militias have recently launched retaliatory attacks.
The French move comes less than a week after French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius warned “the country is on the verge of genocide” and marks the second time this year that France has sent troops to a former colony.
Associated Press
