Hundreds have gathered in India's capital to protest against the continued practice of manual scavenging, after the deaths of sewage cleaners, who are from a 'low-caste' background and forced to enter the sewers to unclog drains and remove human waste with their bare hands. 

The Indian government's statistics indicate that “at least one Indian worker has died while cleaning sewers or septic tanks every five days since the beginning of 2017”. 

The Hong Kong government’s decision to ban the pro-independence Hong Kong National Party is a grim sign for human rights in the territory, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.

Hong Kong’s secretary for security told the party’s convenor that the party’s promotion of Hong Kong independence was a “blatant violation” of Hong Kong’s functional constitution.

The party’s alliance with pro-Tibet and pro-Taiwan independence groups also came under fire.

Canada’s House of Commons has unanimously voted to recognise the crimes committed by Myanmar against Rohingya Muslims as genocide this week.

In a motion, Canadian legislators said they "recognise that these crimes against the Rohingya constitute genocide" and called on the UN Security Council to refer the case to the International Criminal Court.

Israel has ordered villagers in a Bedouin village, Khan al-Ahmar in the West Bank to leave their homes as it plans to demolish their village within the next eight days.

The decision has been deeply criticised by EU countries, namely France, Poland, Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Italy.

In a statement, the EU said it had “repeatedly stated our long-standing position on Israel’s settlement policy, illegal under international law, as reconfirmed by Security Council Resolution 2334 (2016), and actions taken in that context, including the demolitions of Palestinian communities and possible forced transfers of population”.

Opposition politician and music star Robert Kyagulanyi (aka Bobi Wine) was arrested by Ugandan police upon his arrival at the international airport in Kampala on Thursday.

Kyagulanyi had returned to Uganda from the United States, where he sought treatment after reportedly being tortured by the Ugandan security forces.

Authorities have however denied allegations of torture, whilst the police has stated that he was not arrested, but “peacefully escorted” home.

On the day of his return, officials closed roads and set up barricades in an apparent attempt to ban rallies welcoming Kyagulanyi home.

Bangladesh has signed a $50 million grant financing agreement with the World Bank to strengthen its health services in order to respond to the needs of its population of almost a million Rohingya refugees.

This additional financing to the existing Health Sector Support Project will help provide essential health and nutrition services to the Rohingya people, which will include maternal, neonatal, infant, child, and adolescent health, nutrition and psychosocial services, as well as reproductive health care, the World Bank said in a statement on Thursday.

Thousands took to the streets in Addis Ababa to protest against ethnic violence targeting minorities and perpetrated by the country’s majority Oromo ethnic group.

The Azerbaijan state has lost an appeal to bring a defamation case against two French journalists, AP reports.

Azerbaijan attempted to file the case against journalist Elise Lucet and the then-news director of France-2 TV over a 2015 investigative report which called the country a “ferocious” “dictatorship”.

The Versailles Appeal Court upheld a lower court decision throwing out the case, ruling that no state, including Azerbaijan, could bring defamation charges.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that it has opened a “full-fledged preliminary examination” into crimes committed against Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar’s military this week.

Thousands of Rohingya have been killed and over 700,000 displaced, with a United Nations report calling for senior Burmese military figures to be investigated for genocide.

Burundi has threatened to withdraw from the UN human rights council after a commission of inquiry on the country presented its findings, which include allegations of possible crimes against humanity committed by the government.

The state has refused to cooperate with the commission and last week declared the three commissioners to be personae non-gratae.

The Burundian ambassador to the UN in Geneva said the report was “full of lies” and “politically motivated” and threatened to sue the commissioners for defamation.