Bahrain Document: "Targets of Retribution" --- The Regime's Attack on Medical Staff (Human Rights Watch)

Masked security personnel in effect turned the Salmaniya Medical Complex hospital and other health facilities into detention centers where many injured and sick persons, particularly those apparently wounded by security forces, feared to seek treatment for fear of ill-treatment and arrest and where many medical staff feared to work. Security forces forcibly moved patients, sometimes against medical advice, within and between hospitals and held them incommunicado. Medical staff and families of protesters injured and killed by the security forces were unable to learn the whereabouts of detained patients. In at least four cases, officials in hospitals or police stations later called families to inform them that their relatives had died and that the families should retrieve their bodies from the hospital.

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Bahrain Propaganda Special: Busted ---- UN Calls Out Regime for "Blatant Distortion"

Navi Pillay (2nd from left) with Bahrain officialsThe UN High Commissioner would like to stress that she made no such statement, and is disturbed by this blatant distortion of her words. She will formally request the Government officials who attended the meeting to issue a correction.

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Iran Opinion: How Obama Can Help the Iranian People (Abdi and Parsi)

On March 20, President Obama marked Norooz, the Iranian New Year, with his strongest words to date in solidarity with the people of Iran. "Though times may seem dark," he told Iranians, "I am with you."

Days later, with significant US backing, the UN Human Rights Council voted to establish a human rights monitor on Iran, answering the call of Iranian human rights and democracy activists.

There are a number of crucial measures to build on the monitor effort. Though they may not appear sweeping enough to some, they actually make a difference. The absence of a silver bullet should not prevent us from taking these small but important steps to stand with the Iranian people.

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Israel-Gaza: Reconsidering the Goldstone Report (Goldstone)

We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war of 2008-09 than we did when I chaired the fact-finding mission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council that produced what has come to be known as the Goldstone Report. If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.

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UN Commission: Israel Broke International Laws in Flotilla Raid (BBC)

The BBC reports:

Israel's military broke international laws during a raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, a UN Human Rights Council investigation says.

Its report said the action by commandos, which left nine dead, was "disproportionate" and "betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality".

It said there was clear evidence to support prosecutions against Israel for "wilful killing".

Israel rejected the report as "biased" and "one-sided."

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