Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 11 July

In today's Brief: California's inmates go on a hunger strike. New revelations about secret CIA prisons. Afghanistan failing it's commitments to women's rights. Egypt to receive new US fighter jets. South Carolina ends a discriminatory policy. At any one time, California holds about 12,000 inmates in extreme isolation... Thousands of inmates, in day two of a hunger strike protesting these conditions, issued a letter of demands... Prolonged solitary confinement, under certain circumstances, can constitute torture... An AP story on the CIA secret prison in Romania that held Khalid Sheikh Mohammed gained attention for what it said about Osama Bin Laden's courier... And what it didn't say regarding "torture"... Afghanistan is failing its commitments to protect women's rights, when you ratify a convention you don't just get a pat on the back and then a pass on your obligations... Emerging from diplomatic isolation and Western economic sanctions, Burma wants to be the “it” destination for foreign investors. The country's long record of rights abuses should give them pause...
South Carolina, the last state to segregate HIV-positive inmates, finally saw the light and ended its policy... From this morning... Coup? What coup? Washington officials have said the US will continue with plans to deliver four F-16 fighter jets to Egypt, signaling the Obama Administration's reluctance to call last week's ouster of president Mohamed Morsy a coup. Labeling it as such would force the US to cut military aid.