While the undersigned organizations recognize the draft resolution condemning Syria currently being discussed by the Security Council, the current text does not adequately address the severity of the situation on the ground and fails to support international accountability for crimes committed by the government of Syria. The undersigned civil society organizations from around the world call on the United Nations (UN) Security Council to hold an emergency meeting to adopt a resolution ensuring protection for victims of human rights violations in Syria and accountability for potential crimes, including crimes against humanity, committed by the Syrian authorities.

In particular, we call on the Security Council to pass a resolution that will:

Copenhagen–Algiers, 20 December 2011.  On 13 December 2011, the National People’s Assembly of Algeria (Assemblée nationale populaire, APN) adopted a repressive law on associations. In October, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN) and its member organisations in Algeria – the Coalition of Families of the Disappeared (Collectif des familles des disparu(e)s d’Algérie) and the Algerian Human Rights Defence League (Ligue Algérienne pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme,  LADDH) – have sent the NPA parliamentarians a letter urging them to make changes to the text of the proposed law. Our organisations deplore the fact that the text adopted by the APN has remained substantially unchanged and vigorously condemn its provisions, which does not guarantee the right to freedom of association and imposes additional restrictions on associations, especially with regard to cooperation between Algerian associations and their international partners.

By EMHRN 29/12/2011 

Egyptian security forces, in uniform and in civilian clothes, and public prosecutors have stormed the offices of: Arab Center for Independence of Justice and Legal Professions (ACIJP) (Egyptian NGO), The Budgetary and Human Rights Observatory (Egyptian NGO), The National Democratic Institute (NDI) (the Cairo and Assuit office) (an American organization with an office in Egypt), the International Republic Institute (IRI) (an American organization with an office in Egypt), Freedom House (an American organization with an office in Egypt) and Konrad Adenauer (a German NGO). The staff members of these organizations are currently being investigated by the public prosecutors inside the location of their offices. Police forces are searching their papers, laptops and computers.

This paper asks why women politicians tend to do worse in SMD districts than in their PR counterparts, even with gender quotas. Mexico is an excellent case to study this phenomenon because it has PR and a SMD tier, both with a quota rule, and a ban on consecutive reelection that limits the effects of incumbency advantage. This setting allows us to explore a key difference between SMD and closed list PR seats: campaigning. Despite the fact that most female candidates are sent to losing SMD districts in Mexico, we cannot know conclusively whether party leaders ignore quality female candidates in competitive and bastion areas in favor of their male co-partisans.