News stories by Daan Bauwens, page 4

A proposal to put an end to the highly anti-democratic nature of the European Union’s Bilateral Investment Treaties was heavily watered down by a plenary voting in the European Parliament. However, in their current form the treaties may pose a serious risk for European democracy.

A political initiative to eliminate discrimination against the Alevi, Turkey’s main religious minority, risks being stymied by the Diyanet, the country’s powerful religious body that does not recognise anything but Sunni Islam.

A ban on the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party in Turkey has not deterred Kurdish filmmakers from all over the globe gathering in this southeastern city to continue their struggle for recognition through cultural means.

Turkey is signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, but that does not stop minors in the country's Kurdish dominated eastern and southeastern regions from ending up with stiff jail sentences.

Turkey’s new human rights bill has a flaw — not a single rights group was consulted in the drafting.

The satellite receiver has speeded up the process of wiping out the cultural heritage of Morocco's Berbers. Old traditions are now dying out under the influence of television imams.

Informal talks are being held in Vienna between the different parties involved in the long lasting conflict over the Western Sahara. A new plan proposed by the Obama administration will be discussed between the Polisario and the Kingdom of Morocco.

The new Moroccan family law was designed to give women equal rights in the family. But five years after its introduction, Moroccan women leaders say opposition to the law from politicians and within the judicial system persists, and the new law has not been able to change Moroccan mentality.

More than 300 African refugees are gathered at the gates of the Moroccan United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), asking to be moved to another country because their rights are not respected in Morocco. Several refugees say they have been beaten up by Moroccan UN personnel.

After the internal investigation into the misconduct of Israeli soldiers in the course of the Gaza assault was closed suspiciously fast, a brief overview of publications by army officials, published months before the start of the war, suggests the reported misconduct was policy and not coincidence.