Bahrain Blocks HRW Researcher; FIFA Farce; Iran Elections: HRW Daily Brief

Sharia prosecutors in Indonesia’s Aceh province say two men on trial for gay sex should each be punished with 80 lashes. Earlier this week, a court in Indonesia sentenced Jakarta's Christian mayor to two years in prison on blasphemy charges. From earlier today: Bahraini authorities have denied an entry visa to an HRW researcher. Omar Shakir, an American citizen, arrived at Manama Airport on May 9 and identified himself as HRW's researcher for Israel and Palestine, and said he'd come to attend meetings on the margins of an assembly convened by FIFA, the world football federation. But instead he was told he was "not welcome", and was ordered to board a departing flight. One of the issues HRW's researcher had been hoping to press was why, after four long years, FIFA is still deciding whether to comply with its own rules and stop sponsoring games played by Israeli clubs on land stolen from Palestinians. It's election season in Iran, and a rare period when there is expanded public debate in the country. But none of the candidates seeking election seem willing to acknowledge the suffering of the country's political prisoners, some of whom are now on hunger strike. Russian arms firms may be cashing in on Syrian atrocities in Turkey, HRW has said, as it criticized Turkey's decision to allow Russia's state-owned arms company, Rosoboronexport, to attend an arms fair in Istanbul. A "crusading" human rights lawyer who has just been released after two years of secret custody in China has emerged "emaciated"" and "unrecognizable", his family say. There has been an alarming rise in infant mortality and maternal death rates in Venezuela, new figures show, as the country grapples with an economic crisis that the opposition says has been badly mismanaged. While Algeria has recently become the first country in North Africa to define some forms of domestic violence as crimes in its penal code, the government still needs to do more to protect women.