Violent clashes between Kurds and police erupted in the north Syrian town of Ein al-Arab Aug. 16, according to the Arab Organisation for Human Rights in Syria (AOHRS). The organization said the violence flared after police halted a march in support of a banned separatist group, Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Cars were burned, and stones hurled at police who responded by firing tear gas and making a number of arrests.

The Abu Dubai-based Information & Technology Publishing's online magazine offers an Aug. 14 story by Rhys Jones, "Wronging Iraq’s rights," that paints a dire picture of the kind of oppressive theocracy that could be enshrined by the new constitution. The Aug. 15 deadline for the new charter has now been extended. But unless sweeping changes are made, "it seems increasingly likely to mean a huge erosion of human rights for Iraq’s 13 million women."

The Committee to Defend Women's Rights in the Middle East offers this commentary from Yanar Mohammed of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI):

Yanar Mohammed: Condemn a constitution of de-humanizing women
An era of post-occupation atrocities unfolded to disclose the final chapter of human rights abuse in Iraq: A constitution of legalizing women's discrimination.

A new wave of paramilitary violence is reported from Mexico's conflicted southern state of Chiapas. Within the last eight weeks, more than 20 Chol Maya families have been displaced from the community of Andres Quintana Roo, in Sabanilla municipality, by threats and attacks from the notorious paramilitary group Paz y Justicia, according to the Chiapas-based Fray Bartolome de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba).

At least 18 opponents of the Cuban government were detained in connection with four small protests on or near Havana's waterfront on July 13. Several hundred government supporters, including construction workers on a job at the nearby Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital, attacked the protesters, who numbered a few dozen at most; several protesters were reportedly injured. Dissident sources say the government organized the counter-demonstrators and transported them in official vehicles. The protests commemorated an incident on July 13, 1994, in which 41 people died as they tried to flee Cuba in a stolen tugboat; dissidents say three pursuing government boats purposely rammed and sank the tugboat, while the government says the boats collided accidentally. (La Jornada, Mexico, July 14, 15; AFP, July 13, 14)

The interim Haitian government released right-wing paramilitary leader Louis Jodel Chamblain from jail on Aug. 11. Chamblain, a leader in an armed rebellion that ended when President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in February 2004, had been imprisoned since April 2004 because of his conviction of several crimes committed under military rule in the early 1990s. An Aug. 17, 2004 retrial cleared Chamblain of charges in the 1993 murder of business leader Antoine Izmery, and on May 6, 2005 the Supreme Court overturned his conviction in the 1994 massacre in the Raboteau neighborhood of Gonaives. He remains convicted of the 1994 murder of a priest, Jean-Marie Vincent.

Early on Aug. 2, unidentified individuals broke into and used homemade explosives to set fire to the Quebracho Poty community radio station at the San Ramon Nonato parish in Puerto Casado, Paraguay. No one was hurt, but the attack left virtually the entire station destroyed. Some people believe the attack may have been carried out by employees of the Victoria company, owned by the World Unification Church of Korean businessperson Sun Myung Moon.

The Indonesian government and the rebel Free Aceh Movement (GAM) signed a peace deal in Finland Aug. 15 aimed at ending the local war which has claimed 15,000 lives in over 29 years. "This is the beginning of a new era for Aceh," said former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, who mediated the talks. "Much hard work lies ahead." Efforts to end the conflict quickened after the tsunami in December, which devastated much of Aceh. In the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, big screens were set up in the main mosque so that people could witness the signing in Helsinki.