Amnesty International called Jan. 15 for the release of three anti-slavery activists who were imprisoned in Mauritania. One of the imprisoned activists is prominent opposition politician Biram Ould Dah Ould Abeid, who was the runner-up in last June's presidential elections. The former presidential candidate is also the president of the Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement (IRA) and won a UN Human Rights Prize in 2013. The three activists were given two-year sentences after being convicted of membership of an unrecognized organization and of taking part in an unauthorized assembly. The court acquitted seven other activists. Protesters outside the courthouse demonstrating against the judgment were dispersed by police with batons and tear gas. The IRA members that were arrested were engaged in a peaceful campaign to raise awareness about land rights for people of slave descent. Slave descendants who work on the land do not have any rights and must give a portion of their crops to their traditional masters. Police broke up the peaceful IRA meeting due to the absence of documents authorizing the group to meet, despite the fact that the IRA had requested the documents. AI called the sentence "politically motivated."

An Egyptian court in Baheira governorate on Jan. 10 sentenced a student to three years in prison for announcing on Facebook that he is an atheist and for allegedly "insulting Islam." The sentence, the latest of several handed down on blasphemy charges in recent years, comes amid a coordinated government crackdown on perceived atheists. Authorities arrested the student, Karim Ashraf Mohamed al-Banna, with a group of others at a youth café in Beheira in November, Egypt's Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression reported. "Atheists are one of Egypt's least-protected minorities, although the constitution ostensibly guarantees freedom of belief and expression," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Egyptian authorities need to be guided by the constitution and stop persecuting people for atheism."

A group of US senators on Jan. 13 proposed legislation (PDF) that would place a moratorium on the release or transfer of prisoners from Guantánamo Bay. Republican Senators Kelly Ayotte (NH), John McCain (AZ), Lindsey Graham (SC) and Richard Burr (NC) touted  the new bill as the best course of action to protect US national security. The act, titled "The Detaining Terrorists to Protect America Act of 2015," would halt all releases of Guantánamo detainees with high or medium risk ratings, issue more prohibitions ontransfers and provide more transparency on how detainees' risk levels are determined. Ayotte stated, "It's clear that we need a 'time out' so that we do not re-confront the terrorists that we had captured and are currently in Guantánamo." The new legislation will place pressure on the White House as the Obama administration released 28 prisoners from Guantánamo in 2014.

With more than a thousand militants killed and territory slipping away, ISIS is losing its grip on the Syrian border town of Kobani in the face of stiff resistance by Kurdish fighters backed by US-led air-strikes, says an optimistic account in AP Jan. 14. The "stunning reversal" for ISIS, which in September seemed poised to take Kobani, could be a critical turning point. "An IS defeat in Kobani would quite visibly undermine the perception of unstoppable momentum and inevitable victory that IS managed to project, particularly after it captured Mosul," said Faysal Itani, a fellow at the DC-based Atlantic Council.

Ecuador's Minister of Economic and Social Inclusion Betty Tola announced Jan. 5 that the government would not evict indigenous organization CONAIE from its Quito office, which has for weeks been occupied by supporters prepared to resist removal. The repreive came the day before the scheduled eviction, with a cross-country march arriving in Quito for a mobilization in support of CONAIE. A march on the Carondelet presidential palace, with a traditional runner (chaski) bringing a list of CONAIE demands for President Rafael Correa, was blocked by riot police. Tola said a final decision on the use of the building would be put off for two months. Correa, who was away in China as the affair came to a climax, earlier charged that CONAIE was exploiting the premises for "political uses."

Negotiations between the Cololmbian government and FARC rebels will resume Jan. 26 in Havana, as the guerillas maintain an indefinite unilateral ceasefire. Three weeks into the ceasefire on Jan. 9, Bogotá's Resource Center for Conflict Analysis (CERAC) reported that violence had dropped to its lowest level in 30 years. It found no ceasefire violations attributable to the FARC. (Prensa Latina, Jan. 13; EFE, Jan. 9) A FARC communiqué that day acknowledged military actions of a "defensive character" in response to army operations against the guerillas' 15th Front and Teófilo Forero Column in Huila, and 26th Front in Caquetá. The Caquetá clashes left six army troops dead, the statement said. (El Colombiano, Jan. 10) On Dec. 31, the FARC reported "offensive" actions by the army against the 6th Front in Cauca and 34th Front in Antioquia. (El Colombiano, Dec. 31) Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzón said counter-guerilla operations would not be abated: "We are going to use all available means and capacities to enforce the law...and protect Colombians." FARC negotiator Iván Márquez on his Twitter account charged that Pinzón is "disparaging a peace gesture." (El Colombiano, Jan. 9; El Tiempo, Jan. 8) President Juan Manuel Santos asserted: "Instructions to the armed forces have not changed. A bilateral ceasefire will be discussed at the adequate moment." (El Tiempo, Jan. 6)

The retrial of former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity was delayed on Jan. 5. Two of the three judges on the panel accepted the defense's motion that the third judge, Judge Jeannette Valdez, should recuse herself from the trial on the grounds that she is biased because she wrote her master's thesis on genocide. Rios Montt is being tried for ordering military operations that led to the torture, rape and murder of 1,771 indigenous Ixil Mayan between 1982 and 1983, part of Guatemala's bloody 1960-1996 civil war. Rios Montt was convicted on these charges in 2013 and sentenced to 80 years in prison, but 10 days later his sentence was overturned by the Constitutional Court on procedural grounds and a retrial was ordered.

A court in Tajikistan on Jan. 13 sentenced Sukhrat Kudratov, an award-winning human rights lawyer, to nine years in prison for bribery and fraud. Kudratov, who was named human rights defender of the year in 2011 by the Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, represented political official Zaid Saidov in 2013 after he was arrested for starting a new political party. Before his arrest in July 2014, Kudratov also represented victims of torture, political activists and accused religious extremists. Many see Kudratov's imprisonment as a warning against criticism of the authoritarian government. Steve Swerdlow of Human Rights Watch (HRW) called the action "a serious setback for the freedom of expression."