Human Rights Watch (HRW) responded in a press release entitled "Why We Report on 'Open' Societies" Oct. 20 to an op-ed in the that day's New York Times, "Rights Watchdog, Lost in the Mideast," written by the organization's former chairman Robert Bernstein, accusing the group of bias against Israel, which it characterized as one of the few "open societies" in the Middle East. HRW responded that the group covers "open" societies such as Israel and the US as well as "closed" ones. Defending its coverage of Israel, HRW wrote:

Hundreds of protesters hurled stones and petrol bombs at police, who responded with tear gas and armored cars, in Algiers on Both Oct. 19 and 20. One officer was seriously injured. The clashes broke out on when residents of a shantytown in the Diar Echams district of the city protested that they had not been included on a list of people who qualified for new housing. (Reuters, Oct. 20) The clashes came as US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Africa Vicki Huddleston arrived in Algiers for talks on closer counter-terrorism ties with the regime. At a press conference, she hailed the "good co-operation" between Algiers and Washington on regional security concerns. (Magharebia, Oct. 21)

The US Supreme Court on Oct. 20 agreed to hear Kiyemba v. Obama, in which the court will consider whether a group of 13 Uighur detainees at Guantánamo Bay can be released into the US. In February, a panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed an October 2008 district court order that would have provided for their release.

At least five people are dead and several seriously injured after a group of club-wielding thugs attacked residents of Baijiamao village in Lin Xian county of central China's Shanxi province Oct. 12. The villagers were attempting to protect a local coal mine which they assert is their collective property when a mob of some 100 presumably hired by the mine's new private owner stormed the site in an attempt to remove the residents who had gathered there. The thugs set on the residents with broadswords, steel pipes and shovels, while one even drove a truck into a crowd of villagers.

From Human Rights Watch, Oct. 20:

The Chinese government should immediately account for all detainees in its custody and allow independent investigations into the July 2009 protests in Urumqi and their aftermath, Human Rights Watch said in a new report on enforced "disappearances" released today.

Prosecutors have re-opened an investigation into charges that Colombia's Vice President Francisco Santos attempted to organize illegal paramilitary groups, the office of the Fiscalía announced Oct. 19. The Fiscalía opened an initial investigation in 2007 after a former paramilitary boss, Salvatore Mancuso, testified that Santos had proposed creating the Bloque Capital paramilitary group in the late 1990s.

The Mexico Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) presented a report in Mexico City on Oct. 13 on the dangers facing human rights activists in Mexico. According to the report, "Defending Human Rights: Caught Between Commitment and Risk," the OHCHR found 128 cases of aggression against activists from January 2006 to August 2009, including 10 murders. OHCHR staff visited 10 of Mexico's 32 states to compile the report, interviewing non-governmental organizations (NGOs), human rights defenders, victims of aggression, journalists and government authorities.

At least 150,000 Mexicans joined a march from the Angel of Independence in downtown Mexico City to the central Zócalo Plaza in the late afternoon of Oct. 15 to protest the Oct. 10 seizure by Mexican soldiers and federal police of facilities of the government-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC). Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa's center-right administration decreed the liquidation of the company and terminated its employees as the security forces were occupying the plants. The number of workers laid off is now said to be more than 43,000.