UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on April 5 called for US authorities to close down the Guantánamo Bay prison camp, emphasizing the continued indefinite incarcerations of many detainees as a clear violation of international law. Of the 166 detainees in Guantánamo, about half have been cleared for transfer, either to home countries or third countries for resettlement, while only nine of them have actually been charged or convicted of crimes. Pillay stressed that those who have been cleared for release must be released immediately, claiming the US government's continued detention of these individuals is a violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (PDF). The High Commissioner also expressed concern about the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013, which she says has created obstacles for the closure of Guantánamo as well as for the trials of detainees in civilian courts.

What are we to make of this? The Atlantic boasts photos of an April 4 international protest called by Ukrainian feminist group Femen in support of young Tunisian activist Amina Tyler, who received death threats after posting topless pictures of herself online in defiance of the growing hegemony of political Islam in her country. Femen's followers waged a "topless jihad," baring their breasts in cities across Europe—including in front of the Great Mosque in Paris. The Kiev protest was also in front of a mosque. Some of the targets were more appropriate, such as the Tunisian consulate in Milan and the embassy in Stockholm. The women scrawled slogans on their bared torsos, like "FREE AMINA." Somewhat disturbingly, some also appropriated the Islamic crescent in a sexualized way, using it to accentuate their breasts. This irreverent image actually appears on the logo of the Femen wesbite, which also touts its own movement as one of "Titslamism."

In some very inspiring news, opposition activists from Syrian President Bashar Assad's Alawite sect publicly broke ranks with the regime at a meeting in Cairo March 31, and urged their fellow Alawites in the army to rebel, Reuters reports. "We call on our brothers in the Syrian army, specifically members of our sect, not to take up arms against their people and to refuse to join the army," the delegates said in a statement. "[T]he Alawite sect was and is being held hostage by the regime," stated the communique, which was read out by Alawite activist Tawfiq Dunia. "One of the goals of the Syrian revolution is to restore the national identity and free the Alawite sect from the family of the ruling regime."

Onésimo Rodríguez, a leader in Panama's Ngöbe-Buglé indigenous group, was killed by a group of masked men in Cerro Punta, in western Chiriquí department, the evening of March 22 following a protest against construction of the Barro Blanco hydroelectric dam. Carlos Miranda, another protester who was attacked along with Rodríguez, said the assailants beat both men with metal bars. Miranda lost consciousness but survived; Rodríguez's body was found in a stream the next day. Miranda said he was unable to identify the attackers because it was dark and their faces were covered. Manolo Miranda and other leaders of the April 10 Movement, which organizes protests against the dam, charged that "the ones that mistreated the Ngöbes were disguised police agents."

Some 1,200 agents from the police forces of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca tried unsuccessfully on March 26 to remove local residents who were blocking a road leading to the Bii Yoxho wind farm, which is under construction in Juchitán de Zaragoza municipality near the Pacific coast. The operation was also intended to recover construction equipment protesters had seized on Feb. 25 in an ongoing effort to stop the completion of the wind project, which is owned by the Mexican subsidiary of the Spanish company Gas Natural Fenosa. Local prosecutor Manuel de Jesús López told the French wire service AFP that 22 people were injured in the March 26 operation, including 11 police agents, and one police agent was taken prisoner. Protesters reported eight local people with serious injuries, including Carlos Sánchez, the coordinator of Radio Totopo, a community radio station.

An estimated 20,000 Chilean secondary and university students marched through downtown Santiago on March 28 to call for free, high-quality education. This was the first major student demonstration of the new school year, continuing a series of demonstrations that started in 2011 to protest the privatization of secondary and higher education that started during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. At their high point in 2011 the marches brought hundreds of thousands of students, teachers and supporters to the streets and dramatically lowered the approval rating of rightwing president Sebastián Piñera; these were the largest demonstrations in Chile since the end of military rule.

Two or more men on a motorcycle shot and killed Haitian journalist and political activist Georges Honorat on the evening of March 23 in front of his home in Delmas in the north of the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area. National Police of Haiti (PNH) spokesperson Inspector Gary Desrosiers said on March 24 that there were still no suspects. The police had also not determined a motive for the murder. The victim had been "receiving threats, anonymous phone calls," according to Yves Joseph, an administrator at Honorat's newspaper, Haïti Progrès, a weekly published in Port-au-Prince and Brooklyn. 

Malian troops swept Timbuktu for remaining Islamist fighters after a battle that left seven dead and prompted France to send reinforcements and fighter jets April 1. The fighters apparently infiltrated Timbuktu after using a car bomb to create a distraction. The previous day, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a checkpoint outside the city, raising fears of a new wave of violence as the European Union launches an ambitious program to overhaul Mali's army. "Objectively, it must be entirely rebuilt," said French general Francois Lecointre, who heads the EU training mission in Mali.