Morning Briefing

Attacks, kidnappings, and the murders of health care workers in the uprisings taking place across the Arab world violate principles held in the Geneva Conventions and international human rights treaties, Richard Sollom, deputy director of Physicians for Human Rights, writes in this Global Post opinion piece. "Recently I briefed the U.S. Congress on eight proximate causes -- which I describe below -- for the recent rise in such abuses across the Arab world," he says. The eight causes include the unaccountability of military forces; medical workers have first-hand knowledge of the extent and responsible party of attacks; health care workers sometimes are viewed as "helping the enemy" and are attacked out of retribution; "perceived political activism"; "discrimination based on religious identity"; and "[o]f course error is a possible cause for violations of medical neutrality," he notes.