Spain’s Audiencia Nacional high court ordered Telegram on Saturday to temporarily suspend its activities in the country, after a complaint by major media companies that users were sharing content without their permission, according to consumer advocacy group FACUA. FACUA condemned the decision, calling it “disproportionate.” The decision came after company officials in the Virgin Islands [...]
Search Results for: dissidents
Under President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s leadership, the Sri Lankan civil war reached a brutal conclusion on May 18, 2009, ending a 25-year-long conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist rebel group. Rooted in longstanding grievances, including discriminatory policies against Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, the conflict saw the [...]
The UN Human Rights Council released a report on Friday on the human rights situation in Belarus during and after the country’s presidential election in 2020. It concludes that the crime against humanity of persecution may have been committed in Belarus. The report, which is the advance unedited version, presents evidence on a wide range [...]
UK intelligence agency reduces Northern Ireland terrorism threat level
MI5, the UK’s intelligence and security agency, announced Wednesday a significant reduction in the terrorism threat level for Northern Ireland (NI)-related terrorism, lowering the threat level from “severe” to “substantial.” The reduction indicates that an attack from NI is now considered likely rather than highly likely. This adjustment, announced independently of the Police Service of [...]
Sweden Supreme Court upholds life sentence of former Iran official
The Swedish Supreme Court upheld on Wednesday the guilty verdict and life sentence of Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian official convicted for his involvement in a mass execution of political prisoners in Iran in 1988. Nouri was previously arrested in 2019 at a Swedish airport on charges of grave violations of international law and 24 [...]
Belarus dispatch: activist accused of tax evasion faces extradition from Serbia to Belarus
Belarusian law students enrolled at European Humanities University are filing reports with JURIST on current circumstances in Belarus under the constitutionally-disputed presidency of Alexander Lukashenka. Katsiaryna Vasilionak files this dispatch from Vilnius, Lithuania. Andrey Gnyot was arrested on October 30, 2023, by the border service of the Republic of Serbia upon arrival in the [...]
Close ally of Alexei Navalny claims he was days away from being freed in a prisoner exchange
A close ally of recently deceased Alexei Navalny, Maria Pevchikh, claimed Monday that the Russian dissident was just days away from being freed in a prisoner exchange. Pevchikh said that an agreement had been reached, offering Navalny and two American citizens in exchange for FSB officer Vadim Krasikov, who is currently in prison in Germany [...]
This piece has been corrected to reflect the fact that Russia only attempted to issue Red Notices against Bill Browder eight times. An erroneous claim that Russia accounts for 33 percent of all Red Notices was also removed, along with one that stated INTERPOL’s data processing policy for refugees is new. An INTERPOL spokesperson reached [...]
Haiti ex-president's wife and former PM indicted in assassination investigation
The wife of Haiti’s former President Jovenel Moïse, Martine Marie Étienne Moïse, and former Prime Minister Claude Joseph are among 51 people indicted over the assassination of the former president, according to a 122-page document from Judge Walther Wesser Voltaire which was made public online by the Haitian news site AyiboPost. The document alleged on [...]
Amnesty International (AI) issued a statement Monday urging Ethiopian authorities to stop using the country’s state of emergency as a way to “silence peaceful dissent” by arbitrarily detaining politicians and journalists critical of the government. The state of emergency, originally imposed for six months in August 2023 under Article 93 of the Ethiopian Constitution, granted [...]