An Istanbul court on Friday acquitted the president and executive board members of the Istanbul Bar Association (IBA) of terrorism-related charges. The ruling that marks a significant development amid sustained criticism of Türkiye’s use of criminal law against lawyers and professional associations. The case arose from a public statement issued by the IBA in December [...]

A US diplomatic team arrived in Venezuela Friday, marking the first such visit since the US military operation that resulted in the capture of former President Nicolás Maduro last week. The Venezuelan government, now led by interim President Delcy Rodríguez, confirmed the delegation’s presence and announced the initiation of an “exploratory process” aimed at re-establishing [...]

A federal district court in New York issued a two week temporary restraining order (TRO) Friday, blocking a Trump administration plan to withhold family assistance funds from five states. On Tuesday, the administration said that it would suspend payments to California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York under three federal social programs because of alleged [...]

The Africa deputy director at Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday expressed concern over the arrest of well-known government critic Sarah Bireete in Uganda ahead of the country’s upcoming elections. Ashwanee Budoo-Scholtz stated: “Sarah Bireete’s arrest is a demonstration of the Uganda government’s continuing intolerance of dissent. The Ugandan authorities should release Bireete, drop all [...]

The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar urged the international community on Thursday to reject Myanmar’s current election, describing it as a “sham” that exposed the “coercion, violence, and exclusion” driving the voting process. After the first round of voting, Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews said the polls failed to meet [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to prioritize human rights on his trip to China from January 13 to 17. Carney’s trip is significant because it is the first visit to China by a Canadian prime minister in more than eight years. Canada-China relations have been strained in recent years as [...]

Across the past eight decades, the international community has experienced successive “waves” of atrocity accountability—periods in which global norms either strengthened or eroded in the face of mass violence, authoritarian resurgence, and geopolitical disruption. Today, the world stands at the threshold of a fourth wave: the Age of Aggression, a moment defined by the collapse [...]

The recent finalization of Russia’s Selena project, a nuclear power plant slated for the lunar surface by 2035 under the joint Russo-Chinese International Lunar Research Station program, has been hailed as a triumph of engineering. But beneath the cooling towers lies a volatile reality. We are about to place the highest-stakes technologies of the 21st [...]

Amnesty International, together with 13 civil society organizations, called on candidates in Benin’s upcoming legislative and presidential elections on Thursday to prioritize human rights protection within their political programs. The rights organization noted that the deteriorating human rights situation in Benin demands political action in order to align with international human rights standards. It also [...]