Engineers Frik Potgieter and Peter Huxham returned home to South Africa on Sunday after serving more than two years in prison in Equatorial Guinea on seemingly arbitrary drug trafficking charges, according to a 2024 conclusion of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Potgieter and Huxham were released from prison by a presidential pardon granted [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticized Hungary’s government on Monday for choosing to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in reaction to ICC arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant for their roles in alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Hungary’s withdrawal will take effect [...]

Internet access in the Gaza Strip was restored on Monday following a complete three-day internet blackout due to Israel’s apparent targeting of Palestine’s communications infrastructure, allowing civilians to access essential information and the resumption of humanitarian operations. Palestine’s Telecommunications Regulation Authority accused Israel of “systematically” targeting Gaza’s communications infrastructure. Israel has not responded to these [...]

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported on Thursday that forced displacement has doubled globally in the last decade, with a lack of funding to accommodate the increased number of displaced people dependent on UNHCR for support. The UNHCR said the increase was “largely driven by protracted conflicts in Sudan, Myanmar [...]

Four of the 12 crew members of the Madleen, including prominent activist Greta Thunberg, were deported from Israel on Tuesday, with the remaining eight crew members, including French Member of European Parliament Rima Hassan, still in custody in Israel. The crew members were detained in international waters aboard a ship that intended to deliver humanitarian [...]

A report from the Senate of France released on Monday alleged that the French cabinet covered up the use of illegal treatment methods for mineral water by Nestlé, misleading the public. EU law imposes strict limits on the treatment methods that can be used for products that are marketed as mineral water. The Senate report [...]

The UN expressed criticism on Monday of the Maldives Parliament’s dismissal of two judges from the country’s Supreme Court. The UN Human Rights Office claimed that the government’s recent anti-corruption investigations targeted at Supreme Court judges threaten the independence of the judiciary. The UN cited the timing of the investigations that led to the dismissal [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the military of Burkina Faso on Monday of orchestrating massacres of Fulani civilians between March 14 and April 22 under the auspices of a counter-terrorism operation against Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimeen (JNIM), which allegedly retaliated through the targeted killings of civilians viewed as supportive of the military. The military [...]

EU High Representative and European Commission Vice President Kaja Kallas demanded that Israel allow humanitarian access to Gaza on a Tuesday call with Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. The demand comes amid Israel’s nine-week-long blockade on humanitarian aid. Kallas condemned the politicization of humanitarian aid and argued that aid should be provided by humanitarian organizations [...]

Spain’s Supreme Court dismissed charges of five tax violations against former King Juan Carlos on Monday due to a lack of new evidence, upholding a prosecutor’s 2022 exoneration of all tax violations that were found. The case was brought by a group of former jurists who argued that only a court can exonerate an individual [...]