The state government of Queensland, Australia, initiated on Thursday an independent review into the use of pediatric gender hormone therapy. While the final report is due by November 30, the pause on new patients under 18 accessing hormone therapies within the public healthcare system will remain in place until the review is completed. Professor Ruth [...]
The Perth District Court on Thursday convicted a 19-year-old man for sharing Islamic State beheading videos online via social media. The conviction, followed by a sentence of three years imprisonment, marks the first since the enactment of Australia’s new counterterrorism laws in 2024. According to the Australian Federal Police, the content found on the man’s [...]
A report presented to the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday found that Israel’s military operations in Gaza since October 7, 2023 have disproportionately impacted Palestinian women and girls, through their systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence. The report, which was presented by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on [...]
The Australian justice system is failing to support victims in seeking justice and holding perpetrators accountable, according to the final report presented by the Australian Law Reform Commission to the parliament on Thursday. The report, titled, “Safe, Informed, Supported: Reforming Justice Responses to Sexual Violence,” also issued recommendations on how to correct the situation. In Australia, [...]
Australia’s Northern Territory (NT) Police Commissioner Michael Murphy resigned from the NT Police Association (NTPA) on Monday, after the NTPA criticised the apology he made to First Nations people at the Garma Festival on Saturday. On the second day of the Garma Festival, Australia’s largest Indigenous gathering which celebrates Yolngu life and culture, Murphy apologised [...]
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called upon Taliban authorities for the immediate and unconditional release of journalist Mohammed Ibrahim Mohtaj on Monday. Mohtaj is the third journalist to be arrested in Kandahar, Afghanistan in the past month as the Taliban authorities crack down further on local media workers and journalists. Mohtaj, a radio presenter [...]
Human Rights Watch Friday called on Latin America, the United States and Europe to take action to protect the right to vote in Venezuela in the lead-up to the country’s presidential election Sunday, amidst numerous reports of arbitrary disqualifications of opposition candidates, arbitrary arrests and restrictions to civic space. In June 2023, former opposition party [...]
Mikalai Kazlou, former head of the banned Belarusian opposition United Civic Party, was released from prison on Monday, according to human rights group Viasna. Kazlou previously served 30 months in prison before his release. Kazlou was sentenced to two and a half years in prison over organizing or participating in acts that violated public order [...]
Australia’s Human Rights Law Centre published a report on Wednesday finding that the ability to protest in Australia has been eroded by anti-protest legislation over the last two decades. The report, entitled Protest in Peril: Our Shrinking Democracy, analysed and compiled every bill which affected protests in each Australian jurisdiction over the last 20 years [...]
Laws criminalizing coercive control came into force in New South Wales (NSW), Australia on Monday. Section 54D of the NSW’s Crimes Act 1900 criminalizes coercive conduct and abusive behavior against intimate partners by attaching a maximum penalty of seven years imprisonment upon conviction. The legislation, which is the first stand-alone offence of coercive control in [...]
