Freedom and democracy are slumping worldwide, trends spurred on by rising authoritarianism, media suppression, and myriad governments’ failures to adhere to the rule of law, advocacy group Freedom House warned in its 2023 Freedom in the World report, released Thursday. The annual report, which ranks the world’s countries and territories from most to least free, [...]

The so-called Anti-Homosexuality Bill, introduced to Uganda’s parliament on Thursday, seeks to ban all forms of homosexual relations, as well as vaguely described “related matters.” Under the legislation, introduced by Member of Parliament Asuman Basalirwa, individuals convicted of the “offense of homosexuality” would face 10 years in prison. Notably, this offense includes not only sexual [...]

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Tuesday held that Armenia violated its duty to prevent a soldier from taking his own life. The case centered on the 2010 suicide death of Artak Nazaryan, then 30, who is believed to have taken his own life with his military-issued rifle following months of hazing and [...]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has signaled a willingness to engage with Russia in peace talks, so long as they are framed by core tenets of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Zelensky said in a statement Monday evening that he be open to such negotiations, but only if they are rooted in the restoration of Ukraine’s [...]

Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Thursday announced he had sent two busloads of migrants to the Washington, DC residence of Vice President Kamala Harris in a show of frustration over the state of US immigration policy. The move comes a day after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis sent two charter jets full of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, [...]

The flagship university of Modern Jewish Orthodoxy turned to the US Supreme Court on Monday in hopes of blocking a lower-court order that would require it to formally recognize an LGBTQ+ student organization. The case originated in 2021, after multiple unsuccessful attempts by the student club, the Pride Alliance, to seek recognition from Yeshiva University’s administration. [...]

Roads in and around Taizz, Yemen’s third largest city, have been blocked by rebel forces since 2015 in violation of international humanitarian law, provoking ire from a coalition of 15 human rights organizations who banded together Monday to call for meaningful action in the region to ensure the free flow of medication, food, and other [...]

This year alone, Russian forces are believed to have launched hundreds of cluster munition attacks in contravention of various principles of international humanitarian law, according to a scathing report released Thursday by the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC), an international advocacy group. Cluster munitions are weapons that contain dozens to hundreds of explosive submunitions. They are [...]

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday signed a decree ordering the expansion of his country’s armed forces to upwards of two million. In accordance with the decree, the military will expand by some 137,000 soldiers, bringing the total number of service members to just over 1.15 million, and swelling the ranks of the military personnel to [...]

Yevgeny Roizman, a high-profile Russian dissident and former mayor of the city of Yekaterinburg, was detained Wednesday morning, purportedly over his public refusal to refer to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation.” “This case revolves around one phrase — ‘the invasion of Ukraine,’” Roizman told reporters as police escorted him from his [...]