French authorities announced Thursday that they will bring to trial the captain of the ship Boracay, a suspected Russian oil transport vessel that has been blacklisted by the EU as a part of Moscow’s “shadow fleet,” which circumvents sanctions placed on Russian oil exports. Officials boarded the Benin-flagged ship on September 27 off the coast [...]

The British government on Thursday filed to block a legal challenge to UK-based activist group Palestine Action’s designation as a terrorist organization. The UK Home Office submitted the request to divert a High Court decision from July that approved group leader Huda Ammori’s request for judicial review before the court. If the block succeeds, judicial review [...]

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned a Kyrgyzstan court’s sentencing of two journalists on Wednesday. The journalists, Joomart Duulatov and Aleksandr Aleksandrov, worked as cameramen for the well-known anti-corruption investigative agency Kloop. They were detained on May 28, charged with inciting riots, and each face five years imprisonment. Two unnamed accountants were also charged [...]

Turkish prosecutors seized control over media conglomerate Can Holding on Thursday, citing charges of fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion. Authorities issued 10 arrest warrants against various executives of the company and are reported to have raided the homes of Mehmet Sakir Can, Kemal Can, and Kenan Tekdag. The suspects also had their personal assets [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights urged Egypt on Tuesday to end its controversial “rotation” practice, which allows authorities to arbitrarily extend prison sentences beyond their maximum term. Rotation is typically used against perceived political opponents, such as activists, protestors, lawyers, and journalists, and involves charging a prisoner with a new offense when they are [...]

French President Emmanuel Macron sent a letter to Cameroonian President Paul Biya, dated July 30 but released on Tuesday, in which he officially acknowledged his country’s use of repressive violence before, during, and after Cameroon’s war of independence. Macron stated that the historians of the Franco-Cameroonian Commission studied the war that began in 1956, finding [...]

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) praised the High Court of Malawi’s unanimous decision on Monday to decriminalize the former offense of defamation. CPJ spokesperson Muthoki Mumo said: Malawi’s Constitutional Court has taken a monumental step towards protecting press freedom and affirmed that criticism and dissent are essential to democracy by ruling criminal defamation to [...]

Amnesty International (AI) released a report on Monday charging that the Venezuelan government is using a systemic campaign of enforced disappearances to persecute political opponents. The report follows 15 people who disappeared between the July 2024 election and June 2025, 11 of whom still have their whereabouts unknown. Those detained were predominantly critics of the [...]

The Hong Kong Legislative Council passed a law on Wednesday that bans anyone convicted of a national security offense from forming or holding a leadership position within a union. The new law amends the Trade Union Ordinance, introducing a lifetime ban on union organizing for national security offenders. This includes both holding a leadership position [...]

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) released its annual “State of the World Population” report Tuesday, revealing how social and economic barriers affect global fertility decline. The report, titled “The Real Fertility Crisis: The pursuit of reproductive agency in a changing world,” collected research from 14 countries that together represent over a third of the [...]