United Nations human rights experts on Thursday called on Pakistan to immediately release activist Idris Khattak, stating that his continued detention and reported lack of medical care raise concerns regarding his health and the state’s obligations under international law. The statement came along with reports from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) that party leaders were prevented [...]

READ MORE

Nepal police on Saturday arrested former prime minister KP Sharma Oli and former home minister Ramesh Lekhak at their respective homes in Bhaktapur. Officers used “urgent arrest warrants” to take the leaders into custody in connection with a homicide investigation into the deaths of protesters during the “Gen Z” uprising last September. The operation began [...]

READ MORE

A coalition of international human rights organizations on Friday called for the immediate release of Kashmiri journalist Irfan Mehraj, three years after his arrest by India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA). Nearly three dozen rights groups, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists, said Mehraj’s continued detention is based on charges [...]

READ MORE

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled Thursday that EU member states must update identity documents to reflect the gender identity of transgender citizens who have transitioned in another member state, finding that refusal to do so may violate the bloc’s guarantee of freedom of movement. The court said discrepancies between a [...]

READ MORE
377053 / Pixabay

South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) announced Friday that the government has conditionally approved a request by Google to export globally 1:5,000 scale high-precision digital map data of the country’s national territory, resolving a policy dispute that has persisted since 2007, according to local media sources. The decision was issued by an [...]

READ MORE
Anfaenger / Pixabay

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Friday released a report warning that the rapid expansion of cyber-fraud compounds in Southeast Asia has resulted in widespread human rights abuses. The OHCHR described the phenomenon as a “wicked problem” requiring coordinated, human rights-based responses rather than enforcement-only crackdowns. According to the [...]

READ MORE

Austria’s Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Meta’s personalized advertising model practices violate EU data protection law, which requires a company to obtain consent with “clear and plain language,” about how one’s personal information is used—something Meta has failed to do. The court held that Meta cannot rely on “contractual necessity” under the General Data Protection [...]

READ MORE

UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues Nicolas Levrat on Friday urged Nepal to effectively implement constitutional and legislative safeguards to end discrimination against minorities, especially singling out Dalits. Speaking in Kathmandu, Levrat acknowledged Nepal’s progressive legal framework but warned that persistent failures in enforcement, accountability and institutional inclusion continue to deny Dalits and other minorities [...]

READ MORE
Confidencial, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

UN-appointed investigators reported on Thursday that Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) has over the past decade carried out a pattern of killings, arbitrary detentions, torture, and sexual violence against protesters and political opponents of President Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela entered 2025 under intensified international attention, after a wave of repression followed the July 2024 presidential election. [...]

READ MORE
By Ifeatu Nnaobi - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=135011176

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Friday that more than 100,000 people have fled their homes in northern Mozambique over the past two weeks as armed groups intensify attacks. According to the OCHA, the total displaced in the last four months is now 330,000. The Office of the United [...]

READ MORE