The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) agreed Monday to hear a challenge to the bulk data surveillance regime employed by UK intelligence agencies. A lower chamber of the court ruled in September that the UK’s surveillance practices violated human rights law but ruled that the process of bulk data collection [...]
Angola’s parliament approved a new penal code Wednesday that drops provisions widely interpreted to criminalize homosexuality. The new penal code is Angola’s first since it gained its independence from Portugal in 1975. The prior code contained many holdover provisions from the colonial era, including a ban of “vices against nature,” which was understood to criminalize [...]
A spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said Friday that they are concerned over Montenegro’s sentencing of investigative journalist Jovo Martinović. Martinović was sentenced to 18 months in prison on charges of drug smuggling and membership in a criminal organization, what the OHCHR believes were likely “politically motivated as credible [...]
Ethiopia’s House of Peoples’ Representatives passed a law on Thursday that will grant expansive rights to the nation’s refugee population. These rights include the right to “obtain work permits, access primary education, obtain drivers’ licenses, legally register life events such as births and marriages and open up access to national financial services, such as banking.” Ethiopia [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) called Saturday for its major donor nations to issue sanctions against Asadullah Khalid, the Defense Minister of Afghanistan, pointing to “redible evidence of serious human rights abuses and war crimes” that have accumulated “throughout government career.” HRW cited 2007 internal Canadian documents describing Khalid’s human rights violations as “numerous and consistent.” The violations [...]
Michael Lynk, UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory called Wednesday for the international community to enforce annexation provisions of international law against Israel to halt their occupation of the West Bank. Lynk expressed concern about the continuing economic and social collapse of Gaza, stating: The United Nations stated in 2012 [...]
Civilians in the Western Equatoria region of South Sudan are facing extreme human rights abuses, according to a UN report released Thursday. Between April and August, there were reported attacks against villages and civilians, causing 24,000 people to leave their homes. The UN alleges that these attacks were perpetrated by the pro-Riek Machar Sudan People’s [...]
A Myanmar judge sentenced two Reuters journalists on Monday to seven years in jail for breaching a law on state secrets. A judge found that Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo breached the Official Secrets Act by obtaining confidential documents. The journalists were arrested on December 12, 2017, while investigating military operations in northern Rakhine [...]
Amnesty International called Thursday for an investigation into possible war crimes in Yemen. The group published a report detailing the stories of men in southern Yemen detention facilities. The report documents “how scores of men have been subjected to enforced disappearance after being arbitrarily arrested and detained by United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Yemeni forces [...]
The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Monday delayed the release of a report investigating alleged war crimes committed during Sri Lanka's civil war . The government had requested that the release of the...
