Following winning the Netherlands elections, Geert Wilders, a politician known for his far-right stances, retracted a controversial bill he initially proposed in 2018. The bill, which called for a ban on mosques and the Quran, has been completely withdrawn by Wilders as of Monday. The proposed legislation seeks to outlaw practices and symbols associated with [...]

Indian law students are reporting for JURIST on law-related developments in and affecting India. This dispatch is from Samar Veer, a third-year law student at National Law University, Delhi and JURIST’s Dispatches Managing Editor.   One of the most turbulent and high-stakes Winter Sessions of the Indian Parliament in recent memory came to an end on [...]

Hasan Yaci is a Staff Correspondent for JURIST and a senior law student at Türkiye’s Galatasaray University in Istanbul. This is his first dispatch.  Athens hosted Turkish President Erdogan for the occasion of the 5th Greece-Türkiye High Level Cooperation Council on 7 December. The meeting, which marked the Turkish President’s first visit to Greece since [...]

Law students and law graduates in Pakistan are reporting for JURIST on events in that country impacting its legal system. Izhar Ahmed Khan is a 2022 LL.B. graduate of the Pakistan College of Law (University of London International Program). Abu Bakar Khan is a final year law student at University Law College, University of the [...]

Ugandan LGBTQIA+ activists filed a lawsuit Monday in the country’s Constitutional Court to examine the constitutionality of the Anti-Homosecuality Act, signed by the country’s president earlier this year, that restricts the rights of LGBTIA+ individuals and imposes harsh penalties, including execution, for certain same-sex acts.  A panel of five judges, led by Judge Richard Buteera, has [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a statement Sunday calling on China to allow commemorations for the one-year anniversary of the “White Paper” protests against the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The rights organization also urged authorities to lift censorship of protest-related social media posts and to release people currently detained for openly condemning the [...]

Members of Parliament from Albania’s Democratic Party set off smoke bombs Monday in the middle of the country’s parliamentary chamber in protest of what they said was an unconstitutional vote on the country’s 2024 budget, the latest of a series of disruptions. Discord between the opposition and the ruling party has been ongoing, with protesters [...]

Vietnamese authorities arrested Luu Binh Nhuong, a prominent parliamentary official, on Tuesday for suspected involvement in an extortion scheme. The Police Investigation Agency of Thai Binh Province disclosed that Nhuong is under investigation for the alleged crime of taking property under Article 170 of the Penal Code of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The arrest [...]

Ksenia Fadeyeva, an ally of imprisoned opposition figure Alexei Navalny, was jailed Monday while on trial for extremism in the Russian city of Tomsk. According to Andrei Fateyev, an associate of Fadeyeva’s, she had been on house arrest but the state prosecutor demanded that she be sent into immediate custody. Since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, [...]

Finland’s Ministry of the Interior announced Tuesday that it is considering closing certain crossing points on its eastern border with Russia to stop illegal entries into the country. In its statement, the ministry accused Russia of allowing people to travel across the border without proper documentation, as the number of asylum seekers at the eastern [...]