Multiple members of parliament in Belgium signed a joint letter on Friday urging the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to prevent the execution of Mohammad Javad Vafa’i Thani. Vafa’i Thani was initially arrested for his role in the 2019 Iranian anti-government protests that followed the Iranian governments’ announcement of an overnight fuel increase. The [...]

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced that he signed an executive order on Friday tightening gun laws, stating that only the police and army should be well-armed. The aim of the executive order is to slow Brazil’s rise in civilian gun ownership, reversing the policies of his right-wing predecessor Jair Bolsonaro. Lula intends [...]

A report released Saturday on the treatment of human rights activists in Bangladesh found that at least 65 percent of surveyed human rights defenders said that the ruling Awami League party, law enforcement and intelligence services have obstructed their work. The report entitled “Who Defends the Defenders?” was produced in collaboration between the Centre for Governance [...]

UN Special Rapporteur Fionnuala Ni Aolain released a statement on Friday urging the cessation of “indefinite mass detention without legal process,” particularly for children, in northeastern Syria detention centers. After arriving in Damascus, Syria on July 15, she visited prisons and detention sites and witnessed “major humanitarian challenges,” including inadequate access to water and electricity [...]

Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Poland’s leadership of seeking to capture Ukranian land and potentially invade Belarus in a televised address on Friday. Putin said that NATO would form a task force that would enter the Ukraine War and then that Poland would take historically Polish lands in Western Ukraine and perhaps Belarus as well. [...]

Governor of Alabama Kay Ivey approved a new congressional map Friday, passed by the Alabama legislature during a special session, which designates only one majority-Black district in the state. The approval is in defiance of the US Supreme Court ruling in Allen v. Milligan, which stated that the previous congressional map with only one majority-Black [...]

Experts from the United Nations (UN) Friday condemned the UK Illegal Migration Bill for its failure to follow international human rights standards. The experts urged the UK government to stop the implementation of the bill, which received Royal Assent and became domestic law in the UK on Saturday. The Illegal Migration Bill, introduced by Home [...]

A Kenyan police official told the Associated Press on Thursday that police received a warning against reporting deaths that have occurred as a result of this week’s opposition protests over the country’s high cost of living. Although it was unclear who issued the direct order, it came after opposition leader Raila Odinga called for three [...]

The UN Secretary-General António Guterres released a statement on Thursday condemning the Russian attacks against ports in Odesa and other Ukrainian Black Sea ports. The attacks on civilian infrastructure may be a violation of international humanitarian law. According to Russia’s commitments under the Memorandum of Understanding, Russia should be facilitating the export of food from Ukrainian [...]

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Thursday that it will impose travel restrictions on British diplomats, prohibiting them to travel outside of a 75-mile radius of the British Embassy in Moscow or the British Consulate in Yekaterinburg without advanced notice. According to the Russian MFA, the move comes in response to ‘hostile actions’ from [...]