A tribunal in Dhaka on Monday sentenced former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her interior minister to death for their role in suppressing student uprisings in July and August 2024. She resigned and fled to India shortly after the protests, and the trial took place in absentia. The former interior minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal [...]
A federal court ruled Tuesday that Texas’s new congressional map, which created five additional seats for Republicans, is illegal on the basis of racial gerrymandering. The US District Court for the Western District of Texas found that the Texas legislature’s intent in redrawing the congressional map was predominantly based on race. According to the court, [...]
A South Carolina Senate Medical Affairs subcommittee on Tuesday held an hours-long public hearing on legislation that would significantly expand abortion restrictions in the state. The bill remains stalled in committee following the hearing, with no vote to advance it to the full Senate. Senate Bill 323, titled the “Unborn Child Protection Act”, would make [...]
The Slovenian parliament on Monday passed a security law that expands police powers and restricts welfare rights amid criticism that the law targets the Roma community. Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said the bill “is not designed to punish, its principal aim is prevention. We want to give police concrete powers to confiscate weapons quickly.” [...]
Japan’s new government should prioritize human rights in its foreign policy, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Monday, calling on Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to adopt stronger legal, diplomatic, and institutional measures to address abuses in Asia and globally. Japan is the only G7 country without sanctions targeting foreign officials implicated in serious human rights violations. [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported Tuesday that Mayotte, a French island territory in the Indian Ocean and former French colony, is failing to provide education to all children. The 73-page report, titled “Exceptional Failure: France’s Persistent Education Shortcomings in Mayotte,” found that Mayotte’s municipalities not only impose significant barriers to school enrollment, but those who [...]
A Tennessee court on Thursday granted a temporary injunction restraining state officials from continuing the deployment of Tennessee National Guard personnel to Memphis. A group of Shelby County and Memphis officials brought the case, arguing that the deployment violates Tennessee’s Military Code by bypassing the statutory conditions required for activating state militia forces. The deployment [...]
UN experts expressed alarm Monday over the repression of the Belarusian Association of Human Rights Lawyers (BAHRL) by the Minsk government, denouncing its designation as an extremist group. On August 18, the State Security Committee of the Republic of Belarus designated BAHRL as an “extremist formation” and categorized its members as individuals “involved in extremist [...]
A New York federal judge on Monday rejected a bid by the administration of President Donald Trump to strike down a law prohibiting immigration enforcement from making arrests at or surrounding state courthouses. “My office will continue fighting to defend the dignity and rights of immigrant communities throughout New York,” stated New York Attorney General [...]
The US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to pass legislation requiring the Department of Justice to publicly release all unclassified records related to Jeffrey Epstein, with the bill passing 427 to one. The vote comes amid surging public pressure following the House Democrats’ release last week of thousands of documents from Epstein’s estate, including [...]
