TikTok CEO Shou Chew Thursday testified before the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Lawmakers questioned Chew on TikTok’s consumer privacy and data security practices amid growing national security concerns from lawmakers and the Biden administration. Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) opened the hearing by stating, “Mr. Chew, you are here because the [...]

The Israeli Parliament (Knesset) Thursday passed the first of many controversial judicial reform laws. The law amends Israel’s Basic Law, raising the threshold at which the government can declare the prime minister incapacitated. The ability to declare the prime minister incapacitated has now been bestowed solely on the prime minister himself, or from a supermajority [...]

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) Wednesday held its first hearing in Beatriz v. El Salvador, a case addressing abortion access in El Salvador. Beatriz, whose real name is witheld for privacy, was denied an abortion in El Salvador despite risks to her health. In early 2013, Beatriz was informed by doctors that her [...]

Ethiopia’s House of the People’s Representatives voted Wednesday to remove the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) from the country’s list of terrorist organizations. In a Facebook post, the House announced the measure was necessary “in order to bring lasting peace based on the peace agreement.” The measure passed with a significant majority. The vote follows [...]

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced Thursday that the Government and the Referendum Working Group (RWG) have agreed on the wording of the question that will form the basis of a referendum later this year. The question Australians will be asked to answer is “A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples [...]

Australia’s coalition government and the Labor Party Wednesday passed legislation enabling the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum to proceed at the end of 2023. The Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Amendment Bill of 2022 amends the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Act of 1984 to align the referendum with federal voting on issues such as postal voting and foreign [...]

Singapore’s highest court Tuesday suspended human rights lawyer M. Ravi for five years over comments criticizing the city-state’s attorney general, the maximum sentence possible. A prominent human rights lawyer who is known internationally for representing death-row inmates in Singapore, Ravi has spent the better part of his 20-year career advocating for human rights and access [...]

Uganda’s Parliament Tuesday unanimously passed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023, a bill that would make the “promotion” of homosexuality punishable by 20 years’ imprisonment and homosexual sex acts punishable by life imprisonment. It also allows the death penalty for engaging in “aggravated acts of homosexuality,” which is when one of the persons has HIV or a [...]

Tens of thousands of people—many of them peaceful protesters—have been arbitrarily arrested and detained in Belarus over the past two and a half years, UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada Al-Nashif said Tuesday. The comments came as Al-Nashif presented a report outlining human rights violations in Belarus to the UN’s Human Rights Council. The [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk Tuesday issued an urgent call for international action in Haiti to confront escalating gang violence, including a “time-bound specialized support force.” Haiti is currently experiencing a crisis of instability and gang violence which “continues to spiral out of control.” Türk has previously expressed concerns about violence in [...]