Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruled Tuesday that philanthropist and businessman Osman Kavala’s three years of detention without a conviction did not violate his rights to liberty and security. Kavala was accused of organizing and funding the 2013 Gezi Park protests against then-Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. In February 2020, he and eight other individuals were acquitted. Kavala [...]

The Russian Ministry of Justice on Monday added veteran rights activist Lev Ponomaryov and four other individuals to its list of media “foreign agents.” This is the first time that individuals have been added to the list of “foreign agents,” as the legislation has previously been used primarily against media outlets. The “foreign agent” law [...]

The Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe on Monday ruled that the country’s national pledge was an unconstitutional violation of school children’s right to freedom of conscience and parental rights. The court’s decision comes four years after Mathew Sogolani applied to the court on the basis of the national pledge’s unconstitutionality. The father of three argued that [...]

The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on Saturday passed an amendment punishing acts of luring, instigating, forcing or offering banned substances to athletes competing in domestic or international events. Amendment XI was added to Article 355 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China, a provision which originally punished the act [...]

China announced Saturday the ratification of an extradition treaty with Turkey that it intends to use, inter alia, to accelerate the return of refugees and Uighur Muslims suspected of “terrorism.” Since the 1950s, Turkey has welcomed Uighurs fleeing persecution in China. Uighurs and Turks have linguistic, cultural and religious ties. Currently, more than 50,000 Uighurs call [...]

The Parliament of Victoria in Australia is set to go through the second reading of the Spent Convictions Bill early next year. The new law is aimed at preventing discrimination based on previous convictions to provide youths an opportunity to move past minor offenses. The bill was introduced this year as a means to ensure [...]

Well-known women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul was sentenced to five years and eight months imprisonment Monday in Saudi Arabia’s Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) for terrorism and national security offences. Reuters reported that 31-year-old al-Hathloul was charged under sweeping counter-terrorism laws with “seeking to change the Saudi political system and harming national security”. Given that al-Hathloul [...]

According to Reuters Monday, Ukrainian prosecutors are investigating Oleksandr Tupytskyi, the Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, for suspected bribery of a witness. The alleged incident under investigation occurred in 2018 when Tupytskyi was deputy Chairman of the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court has been at odds with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy since October. Zelensky [...]

On Saturday, the National People’s Congress of China enacted a measure establishing a new intellectual property court in the southern island of Hainan. China has sought to strengthen Hainan’s position as a global free trade port in the South China Sea, competing with other shipping centers in the area such as Hong Kong, Singapore, and [...]

Viasna, a non-governmental human rights center in Belarus, said that seven more people were detained in Belarus on Sunday during the traditional weekend protests against President Alexander Lukashenko, who won his sixth term in office in a disputed election. The total number of detainees is now reported to be over twenty people. According to a [...]