German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has announced that Germany will be suspending an extradition agreement it had made with Hong Kong due to Hong Kong’s decision to disqualify elective candidates and postpone its 2020 Legislative Council General Election for a year. Maas announced the suspension Friday, the same day that Hong Kong postponed its 2020 [...]
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court in Cambodia charged union leader Rong Chhun with incitement on Friday after Chhun allegedly falsely claimed that the government had ceded land to neighboring Vietnam. Chhun, the president of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions, was arrested last week after allegedly falsely claiming on July 20 that land had been ceded [...]
In an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that President Donald Trump would take action in the coming days on Chinese software companies doing business in the United States, citing national security risks and the privacy of Americans. Pompeo said Chinese software companies such as TikTok and [...]
A Brazilian high court judge imposed a 1.92 million reais ($367,710) fine on Facebook Friday for failing to internationally block 12 accounts of supporters of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. On Saturday, Facebook announced that it had complied with the order, although a spokesperson stated that Facebook would appeal the decision to the full court. In [...]
Australian regulators have introduced a draft bill that would require Google and Facebook to pay Australian media outlets for news. The bill has been drafted by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission as an amendment to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. The main objective of the bill is to address the issue of imbalance [...]
The UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association has welcomed new guidance from the UN Human Rights Committee extending the right of peaceful assembly to online platforms. The UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) adopted General Comment No. 37 on July 23, defining the right of peaceful assembly and lawful [...]
The Turkish Parliament ratified a bill Wednesday to regulate social media in the country, with backing from the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party and its ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). The bill requires foreign-based social media websites with more than one million users to appoint representatives based in Turkey to address any concerns that [...]
A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a Yemeni blogger living in Riyadh to jail and then deportation for a social media post supporting equal rights for all in Saudi Arabia, according to a Human Rights Watch report. The tweet features a video of Mohamad al-Bokari responding on social media to whether he supported equal rights. He [...]
Samoan chief Joseph Matamata has become the first person to be convicted on charges of both human trafficking and slavery in New Zealand. Matamata faced ten counts of trafficking and 13 counts of slavery in a five-week trial before the High Court in Napier. The charges stem from activities between 1994-2019 when Matamata systematically enslaved [...]
Former Malayisan Prime Minister Najib Rajak has been sentenced to 12 years in prison at the end of a trial stemming from the 1MDB corruption scandal. The Kuala Lumpur High Court found Najib guilty on all seven charges of abuse of power, breach of trust, and money laundering. Judge Mohamad Nazlan Ghazali Tuesday ordered the sentences [...]
