Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy Saturday issued a decree imposing sanctions on Austrian architecture firm Coop Himmelb(L)au and six of its representatives, including its founder Wolf D. Prix. The firm has been designing an opera and ballet theatre in Sevastopol, the largest city in Crimea. The procedure for imposing sanctions on the architecture firm was commenced [...]

A Paris court Friday convicted Claude Gueant, former chief of staff to French former President Nicolas Sarkozy, for the misuse of public funds to conduct public opinion polls. The trial, which began in October, also resulted in the conviction of three other Sarkozy associates, including former advisor Patrick Buisson and cabinet director Emmanuelle Mignon. As [...]

The chief of Frontex Friday called for the European Union to provide clearer rules on striking a balance between the human rights of asylum seekers and greater border protection. Frontex Border and Coastguard Agency which engages in border control, including preventing human trafficking and smuggling, were scrutinized for violating human rights. Cases under review include Lithuania, [...]

The National Council of Austria Thursday passed a bill making Covid-19 vaccination mandatory for all adults in the country. If approved by the upper house and signed into law by the President, the bill will come into force on February 1, making Austria the first European country to introduce a vaccine mandate. The Austrian government first announced [...]

A consortium of 25 civil society organisations Wednesday published a letter sent to Facebook on January 3 2021, against the delayed release of the India Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) report and lack of action towards addressing grave concerns about the company’s human rights record in India. The letter was sent to the Facebook Director [...]

The French National Assembly Thursday adopted a resolution condemning Chinese political and humanitarian crimes against China’s Uyghur Muslim minority. The resolution calls on the French government to formalize its stance on the genocidal nature of the crisis, a position already taken by the United States, Britain, Canada, and the Netherlands. According to the resolution, France’s [...]

European Data Protection Supervisor Wojciech Wiewiórowski Thursday called for additional restrictions on political advertising to be included in a group of new legislation adopted by the European Commission. The legislation concerned is the “Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the transparency and targeting of political advertisements.” Wiewiórowski’s opinion explained [...]

Former Pope Benedict XVI has been accused of mishandling four sexual abuse cases during his time as Archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977-1982, according to a report released Thursday. Benedict, now 94 years old, has long maintained his ignorance of the sexual abuse cases. The Catholic Church commissioned the over 1,000-page report from the [...]

The Supreme Court of India Thursday pronounced its reasons in a detailed judgement upholding a 29th July notification by the central government to implement a 27% quota for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and 10% quota for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) in the pre-medical exam entrance called National Entrance Eligibility Test (NEET). The special bench, [...]

A Pakistan sessions court in Rawalpindi Wednesday sentenced a Muslim woman to death for committing blasphemy by insulting Prophet Muhammad over WhatsApp messages. Aneeqa Atteeq was accused of sending blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Muhammad and making remarks about holy personages on WhatsApp while also using her Facebook account to post blasphemous materials to others. The [...]