The Russian Constitutional Court released a 52-page decision Monday approving amendments to the constitution, including an amendment that would allow Vladimir Putin to serve up to two additional terms as president. The current constitution imposes a two-term limit to the presidency, and Putin has put forward a series of amendments, one of which would reset [...]

Iran has temporarily released about 85,000 prisoners from jail as part of their response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said about half of those released were political prisoners. Today’s mass release follows the release of some 70,000 prisoners on March 9, none of whom were political prisoners. In response to the earlier [...]

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a motion on Monday to drop all charges against two Russian shell corporations accused of interfering with the 2016 presidential election. The motion states, “the government has concluded that further proceedings promote[] neither the interests of justice nor the nation’s security.” The DOJexplained that, “sometimes in a criminal [...]

Nazaha, Saudi Arabia’s anti-corruption body, on Sunday arrested 298 government employees on charges of bribery, embezzlement and exploiting their positions. Government authorities claim that they are going after graft committed by ordinary employees. However, some of those arrested could have posed a political threat to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). This has raised concerns [...]

A group of UN experts condemned Thammakaset, a Thai poultry producer, for alleged targeting of human rights defenders Thursday. In 2019, Thammakaset allegedly used Thai defamation laws to sue and have prosecuted ten individuals who criticized Thammakaset’s labor practices for human rights abuses. The UN experts called upon Thailand to reform defamation laws based on [...]

Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arrested Mir Shakilur Rehman, the editor-in-chief of the Jang Media Group, on Thursday. The Jang Media Group is one of the largest independent media companies in Pakistan. It owns Urdu-language Geo News, the largest news channel in Pakistan, along with several major newspapers. NAB arrested Rehman for an alleged illegal [...]

UN Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee urged the Myanmar Government Tuesday to embrace human rights and democracy during her last Human Rights Council report in Geneva. In her report Lee called on Myanmar to amend its constitution, change citizenship and land laws, and overturn laws that violate fundamental human rights. “… t is not too late [...]

Zyad el-Elaimy, a leader within the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, despite his strong legal defense was sentenced by the Mokattam Misdemeanor Court on Tuesday.  El-Elaimy was sentenced to one year in jail with a fine of 20,000 Egyptian pounds (around $1,200 USA dollars) for violating Egypt’s Assembly Law. More specifically, he was sentenced for “spreading [...]

Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo named China, Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela as some of the worst human rights violators in his remarks while presenting the State Department’s 2019 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices on Wednesday. The reports cover internationally recognized individual, civil and political rights in almost 200 countries and territories, including all [...]

US lawmakers on both sides of the aisle proposed a bill Wednesday, entitled the “Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act,” to restrict goods from China. The legislation, co-sponsored by Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Representative James McGovern, would require importers to get certification from the US government stating that their goods were not produced using [...]