In December 2025, I (born in 2002) logged in from Iran to speak to students gathered in “Arts Tower LT5” at the University of Sheffield. The screen flickered; their winter coats rustled in a distant auditorium I could not see. I told them something that felt obvious and astonishing at once: look how close we [...]

A US federal judge on Monday granted President Donald Trump’s motion to prohibit public release of prosecutorial findings in a dropped case against the president that involved classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago. The court ruled that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s continued work on the case functionally breached previous court orders, federal discovery rules, grand jury [...]

EU foreign ministers must use their February 23 meeting with Nikolai Mladenov, director-general of the Board of Peace (BOP) and “High Representative” for Gaza, to ensure that Palestinians’ rights are among the board’s highest priorities, Amnesty International urged in a statement Monday. “The ‘Board of Peace’ is a dangerous assault on international law, a mechanism [...]

Amnesty International on Monday protested the Hong Kong Court of Appeal decision to reject the appeals of the group of imprisoned activists known as the Hong Kong 47, calling it a “missed opportunity to start restoring justice.” The Hong Kong 47 are a group of prominent activists who were arrested during the 2020 pro-democracy protests and collectively [...]

Human Rights Watch, along with 17 rights organizations, on Monday published an open letter to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), urging it to renew and strengthen respective mandates for the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus and the Group of Independent Experts on the Situation of Human Rights in Belarus.  [...]

In a statement Friday, at the conclusion of her visit to Ireland, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment, Astrid Peuntes Riaño, said Ireland should consider human rights in all decisions to protect the environment. She stated that “advances in environmental protections are evident, though these may be lost [...]

Amnesty International stated that the India AI Impact Summit 2026 did not secure concrete commitments to halt “destructive practices” by governments and technology companies, warning that the gathering failed to address the human rights risks posed by artificial intelligence meaningfully.  The organization pointed to the continued problematic deployment of AI tools in contexts such as [...]

Belarusian prisoner of conscience and opposition politician Mikalai Statkevich was released from imprisonment on Friday after suffering a stroke in January. Following his release, Amnesty International reiterated the need for justice for victims of human rights violations in Belarus. Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Eastern Europe director, stated: “Releasing a prisoner of conscience after he has [...]

Former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is set to appear before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in a crucial pre-trial hearing next week, a milestone in the long-running international case alleging crimes against humanity linked to Duterte’s administration’s controversial “war on drugs.” The hearing, which will take place from February 23 to 27, has been called [...]

North Korea opened the Ninth Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea on February 20, signaling a tightening of control over youth and access to information. A key focus of the Party Congress was the current state of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s “five-point strategy for building the party in the new era,” as [...]