The upcoming Riyadh Comedy Festival is being used by the Saudi government to “deflect attention” from human rights abuses and its repression of free speech, said Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday. HRW stated that the festival is being used to whitewash the government’s human rights violations, with the seventh anniversary of the killing of [...]

The UN International Independent Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in Law Enforcement warned in a report on Wednesday of the prevalent racism against Africans and people of African descent in criminal justice systems worldwide, a violation of international human rights standards. Experts emphasized that discriminatory practices are embedded in law enforcement institutions [...]

Kenyan President William Ruto on Wednesday called for immediate reforms to the UN Security Council’s membership process, arguing for the inclusion of the African continent with at least two permanent seats, with veto power, and two non-permanent seats. Speaking on this topic before the UN General Assembly, President Ruto stated: “Reforming the Security Council is [...]

A sniper opened fire at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas, Texas, Wednesday morning, killing one and injuring two others before dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said. According to Dallas police, the gunman, who had yet to be identified as of the time of writing, fired shots from an elevated position [...]

The man who was accused of attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump in Florida last year, Ryan Routh, was convicted Tuesday on charges including attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate. Routh attempted to assassinate the president at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, in September 2024. US Secret Service Agent [...]

The US Department of Justice announced Tuesday that former speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives Glen Casada has been sentenced to 36 months of incarceration for honest services wire fraud, money laundering, and using a fictitious name to carry out a fraud, among other crimes. His former chief of staff, Cade Cothren, was also [...]

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Tuesday urged Myanmar’s Arakan Army to release local reporter Mu Dra, who was recently abducted by the rebel forces. Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative, stressed: “All combatants in Myanmar’s civil war have a responsibility to protect and not target journalists in retaliation for their news reporting.” [...]

US District Judge Rita Lin of the Northern District of California on Monday granted a preliminary injunction and provisional class certification order requiring the Trump administration to restore more than $500 million in federal research funding to individual researchers at the University of California (UC) system schools. The court found the government’s “en masse” terminations, [...]

Abu Bakar Khan is a JURIST staff correspondent and lawyer based in Pakistan. On Friday morning, five sitting judges of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) walked into the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP)—not to hear cases, but to file one. In an extraordinary and historic move, Justices Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri, Babar Sattar, [...]

The Women’s Law Project (WLP) and Philadelphia law firm Berger Montague filed a complaint Tuesday with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, claiming UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh is discriminating against individuals based on sex and disability by unlawfully denying gender-affirming care to patients under 19-years of age. The complaint, filed on behalf of affected minors, [...]