UN human rights experts issued a forceful appeal to the international community on Thursday to reject the Taliban rule in Afghanistan, denouncing it as violent, illegitimate and fundamentally oppressive. Experts described widespread human rights violations, including public executions, corporal punishment, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture, and targeted discrimination against ethnic, religious, and LGBTQ+ minorities. They [...]

The UN high commissioner for human rights on Thursday condemned Peruvian legislation that grants amnesty to those who committed human rights violations during the nation’s 1980-2000 armed conflict, urging the government to prioritize justice, adhere to international law standards, and provide legal access to victims of the conflict. The high commissioner, Volker Türk, referred to [...]

Four major truck manufacturers, including Daimler and Volvo, filed a lawsuit against the state of California on Monday, aiming to block authorities from enforcing emissions standards voided by President Donald Trump’s administration. The suit requested the US Court for the Eastern District of California to issue a declaratory judgment against the state, arguing California’s Clean [...]

President Donald Trump’s July 24 executive order on reducing “vagrancy” is exactly the wrong approach to the pervasive problem of houselessness. It encourages, and funds, cities and states to treat people living in poverty and lacking housing like criminals and to confine them in involuntary, often inhumane, institutions. Trump takes this approach as his administration has [...]

The UN Syria Commission of Inquiry on Thursday reported that the wave of violent attacks that engulfed coastal and western-central Syria in March 2025 may constitute war crimes, and urged accountability to restore public confidence in the authorities. Evidence adduced in the report painted a harrowing picture of widespread massacres targeting Alawi communities, documenting crimes [...]

A Guatemalan court on Tuesday convicted six former officials for their roles in the 2017 fire at the state-run Hogar Seguro “Virgen de la Asunción” that ultimately claimed the lives of 41 girls and injured 15 others. The facility had long faced allegations of abuse and overcrowding. After the blaze, Judge Ingrid Cifuentes directed prosecutors [...]

French President Emmanuel Macron sent a letter to Cameroonian President Paul Biya, dated July 30 but released on Tuesday, in which he officially acknowledged his country’s use of repressive violence before, during, and after Cameroon’s war of independence. Macron stated that the historians of the Franco-Cameroonian Commission studied the war that began in 1956, finding [...]

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Tuesday called on Ghanaian authorities to swiftly and comprehensively conclude inquiries into the July 30 assault on local JoyNews reporter Carlos Lorlornyo Atsu Calony and threats against camera operator Jonas Zodzi Voergborlo. The CPJ urged transparent investigations into the attacks against these journalists. CPJ Africa program coordinator Muthoki [...]

Perú’s President Dina Boluarte recently shook up the country’s political landscape by enacting a new law on August 13 granting amnesty to members of the Armed Forces, the National Police, and self-defense committees who participated in the fight against terrorism between 1980 and 2000. The law has divided public opinion and reignited debate about human [...]

The humanitarian crisis in Sudan worsened on Tuesday, as UN officials said they were “deeply alarmed” by a large-scale assault on El Fasher, the besieged capital of North Darfur, and the nearby Abu Shouk displacement camp. The attack, carried out by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias, killed at least 40 civilians and [...]