A Massachusetts federal court granted a preliminary injunction on Monday in favor of Planned Parenthood, temporarily blocking the US President Donald Trump’s administration from following through on defunding efforts in the recently passed reconciliation bill. To support the finding of her order, Judge Indira Talwani held that the plaintiffs, Planned Parenthood, are likely to succeed [...]

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A judge found former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe guilty of bribery and witness tampering on Monday. This marks the first time that a Colombian ex-president has been convicted in a criminal trial. The landmark ruling follows a long legal battle that dates back more than a decade. In 2012, Uribe levied allegations against Senator Iván [...]

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Yoshi Canopus, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Drone strikes that have damaged oil fields in the Kurdistan region of Iraq potentially threaten public services that impact human rights including healthcare and education, according to a Tuesday release from Human Rights Watch. They also risk escalating an ongoing dispute between the regional and national government over oil revenues, the organization said. The attacks [...]

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Mostafameraji, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Amnesty International called on Pakistan’s authorities on Tuesday to end the systemic discrimination and human rights violations against sanitation workers in the country, following the release of a new report. The organization emphasized how these abuses violate Pakistan’s obligations under international law and urged authorities to amend existing laws to align with international norms. The [...]

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Jaber Jehad Badwan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Two of Israel’s best-known human rights organizations charged on Monday that government practices and policies in the Gaza Strip amount to an ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI) each published a report and jointly announced their findings. It marks the first time that an Israel-based rights group has [...]

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Amid worsening famine conditions in Gaza, the UK on Tuesday threatened to recognize Palestinian statehood at the United Nations in September unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire and to take immediate steps to allow unhindered aid shipments into the territory. The ultimatum is diplomatically significant as the international community grapples with how to approach the [...]

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Voice of America, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Amnesty International on Monday called on Syria to investigate the abductions of Alawite women and girls, and bring perpetrators to justice. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, said that the Syrian authorities must “act swiftly and transparently in locating missing women and girls, bringing perpetrators to justice, and providing affected families with timely, gender-sensitive and [...]

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Sgt. Conner Douglas, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Amnesty International criticized the International Criminal Court’s Office of the Prosecutor on Monday for dashing the hopes of survivors of atrocities by the military in Nigeria, after failing to formally open an investigation more than five years after finding that an investigation in Nigeria is warranted. The Nigerian military is accused of having slaughtered 640 [...]

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United Nations independent experts on Monday called on Russia to end long-standing trafficking and forced labor of migrant women, predominantly from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, in the Golyanovo district of Moscow. Expressing concern over the “credible and well-documented allegations” of trafficking and forced labor, the special rapporteurs stated: “We urge Russian authorities to take immediate and [...]

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JURIST’s Christine Savino is currently working in Ukraine with war victims, including those displaced by bombings, while supporting European Court of Human Rights case research and submissions on Russian war crimes. The thunders of exploding bombs recently interrupted my night, a morose testament to Russia’s nocturnal attacks on Ukraine, which have become a defining feature [...]

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