A Moscow court fined the bookstore Falalster 800,000 rubles (approximately $10,000) and its founder, Boris Kupriyanov, 100,000 rubles (approximately $1,300) on the charges of LGBTQA+ “propaganda,” according to local media. Charges were reportedly based on the bookstore selling books like More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera, Satanic Feminism by Per Faxneld, Fruit of Knowledge by [...]
A UN expert on Thursday condemned Israel’s violence on Palestinian women and girls, calling it a “femi-genocide,” and accusing the Israeli government of deliberate killing with the “intent to destroy” the continuity of the Palestinian people. Reem Alsalem, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against Women and Girls, called Israel’s actions “so extreme” that [...]
US House of Representatives on Thursday voted in favor of House Resolution 4 (HR4), which will retract approximately $9 billion in funds that had already been allocated for the next two fiscal years. The cuts are to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), along with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), international peacekeeping [...]
El Salvador’s most prominent human rights organization officially ceased operations in the country Thursday due to increasing repression against civil society groups. The organization, Cristosal, cited the “criminalization of human rights defenders, the imposition of Russian-style Foreign Agents Law (LAEX), and the weakening of institutional independence” as key reasons for its decision. While operations in [...]
France officially transferred control of its last military installations in Senegal to local authorities in a ceremony on Thursday, concluding the permanent deployment of French troops in the country since Senegal gained independence in 1960. The withdrawal of over 350 troops marks the completion of a process initiated in March, when France began handing over [...]
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk called for urgent accountability and a halt to escalating violence in the southern Syrian city of Suweida on Friday, following credible reports of mass killings, arbitrary executions, looting, and the forced displacement of civilians. Speaking at a press briefing in Geneva, UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani emphasized [...]
Puerto Rico’s LGBTQ+ Federation on Thursday denounced a recently passed law that prohibits the use of puberty blockers, hormone treatment, and gender-affirming surgeries for anybody under the age of 21. The law, called the Law for the Protection of the Health and Wellbeing of Minors in Puerto Rico, imposes a sentence of up to 15 [...]
Czech President Petr Pavel signed a new law on Friday introducing changes to the country’s criminal code that ban support for ideologies considered harmful to public order and societal cohesion, including communism and Nazism. The law forms part of broader initiatives across Eastern Europe to enhance legal frameworks aimed at addressing totalitarian movements. As reported [...]
The UK announced new sanctions Friday against Russia, directed at three units of the Russian military intelligence agency GRU and 18 military intelligence officers “responsible for spreading chaos and disorder on Putin’s orders” and malicious cyber activity over many years, according to local media. According to the UK, the GRU “routinely uses cyber and information [...]
A US federal judge in California certified a class action lawsuit against the AI company Anthropic on Thursday. The lawsuit concerns millions of copyrighted books that were allegedly pirated to train Anthropic’s Claude AI platform, setting the stage for what may become one of the largest copyright infringement cases in US history. Senior District Judge [...]
