A member of Russia’s Presidential Council for Human Rights shared her outrage on Thursday over the arrest and beating of a Russian comedian in Belarus, and urged Russia’s authorities to protect the rights of Russian citizens in foreign states. Council member Eva Merkacheva called on Russian authorities to provide the necessary medical attention to the [...]

The UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) condemned Thursday the rising civilian death toll in Sudan. The statement follows the intensified fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Khartoum and beyond. The statement indicated that both parties disregarded international humanitarian law in and around Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. [...]

Part one of this series can be found here: Return of the Torture Monsters: Here We Go Again. Part three of this series can be found here: Return of the Torture Monsters Part III: Force Drift Across Administrations. Recently, the ACLU highlighted one of the torture architects of our past. In early 2002, then National Security [...]

In August 2021, the world watched as the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, sweeping away two decades of progress toward democracy, human rights and gender equality. While international headlines have since moved on to other crises, millions of Afghan women and girls continue to live under increasingly restrictive policies that have systematically stripped away their [...]

Amnesty International condemned the EU on Thursday for refusing to condemn Israel’s recent airstrikes in Gaza, calling it “another shameful attempt to justify Israel’s genocide and war crimes against Palestinians.” In response to a statement from the European Council, the director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office, Eve Geddie, observed that the EU refused to [...]

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine concluded on Wednesday that widespread enforced disappearances and torture committed by Russia during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine constitute crimes against humanity. The announcement marks a significant development, as crimes against humanity constitute one of the most serious classifications of international crimes. Central to the commission’s [...]

Amnesty International warned against a “chilling verdict” returned by a North Dakota jury on Thursday in a lawsuit against Greenpeace. The verdict orders Greenpeace, an environmental advocacy organization, to pay Energy Transfer, a fossil fuel company, $660 million US in defamation liability. Amnesty International described the jury’s verdict as “chilling” according to its “severe implications for [...]

In a 137-page ruling, the US District Court for the District of Maryland granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) on Thursday blocking Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from having continued unlimited access to sensitive Social Security information of millions of Americans. The plaintiffs in this case were two national labor and membership associations, [...]

The Indonesian Parliament amended a law on Thursday to formally expand the military’s role in civilian affairs, triggering nationwide protests and drawing sharp criticism from human rights organizations. The parliament amended multiple articles of the National Armed Forces (Tentara Nasional Indonesia) Act, Law No. 34/2004. Key changes included revisions to Article 47, which will increase the [...]

The Perth District Court on Thursday convicted a 19-year-old man for sharing Islamic State beheading videos online via social media. The conviction, followed by a sentence of three years imprisonment, marks the first since the enactment of Australia’s new counterterrorism laws in 2024. According to the Australian Federal Police, the content found on the man’s [...]