When the head of Iraq’s Federal Board of Supreme Audit brought the board’s annual report before the Council of Representatives last week, Parliament did something it had not done since 2003: it convened a dedicated session to examine how the state had handled the public’s money. The report ran to tens of thousands of pages, [...]

Rajiv Menon KC, a human rights barrister at the UK-based Garden Court Chambers specialising in human rights, civil liberties and criminal law, has been subjected to contempt of court proceedings for the contents of his closing speech while representing a Palestine Action protestor.  The summons hearing took place on the 28th of July 2026, and [...]

A Damascus criminal court sentenced ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to death in absentia Tuesday after convicting him of murder, torture, arbitrary detention and crimes against humanity. This was the first judgment issued by Syria’s own courts against the head of a government that ruled the country for decades and put down a 2011 uprising [...]

Türkiye’s parliament on Monday announced that it has passed a new law creating conditional legal mechanisms for certain members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The shift signifies an advance for the government’s “Terror-Free Türkiye” initiative and a potential de-escalation in the country’s decades-long conflict with Kurdish militants. The Law on Strengthening National Solidarity and Social [...]

UN experts on Monday decried the recent surge of violence and human rights abuses against civilians across Gaza and the Occupied West Bank, voicing concern that the rights crisis in the Palestinian territories continues to deteriorate at an accelerated rate, leaving civilians with no form of protection despite international appeals. Fifteen UN experts stated that, [...]

Amnesty International on Monday urged candidates in Zambia’s upcoming general elections to show a clear and genuine commitment to reversing the nation’s troubling authoritarian slide, warning that persistent state crackdowns on free speech and peaceful assembly now pose a serious threat to fundamental rights in the tense run-up to polling day, on election day itself, [...]

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday urging states to scale back school immunization requirements and directing the Attorney General to pursue litigation against states that fail to provide religious and medical exemptions. The order declares a set of “Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations” that would reduce the list of diseases against which all [...]

Many Americans learned how to recite the Pledge of Allegiance even before we learned how to read it. Recited hand over heart, it ends with a promise: liberty and justice for all. What most Americans don’t know is that for millions of people living within our borders, that promise is being tested every day in [...]

The Hong Kong Court of Appeal on Monday granted leave to 11 applicants to appeal their national security convictions to the city’s apex court. The applicants were among the 45 pro-democracy activists who were convicted of subversion in November 2024 for their alleged roles in the July 2020 unofficial primary election. The appellate court sided [...]

Pakistan on Thursday announced its implementation of the Foreign Media Facilitation Guidelines 2026 (the Guidelines), imposing strict regulatory limits on foreign journalists and local nationals working for international media outlets. The six-page document mandates that all international media operations and their personnel register directly with the External Publicity Wing of the Ministry of Information and [...]