U.S. Department of State from United States, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

US prosecutors indicted Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) on Thursday for acting as a foreign agent of the Egyptian government. These charges are in addition to previous charges of bribery against Menendez and are related to the same incidents. The indictment alleges that Menendez accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bribes from Egyptian businessmen [...]

READ MORE ▸
193584 / Pixabay

The American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER), a group founded by prominent anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum, agreed on Wednesday to drop their lawsuit challenging law firm Perkins Cole’s diversity fellowship program. AAER moved to drop the suit after Perkins Cole announced changes to their fellowship program that would welcome applications from all students instead [...]

READ MORE ▸

Matthew Hedges, a British academic and researcher, was arrested and accused of espionage in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in May 2018. There were allegations that Hedges was tortured while in detention. According to reports, he was subjected to solitary confinement, physical assault, prolonged interrogation and denial of basic rights during his imprisonment. The UAE [...]

READ MORE ▸

Prominent Australian journalist Cheng Lei was released Tuesday by Chinese authorities and reunited with her family in Australia after being detained in China since August 2020. Lei was formally arrested in 2021 following allegations by Chinese officials that Lei had been illegally supplying Chinese state secrets overseas whilst working as a news anchor for the [...]

READ MORE ▸
smahel / Pixabay

The United Nations Human Rights Council issued a resolution Wednesday establishing an independent international fact-finding mission in Sudan. The resolution comes in response to nearly six months of armed conflict in Sudan between two military factions, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary group, Rapid Support Forces (RSF). In September, over 50 human rights [...]

READ MORE ▸

Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report Tuesday alleging that civil and political rights such as freedom of speech are being attacked by Rwandan authorities, even the rights of those living outside the country. According to HRW, strategies for repressing the rights of those who criticize the country include killings, kidnappings, beatings, enforced disappearances and [...]

READ MORE ▸
randreu, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) held a special meeting Wednesday to discuss the turmoil surrounding the presidential political transition in Guatemala. Cesar Bernardo Arevalo de Leon, the president-elect, won the election in August in a landslide victory. Despite Arevalo’s apparent victory, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) has been raided four [...]

READ MORE ▸
Photos: Evan Gershkovich // Facebook, Flickr

A Russian court dismissed an appeal Tuesday from Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been held in pre-trial detention for more than six months on allegations of espionage, ruling that Gershkovich will continue to be held in jail. According to Russian state-affiliated news source TASS, the court “considered the appeal of Gershkovich’s defense [...]

READ MORE ▸
Janni Rye, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued an order Tuesday granting the rehearing of the abortion case United States of America v. State of Idaho. This action, in effect, prevents the enforcement of Section 18-622 of Idaho law which criminalizes those who perform or attempt to perform an abortion, unless carrying the [...]

READ MORE ▸
Roman Bonnefoy, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The highest administrative court in France, the Conseil d’Etat (Council of State), dismissed on Wednesday a class action against the French government for alleged racial profiling practices amongst French police in identity checks against people of African origins and Arabs. In dismissing the class action lawsuit, the Council of State reasoned that the administrative court [...]

READ MORE ▸