Category: Human Rights

A court in St. Petersburg has sentenced 19-year-old Russian activist Daria Kozyreva to two years and eight months in prison for “discrediting the armed forces” after she protested the war in Ukraine by quoting a 19th-century Ukrainian poem, according to multiple independent media reports and human rights groups. Kozyreva, who began her activism in 2022—the […]

A Tunisian court has sentenced 40 opposition figures to prison terms ranging from 13 to 66 years in what has been widely criticized as a politically motivated trial. The defendants, including former diplomats, journalists, and political activists, were convicted under charges of “conspiracy against the internal and external security of the state” and forming a […]

Vietnam’s government has intensified its suppression of dissent, increasingly targeting ordinary citizens and activists for peacefully expressing concerns about state policies and public officials. Human Rights Watch (HRW) highlighted this alarming trend in its report titled “We’ll All Be Arrested Soon’: Abusive Prosecutions under Vietnam’s ‘Infringing of State Interests’ Law,” released today. The Weaponization of […]

A harmful bill in the Texas legislature would criminalize transporting youth younger than 18, or funding their transportation, out of state to access abortion without written parental consent.  The legislation, Senate Bill (SB) 2352 and House Bill (HB) 4595, aims to stop young people from getting abortions by making it a second-degree felony, punishable with fines […]

Indigenous Peoples are still excluded from decisions regarding “the very foundation of our identity, survival, and self-determination,” said Aluki Kotierk, Chair of the 24th United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII). This year’s theme is focused on implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and addressing associated challenges – emphasising the need for Indigenous Peoples […]

(Washington, DC) – Increasing violence in Haiti by criminal groups and clashes with “self-defense” groups are contributing to the dangerous insecurity facing the country’s population, Human Rights Watch said today. Criminal groups have been tightening their grip on Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and expanding into other regions. Opposition leaders and “self-defense” groups have led violent protests against the […]

The first country ever to free itself from slavery through a successful uprising, Haiti gained independence from France in 1804. But the price for defying the colonial order was steep. On April 17, 1825, besieged by French warships, Haiti agreed to pay an indemnity of 150 million gold francs to the European power. Officially, the […]

In a significant legal setback for the Trump administration, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Thursday denied an emergency stay in the wrongful deportation case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, reinforcing a lower court’s order that mandates his return to the United States. This marks the third consecutive rejection from federal […]

A coalition of international legal organizations has filed a complaint with the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, accusing Costa Rica of unlawfully detaining migrant minors deported from the United States. The lawsuit, filed on April 17, was led by attorneys from the Global Strategic Litigation Council, the Instituto Internacional de Responsabilidad […]

The United Nations has voiced serious concern over recent judicial developments in the Maldives, following the suspension of three Supreme Court justices—a move widely seen as undermining the independence of the judiciary. On April 18, UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Margaret Satterthwaite, publicly criticized disciplinary actions taken against Justices Azmiralda […]