Two of Israel’s best-known human rights organizations charged on Monday that government practices and policies in the Gaza Strip amount to an ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI) each published a report and jointly announced their findings. It marks the first time that an Israel-based rights group has [...]

US President Donald Trump announced Monday that the country will place harsh tariffs on Russia’s oil trading partners if no peace deal is reached between Russia and Ukraine within 50 days. Trump declined to say which particular states would be targeted during a White House press conference with NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte. The president [...]

A German regional court sentenced a former Syrian doctor to life in prison Monday for crimes against humanity, war crimes and murder. The Syrian national, identified as Alaa M., had been actively involved in the Assad regime’s crackdown on opposition members. According to the judgment, he tortured and sexually abused his patients in this context, [...]

The Berlin Administrative Court on Monday ruled that the government’s new policy of rejecting asylum seekers at the border is incompatible with European Union law. In the decision, the court found that the forced return to Poland of three Somalian asylum seekers on German territory, two men and one woman, was illegal under the EU [...]

The Higher Regional Court of Vienna (Oberlandesgericht Wien, or OLG) acquitted former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz on Monday of having made false statements during an inquiry before parliament. The court’s three judges relieved the conservative of a 2024 conviction, which charged Kurz with giving false evidence during the so-called “Ibiza” proceedings. It overturned the former [...]

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on Tuesday that Germany violated the rights of a protester who was convicted for wearing a self-made plastic visor during a demonstration in 2015. It found that they violated the protester’s rights to freedom of assembly, protected under Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, [...]

The UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan condemned an aerial bombing of a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Fangak county by the South Sudan People’s Defense Forces (SSPDF) as an atrocity crime on Tuesday. According to MSF, two helicopter gunships carried out the strike that obliterated the hospital on Sunday, May 4. [...]

The European Court of Human Rights refused Tuesday to hear an unlawful detention claim against Italy, finding that the applicant has not exhausted all available and effective domestic remedies. The applicant argued that Italy violated his right to liberty under Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Ruling in favor of Italy, the [...]

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on Tuesday urged the European Union to demand that Bhutanese authorities release dozens of political prisoners held for decades. The rights groups said the detainees have been deprived of multiple fundamental rights and held in inhumane conditions. According to Amnesty, most of the detainees have been detained in connection [...]

Thirteen EU governments demanded Tuesday that the Union welcome scientists and researchers from abroad, including the United States, who might suffer from momentary research interference. The letter warns that current political developments pose a threat to academic freedom, but also an opportunity for the EU to attract academic quality from abroad. The letter was endorsed [...]