Amnesty International on Monday called on Syria to investigate the abductions of Alawite women and girls, and bring perpetrators to justice. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, called on the Syrian authorities to “act swiftly and transparently in locating missing women and girls, bringing perpetrators to justice, and providing affected families with timely, gender-sensitive and [...]

Amnesty International criticized the International Criminal Court’s Office of the Prosecutor on Monday for dashing the hopes of survivors of atrocities by the military in Nigeria, after failing to formally open an investigation more than five years after finding that an investigation in Nigeria is warranted. The Nigerian military is accused of having slaughtered 640 [...]

United Nations independent experts on Monday called on Russia to end long-standing trafficking and forced labor of migrant women, predominantly from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, in the Golyanovo district of Moscow. Expressing concern over the “credible and well-documented allegations” of trafficking and forced labor, the special rapporteurs stated: “We urge Russian authorities to take immediate and [...]

The thunders of exploding bombs recently interrupted my night, a morose testament to Russia’s nocturnal attacks on Ukraine, which have become a defining feature of the Russo-Ukrainian war. These barrages heavily accelerated following peace talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Istanbul on Wednesday. Thereafter, Russia launched fresh military strikes across Ukraine, underscoring diplomacy’s limited [...]

The Israeli military on Sunday intercepted a civilian vessel, detaining 21 international activists and journalists who were aiming to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza. In a statement, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, an international grassroots network of human rights and civil society organizations, declared that its vessel Handala was “violently intercepted” by the Israeli military, [...]

Four years after their arrest for peacefully advocating for political reform, two members of the Eswatini Parliament, Bacede Mabuza and Mthandeni Dube, have been declared “prisoners of conscience” by Amnesty International. Friday’s designation highlights mounting concern over the country’s intensifying repression of dissent and misuse of the justice system. The two MPs were arrested on [...]

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday announced that the UK will airdrop aid into Gaza and evacuate children for more specialized medical aid. In a public statement, Starmer claimed that the UK is “working urgently” with the Jordanian authorities to get aid into planes and delivered to Gaza. The British leader condemned the mass [...]

On Friday, a US federal judge in New York issued a preliminary injunction enjoining the government from mass-cancelling of National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants, finding that President Donald Trump’s administration likely violated the First Amendment by rescinding NEH grants based on viewpoint discrimination. The lawsuit, brought by the Authors Guild and several affected [...]

The French Cour de Cassation, on Friday, annulled an arrest warrant against the former president of Syria, Bashar Al-Assad, holding that sitting foreign leaders are immune from prosecution. On the question of whether an exception would exist in the event of crimes against humanity and war crimes, the court rejected both the argument that an [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged a rights-based approach in a letter on Friday to the newly appointed African Union (AU) Special Envoy for the Sahel, Burundi President H.E. Évariste Ndayishimiye.  HRW welcomed President Ndayishimiye’s appointment as Sahel envoy, and emphasized several regional and country-specific human rights concerns, stating that human rights, civilian protection, accountability and the [...]