The High Court of Justice of Catalonia provisionally on Tuesday suspended the decision of the regional government to delay upcoming parliamentary elections due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This move was challenged before the court on the ground that it defies democracy. Until the matter is settled in the final hearing, elections stand to be [...]
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Tuesday warned of possible violent uprisings and government crackdowns amid political unrest in Haiti. The office noted that conditions in Haiti are worsening and that criminal activity and widespread insecurity are on the rise. OHCHR spokesperson Marta Hurtado told reporters that political tensions [...]
Five people in Saudi Arabia who committed crimes as minors are still awaiting execution, despite the kingdom’s April announcement that juvenile offenders would no longer face the death penalty, rights groups said Monday. In April, Saudia Arabia’s government-operated Human Rights Commission (HRC) announced that a royal decree from King Salman had eliminated the death penalty [...]
The Bangkok Criminal Court on Tuesday sentenced a Thai woman to more than 43 years in prison for insulting the monarchy. The woman, Anchan Preelert, is a former member of the Banpodj Network, a group accused by the Thai government of being an “anti-monarchy network” due to the content of their videos uploaded to Facebook [...]
Two female judges from Afghanistan’s Supreme Court were assassinated Sunday in Kabul, adding to the most recent wave of targeted killings over the last few months. A spokesperson for the Supreme Court confirmed that the judges, who have not been named, were killed on their way to work in the morning, when unidentified assailants ambushed [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) and UN human rights experts have demanded that Israel provide equal COVID-19 vaccine access to Palestinians living in the Israel-occupied West Bank and Gaza. According to the Israeli Health Ministry, Israel has “vaccinated a larger share of its population against COVID-19 than any other country.” However, experts say Palestinians living in [...]
Her Majesty’s Chief Inspectors of policing, prisons, probations and prosecutions expressed “grave concerns” about the long-term impact of COVID-19 related court backlogs in a report published Tuesday. The joint report highlights how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the criminal justice system in England and Wales and the long-term risks of the pandemic, with significant failings [...]
A group of independent UN experts released a statement Monday condemning the violent riots on Capitol Hill that were intended to disrupt the formal counting of the electoral votes on January 6. The statement called for a peaceful return to American democratic principles that have been challenged since the November 3 election, which had no [...]
Two UN Special Rapporteurs on Monday condemned the decision by Russia to detain activist and opposition leader Alexei Navalny while praising him for his bravery. After Navalny returned to Russia Sunday from Germany, where he was recovering from a nerve agent poisoning attack since August, he was immediately detained. A judge ordered Monday that he [...]
According to court documents filed Sunday, the FBI is investigating a woman who allegedly stole a laptop from Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s office during the January 6 siege of the US Capitol. A special agent with the FBI filed an arrest warrant for Riley Williams, a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based woman charged with [...]
