Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Friday decried an Iraqi draft law that would permit marriages of children as young as nine years old. The draft, an amendment to Iraq’s 1959 Personal Status Law, was officially brought before the Iraqi Parliament on August 4, 2023 by Ra’ad al-Maliki. It seeks to amend Article 7(1) of the [...]

Media platform X (formerly Twitter) announced on Saturday the closure of its operations in Brazil following what it called “censorship orders” by Brazilian Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. The platform noted that there is uncertainty in ensuring the safety of its employees following what it described as increasing threats from Moraes, including the possible [...]

The New Zealand Human Rights Commission called Thursday for significant policy changes to the Accredited Employer Work Visa scheme (AEWV) to include ending the practice of tying visas to specific employers and implementing a stronger framework for ethical recruitment and worker protections.  The AEWV is a temporary work visa program introduced in May 2022, allowing [...]

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko pardoned 30 people convicted of “crimes of the protest variety” Friday. Of those released, 14 were women and 16 were men, all retirement-aged or people who suffer from serious illnesses. According to the statement, the country’s Internal Affairs Ministry, “upon instructions of the head of state,” will supervise the individuals upon [...]

The UK Government released further documents on Friday about the Infected Blood Compensation Scheme, which was designed to “bring redress” to the more than 30,000 people who were infected by HIV and Hepatitis C after receiving contaminated blood. The new information includes a government update, a series of recommendations to the government by the interim [...]

The US Supreme Court on Friday denied the US government’s application to enforce a new Title IX rule that expands protections to LGBTQ+ students under the definition of “sex discrimination.” The court unanimously agreed that federal court injunctions blocking three provisions in the Title IX rule related to gender identity should remain in effect while [...]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy submitted a bill on Thursday that would ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The bill would establish Ukraine as a member state over which the ICC can exercise jurisdiction. Zelenskyy also introduced Bill 11484, which would amend certain provisions of the Ukrainian Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure [...]

UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Friday urgently called for a humanitarian pause in the Gaza conflict to facilitate a crucial polio vaccination campaign. Guterres said that while the “ultimate vaccine for polio is peace and an immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” a pause to safely vaccinate children was a “must” for the people of Gaza. He added, [...]

The UN will send a team of experts to Bangladesh next week to investigate the killings of protesters that occurred before and after Sheikh Hasina’s resignation as Prime Minister last week, officials announced on Thursday. This mission marks the first time since Bangladesh’s independence in 1971 that the UN has initiated a fact-finding mission to [...]

The UN Human Rights Office (UNHRC) said that there is a credible probability of “unnecessary” use of force by the Bangladeshi security forces against the student-led protesters that ousted the last government from power, in a report released on Friday. In its report, the UNHRC raises various human rights concerns regarding the conduct of the [...]