Human Rights Watch (HRW) condemned Ethiopian authorities for shutting down two prominent human rights organizations in recent weeks, deepening an ongoing crackdown against civil society, in a statement on Wednesday. An Ethiopian government body overseeing civil society ordered the halt of the operations of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council and Ethiopian Human Rights Defenders Center in December [...]

India’s Supreme Court strongly criticized the Allahabad High Court on Monday for failing to grant bail in a case involving alleged forced religious conversion. The Supreme Court questioned the High Court’s reluctance to exercise its discretion in granting bail to Maulvi Syed Shad Kazmi, who was accused of unlawfully converting a mentally challenged minor to [...]

The Oklahoma State Board of Education on Tuesday to approved a new administrative rule proposed by State Superintendent Ryan Walters that would require parents to disclose their children’s immigration status when enrolling them in school. The rule states that when parents or legal guardians enroll their children in school, they must “provide proof of United States citizenship at the time [...]

The Council of Europe’s Venice Commission has published an urgent report on the conditions and legal standards whereby constitutional courts can invalidate elections following a Romanian Constitutional Court ruling. The report, published Monday, was in response to a request from Theodoros Rousopoulos, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The Venice Commission [...]

The administration of US President Donald Trump on Wednesday rescinded a directive to freeze funding across federal agencies just one day after announcing the sweeping measure, which had left agencies and beneficiaries scrambling to determine its impact. However, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted that only the memo issuing the freeze was being rescinded, [...]

Mississippi state and the US federal government have neglected to protect Black women from cervical cancer deaths in the rural Mississippi Delta region, the Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative for Economic and Social Justice (SRBWI)  and Human Rights Watch said in a report released Wednesday. The report states that “there are persistent and glaring racial [...]

A Delhi court directed the police to register a First Information Report (FIR) against journalist Rana Ayyub following a complaint accusing her of insulting Hindu deities and spreading “anti-India sentiment” through her posts on X. The court’s order came in response to a petition filed by advocate Amita Sachdeva, who alleged that Ayyub’s tweets, some [...]

US President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Tuesday directing federal agencies to restrict access to gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth under age 19 and block federal funding for such treatments. The order requires federal health programs to exclude coverage for gender-affirming surgeries and hormone treatments for minors beginning in 2026. Key provisions [...]

A US federal district judge granted an administrative stay in a case challenging the Trump administration’s planned freeze of federal aid on Tuesday, pausing the plan for a week and setting a hearing for further arguments next Monday morning. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a memo directing federal agencies to temporarily pause [...]

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was put under investigation on Tuesday for the release and repatriation of Libyan Judicial Police chief Osama Almasri Njeem, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi opened investigations against Giorgia Meloni for allegedly aiding and abetting Almasri. This occurred following a lawsuit issued by [...]