Human Rights Watch (HRW) decried the escalating obstacles in accessing abortion, contraception and comprehensive sexual education for Romanian women and girls in a report released on Monday. The report, titled “‘It’s Happening Even Without You Noticing’: Increasing Barriers to Accessing Sexual and Reproductive Health Care in Romania,” highlights the systematic failure of authorities to uphold [...]

The international Baloch Human Rights Council (BHRC) called upon UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday to urgently intervene in the repression of peaceful protests in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. The group urged Guterres to secure the immediate release of Dr. Mahrang Baloch and other members of the Baloch Yekjehti Committee, a local rights group. The BHRC [...]

Bahrain’s systematic practices of detaining and abusing children to quell dissents violate international law, according to a report published by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) on Monday. Despite a 2024 royal pardon releasing over 1,500 prisoners including 40 minors, the groups recorded an escalating number of [...]

The Seoul Central District Court ordered the release of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol from detention on Friday, citing procedural violations by prosecutors during Yoon’s arrest. This ruling allows President Yoon to await his impeachment trial and criminal proceedings from home. Still, the court did not dismiss the charges of insurrection stemming from the [...]

The Bombay High Court on Monday directed the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to halt the proceedings on a Special Court order requiring a First Information Report (FIR) against former Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch, three SEBI officials, and two Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) executives. Justice Shivkumar Dighe issued the interim [...]

Recent criminal law reforms in El Salvador that expand punitive measures against minors violate children’s rights, Amnesty International said Thursday. The amendment, approved February 12, permits adolescents convicted of organized criminal offenses to be transferred to adult prisons, and further access to parole is eliminated, in contravention of juvenile justice standards. The reforms revised the [...]

Australia’s eSafety Commission on Monday imposed an almost $1 million (equivalent to US$640,000) fine on the encrypted messaging platform Telegram for its failure to timely respond to the concerned regulatory inquiries regarding its efforts to combat child abuse and extremist content. In March 2024, the commission mandated Telegram and other tech firms, including Meta and Google, [...]

The Taliban announced on Thursday that Afghanistan would no longer recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), stating that the country’s 2003 accession to the Rome Statute is declared to be legally void after ICC prosecutor Karim Khan sought arrest warrants for Taliban Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and the Chief Justice of Afghanistan [...]