A United Nations report published Friday indicated that the Taliban’s restrictions on women’s attire and its requirement that women have a male guardian are limiting Afghan women’s freedom of movement and access to education, employment, health care and other basic rights. The report states that many Afghan women are not leaving their homes alone due [...]

The Seoul Central District Court on Monday acquitted Samsung Executive Chairman Jay Y. Lee of stock manipulation and accounting fraud charges, according to local media outlet The Korea Herald. This eliminated the possibility of him being imprisoned. The decision focused on Lee’s involvement in a controversial merger of Samsung affiliates C&T and Cheil Industries in [...]

Following winning the Netherlands elections, Geert Wilders, a politician known for his far-right stances, retracted a controversial bill he initially proposed in 2018. The bill, which called for a ban on mosques and the Quran, has been completely withdrawn by Wilders as of Monday. The proposed legislation seeks to outlaw practices and symbols associated with [...]

Ugandan LGBTQIA+ activists filed a lawsuit Monday in the country’s Constitutional Court to examine the constitutionality of the Anti-Homosecuality Act, signed by the country’s president earlier this year, that restricts the rights of LGBTIA+ individuals and imposes harsh penalties, including execution, for certain same-sex acts.  A panel of five judges, led by Judge Richard Buteera, has [...]

The Group of States against Corruption of the Council of Europe (GRECO) called upon Cyprus to make concerted efforts to prevent corruption within its executive branch in a report released Monday.  According to GRECO’s findings, Cyprus’ legislation exhibits several strengths; however, its effectiveness is compromised by institutional shortcomings. As an illustrative example the report cites [...]

The Constitutional Court of South Korea on Tuesday struck down a provision of the Law on the Development of Inter-Korean Relations which prohibits the distribution of leaflets in North Korea and imposes penalties on violators, known as the North Korea Leaflet Ban Act. This decision comes after two years since South Korean organizations started advocating [...]

On Thursday, the Federal Supreme Court of Brazil invalidated a legislative proposal 9-2 regarding the temporal boundaries for demarcating indigenous lands.  The judges ruled against the argument that the territory of indigenous peoples can only be demarcated if there is evidence of the requesting community’s existence as of the promulgation date of the Federal Constitution, i.e., [...]

South Korea’s National Assembly voted on Thursday to lift the immunity of the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, Lee Jae-myung, ahead of a potential arrest warrant on charges of embezzlement, bribery, perjury, and related offenses. The vote passed with a slim majority, with 149 legislators voting in favor of the charges, with the [...]

A group of 40 survivors of a migrant boat sinking in Greek waters filed a criminal complaint Thursday against all parties they deem responsible for the tragedy, according to a press release from the survivors’ representatives. The survivors are also demanding a thorough investigation into the causes of the sinking and the authorities’ response. In [...]

The Dominican Republic announced on Monday it suspended the issuance of visas to citizens of Haiti and is also considering the closure of borders between the two nations following a conflict over water access. This issue stems from a contentious situation involving Haiti’s construction of a canal. The corresponding directive was issued by the President [...]