#Human Rights

#Human Rights

Specifically, it has emerged that Cellebrite's forensic extraction tools were used on his Samsung phone while it was in police custody following his arrest in July 2025. The phone was returned to him nearly two months later, in September, at which point Mwangi found that the phone was no longer password-protected and could be unlocked without requiring a password. It's been assessed with high confidence that Cellebrite's technology was used on the phone on or around July 20 and July 21, 2025.

It's been over a year since Ukrainian forces captured two North Korean soldiers in Russia's Kursk, but the fate of the two men still hangs in the balance as activists accuse the South Korean government of dragging its feet. The two have asked to relocate to South Korea. In the North, they could face punishment for letting themselves be taken alive. "I won't survive [going back]. Everyone else blew themselves up. I failed," one of the soldiers told South Korean newspaper Hankook Ilbo.

Fifteen members of Congress have written to Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, demanding to know what steps the United States has taken in response to the mistreatment of a Palestinian-American teenager who spent nine months in Israeli detention. The letter, led by Senator Peter Welch and first seen by the Guardian, is centered around the case of Mohammed Ibrahim, a Florida resident who was 15 when Israeli soldiers arrested him during a raid on his family's West Bank home in February 2025.

Retirees making up some of the nearly 3,000 people arrested for supporting Palestine Action since the organisation was proscribed have said they feel vindicated by the high court's decision to overturn the ban this week. However, uncertainty remains over whether their trials under terror laws may still go ahead after the government revealed it plans to appeal against the judgment made on Friday by three of the UK's most senior judges.

Closer cooperation between regulators and increased funding are needed for the UK to deal effectively with the human rights harms associated with the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) systems. On 4 February 2026, the Joint Committee on Human Rights met to discuss whether the UK's regulators have the resources, expertise and powers to ensure that human rights are protected from new and emerging harms caused by AI. While there are at least 13 regulators in the UK with remits relating to AI, there is no single regulator dedicated to regulating AI.

Federal attorneys admitted at a Feb. 9 court hearing that numerous immigrants apprehended by ICE agents over the past few months while attending immigration court hearings at 26 Federal Plaza are now being detained on multiple floors of the building. The revelation came after a judge ordered last year that ICE reduce the number of people detained at Federal Plaza after video footage from inside a detainment area there showed numerous men sleeping on the floor and sharing one toilet.

Western governments, the U.S. under Donald Trump leading the pack, are caught in the grip of an anti-immigration fervor, enforcing cruel and degrading laws that violate human rights and undermine public safety. This entire approach toward immigrants is not only immoral but also rests on false economic claims, argues Daniel Mendiola, assistant professor of history and migration studies at Vassar College, in the interview that follows.

Iranian security forces have arrested several figures from the country's reformist movement, local media reported on Monday, as Tehran's crackdown on dissent continues to widen. Those arrested include Azar Mansouri, the head of the Reformist Front, which represents several factions, former diplomat Mohsen Aminzadeh and Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, who was part of the group that stormed the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979.

Do not use any information from a non-government source (e.g., an NGO, even if it is or has been funded by the U.S. government, or media) that advances policies inconsistent with presidential executive orders, including promotion of 'racial justice,' 'diversity, equity, and inclusion,' and gender ideology, the cable says, per . The department deems such sources not to be credible, the cable goes on. The extraordinary instruction could be applied widely, as Politico points out. Many major human rights groups like Amnesty International tout their investment in initiatives like DEI, as do many large news outlets like The New York Times.

On Wednesday (February 4, 2026), Maja T.*, an anti-fascist activist from the eastern German city of Jena (Thuringia), was found guilty by a court in Hungary of having attacked and seriously injured several suspected right-wing extremists in Budapest in February 2023. The attacks had apparently been directed at individuals thought to have participated in the annual "Day of Honor" rally of neo-Nazis from all over Europe, held in the Hungarian capital.

With Washington's stance on Ukraine shifting, debates in Kyiv over Gaza continue to gain momentum. Kyiv, Ukraine At the start of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy voiced support for Israel, while First Lady Olena Zelenska said Ukrainians understand and share the pain of the Israeli people. Billboards across Kyiv lit up the capital with Israeli flags.

Al Jazeera has condemned YouTube's compliance with an Israeli law banning the network's livestreams in the country, warning that the move signals how major tech companies can be co-opted as instruments of regimes hostile to freedom. YouTube's submission to Israel's ban became apparent on Wednesday, days after Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karahi ordered a 90-day extension of an existing ban on the network's operations in Israel, blocking broadcasting and internet companies from carrying the network's content.

We made some really good progress on tariffs for whisky, on visa-free travel to China and on information exchange and co-operation on irregular migration, focusing particularly on small boats and engine parts,