#human-rights

#human-rights

Ali al-Ahmed didn't think that Elon Musk was responsible for the decline and fall of Twitter. Musk was another face representing an old regime. And its sins began well before Musk bumbled into Twitter HQ, in October 2022, carrying a porcelain sink. (In an attempt at humour, Musk posted a video of himself arriving at the Twitter offices carrying a sink with the caption Entering Twitter HQ let that sink in!)

This is something that's become a big part of the news because people, a lot of comedians especially, are very upset because the people who paid the comedians to come to this are not good people. It's a pretty brutal regime. They've done a lot of horrible, horrible things... I'm curious as to why you decided to do that.

I mourn these lives and pray for the safe return of every hostage still held and for every family whose lives were torn apart by these atrocities, In the aftermath of that day, Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israeli government launched a genocidal war: a death toll that now far exceeds 67,000; with the Israeli military bombing homes, hospitals, and schools into rubble. Every day in Gaza has become a place where grief itself has run out of language.

Ben Chouchane, who was arrested in January 2024, had been sentenced to death by a court in Nabeul, east of Tunis, on Wednesday, Bouthelja told the AFP news agency. His client had been found guilty of insulting the president, the minister of justice and the judiciary, spreading false news and some of his social media posts were also deemed to be incitement, Bouthelja added.

They dragged little Greta before our eyes, beat her, and forced her to kiss the Israeli flag,

The initial 14 were brought to Ghana on September 6. Three were deported that night. 11 were held in military detention. Out of that 11, 10 were deported with the matter in court, and eight of them are in Togo,

I [want] to express my sincere regret for having performed under a government that continues to violate fundamental human rights. I deeply regret participating under the auspices of the Saudi government.

Speaking on Real Time With Bill Maher, CK, who is co-headlining the festival with the British comedian Jimmy Carr on Monday night local time, said other comedians had been really surprised by the response from audiences in Riyadh so far. There's a woman who's a lesbian and Jewish, who did a show there, and she got a standing ovation, CK said, referring to Jessica Kirson, who has expressed sincere regret for performing at the festival.

In January 2025, the execution of inmate Huang Lin-kai reignited Taiwan's death penalty debate, with activists saying authorities acted in disregard of the law. The execution, the island's first in five years, came just months after Taiwan's Constitutional Court issued a landmark ruling narrowing the scope of capital punishment and requiring stricter safeguards for its application. At the time, some observers thought the ruling meant Taiwan was edging toward "de facto abolition" of the death penalty.

The sisters of the British-Egyptian human rights campaigner Alaa Abd el-Fattah have intervened for the first time since his release from prison in Egypt to call on Keir Starmer to push Narendra Modi to free a British Sikh activist when he meets the Indian prime minister next week. Jagtar Singh Johal, from Dumbarton, has been held in an Indian jail for nearly eight years without facing full trial in what his supporters say is an arbitrary and egregious denial of justice by a British ally.

The return of the controversial paid bonus, eliminated years ago due to civil society pressure, comes at a time when Rio has its lowest police lethality rates in a decade. The paid bonus was introduced in a bill reforming the career path of civil police officers, who focus mainly on investigations rather than street patrols. Under the law, officers could receive a bonus of 10% to 150% of their salary for seizing high-caliber or restricted-use weapons and neutralizing criminals, according to O Globo.

A global academic freedom group has warned that the Trump administration's assault on universities is turning the US into a model for how to dismantle academic freedom. We are witnessing an unprecedented situation really as far as I can tell in history where a global leader of education and research is voluntarily dismantling that which gave it an advantage, said Robert Quinn, executive director of Scholars at Risk (SAR).

Some of those being deported held valid US residency permits, he said, but were nonetheless included on the deportation list, with their consent obtained for repatriation. The confirmation comes after the New York Times, citing unnamed officials in Tehran, said a plane carrying around 100 Iranians left Louisiana late on September 29 and was set to arrive in Iran via Qatar the following day.

Detainees at Deportation Depot (as it was dubbed by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis) have complained of limited access to medical care, including emergencies, poor and insufficient food, lack of drinking water, and no privacy to speak with their lawyers, according to testimonies collected by the legal network Sanctuary of the South (SOS). They have also reported having no mechanisms to file complaints or store legal documents or religious items, that staff threaten them with solitary confinement as retaliation,

U.S. lawmakers are demanding that Israel be held accountable for the violence perpetrated against Palestinian Americans by Israeli soldiers and settlers. "The grief and outrage of the families of American citizens killed and detained by Israeli forces was palpable," Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pennsylvania) posted on social media on Wednesday. "I am so grateful for their courage and advocacy driven by the hope that more families do not have to experience the pain they do." Since 2022, Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 10 American citizens in the West Bank and Gaza, according to Lee's office. No one has been prosecuted in connection with any of the deaths, reports.

There is no country in the world which has managed to bring down its high levels of criminality without taking stances such as this, Knoploch told Rio's legislative assembly on Tuesday, hailing the law as a way of fighting criminals he called scum.

The kills were easier to swallow after a few drinks. Following each operation the police death squads would haunt Manila's bars to take the edge off, and because some were superstitious, to ward off malevolent spirits following them home. Imagine, I kill 47 people and can just sleep? No, I was drinking, drinking just to sleep, says one. You need to release stress and we are Filipino If we go home after killing, the spirit may follow you.

Transgender persons are a vulnerable segment of society and we must all give them dignity and respect.

Zhang, 42, is thought to have stood trial in Shanghai on Friday on a charge of picking quarrels and provoking trouble, a charge often used in China to target critics of the government. Western diplomats were reportedly turned away from observing the trial. Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a media freedom NGO, said on Saturday that Zhang had been sentenced to four years in prison.

The people of North Korea endure the harshest repression in the world, with the death penalty reportedly used for sharing foreign media, including popular South Korean television dramas, according to a new report from the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR). The 14-page document detailed how ordinary North Korean people's lives have become significantly more difficult in the last decade. The report was based on interviews with around 300 people who have managed to leave North Korea,

A source close to the family told RFE/RL's Radio Farda on September 16, the third anniversary of Amini's death, that her father, Amjad Amini, was summoned by intelligence officials in Saghez, in Iran's Kurdistan Province and warned not to take any action to mark the occassion. Amateur videos posted online showed shops in Saghez closed on September 16 in what was described as a strike by local shopkeepers to mark the anniversary.

The admission came in a letter to the BBC and Kearney, in relation to a tribunal examining claims that several reporters in Northern Ireland were subjected to unlawful scrutiny by the police. It related to work carried out by Kearney for a documentary into the independence of the Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (PONI). Kearney is now the northern editor at Irish broadcaster RTE.