On 29 September the Court of Appeal of Ngozi upheld the conviction and five-year prison sentence of Burundian lawyer, Tony Germain Nkina. He was arrested on 13 October 2020 and charged with endangering internal state security. He was convicted on 15 June for “collaborating with rebels who attacked...

On 1 October, Steven Donziger, a lawyer and environmental rights defender who successfully represented victims of oil dumping in Ecuador, was sentenced to six months in prison on a politically motivated ‘contempt of court’ charge. He has already spent more than two years under house arrest in a...

More than 100 organisations are calling on the members of the National Council of the Slovak Republic (Slovak Parliament) to reject a renewed attempt to restrict access to abortion in the country. The draconian bill would impose new barriers to abortion and endanger the health and wellbeing of...

Prominent legal scholar and human rights defender Xu Zhiyong has been formally indicted for “subversion of state power”. Detained since February 2020, Xu has reported harsh conditions as well as incidents of torture and ill-treatment while in custody. Charged and detained solely for exercising his...

In light of the Cuban government’s negative response to requests from civil society to hold a Civic March for Change, planned for 15 November, to call for the release of activists detained for exercising their rights, including following the historic protests of 11 July, as well for human rights to...

The Israeli government has designated six Palestinian civil society groups "terrorist" organizations in an assault on human rights

Syrian authorities have executed 24 people accused of involvement in igniting the wildfires that ravaged the country last year. In a Facebook post on 21 October, the Syrian Ministry of Justice described the 24 men as “criminals who carried out terrorist attacks that led to deaths and damage to...

Health and care workers in Italy who raised concerns about poor and unsafe working conditions in care homes during the Covid-19 pandemic were subjected to unfair disciplinary proceedings and feared retribution from their employers, new research from Amnesty International has found. Instead of...

The briefing details how health and care workers in Italy who raised legitimate concerns about poor and unsafe working conditions in care homes during the COVID-19 pandemic were subjected to unfair disciplinary proceedings and feared recriminations from their employers. Staff working in residential...

Le operatrici e gli operatori sanitari e sociosanitari che hanno sollevato preoccupazioni legittime sulle inadeguate condizioni di lavoro e di sicurezza nelle strutture residenziali per persone anziane durante la pandemia sono stati/e spesso soggetti/e a procedimenti disciplinari iniqui e hanno...

The Philippine’s Department of Justice’s (DOJ) recently released matrix – containing limited information from its review of a mere 52 cases among thousands of deaths during police anti-drug operations – is another deeply disappointing indicator of the continuing lack of accountability for the...