On 20 February, the Rabat Court of Appeal upheld the conviction against human rights defender Rida Benotmane, imposed by a lower court on 7 November 2022, on charges relating to his social media posts and YouTube videos dating from 2021, in which he criticised the Moroccan government. On appeal,...

During a court hearing on 24 February 2023, the court ordered the reopening of the investigation into the seven officers involved in the attack on Moisés Órdenes who had been previously excluded from the criminal investigation, as well as requested that the pending investigative actions are carried...

Peace activist Abdul Karim Ali has been arbitrarily detained since 11 August 2022. He was interrogated repeatedly about a video he made on 9 July 2022 denouncing a Cameroonian military chief for allegedly torturing civilians. Two of his friends have since been detained alongside him. The three men...

Iranian authorities are subjecting Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele to enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment. He is held in solitary confinement in a windowless basement cell and is denied access to adequate healthcare and fresh air. On 10 January 2023, Iranian state media...

After having served almost 75 days in detention for purported petty hooliganism, Belarusian human rights defender and educator Nasta (Anastasia) Loika faces unfounded criminal charges and remains in detention. The authorities are targeting Nasta Loika in retaliation for her human rights work. There...

On 15 February, a 28-year-old Chechen man Idris Arsamikov was arbitrarily arrested on fabricated charges of fraud in Moscow Domodedovo airport and transferred to Chechnya. On 17 February, the police at Chechnya’s Shelkovsky District Police Department refused to disclose his whereabouts to his...

Woman human rights defender, Vanessa Mendoza Cortés, could soon stand trial for speaking out for women’s rights in Andorra, including abortion rights, before a UN expert body in 2019. She faces a heavy fine and a criminal record if convicted. The authorities should drop the charge against Vanessa...

Iranian authorities have forcibly disappeared Iranian Kurdish dissidents Pejman Fatehi, Vafa Azarbar, Mohammad (Hazhir) Faramarzi and Mohsen Mazloum for seven months, by concealing their fate and whereabouts from their families and lawyer since their arrests in July 2022. They are at grave risk of...

Aly Magdaleno Domínguez Ramos and Jairo Bonilla Ayala, members of the resistance of Guapinol (department of Colón, northern Honduras) against an iron ore mine, were found dead in the community of Guapinol on 7 January 2023. One month later, six other defenders of the Guapinol river found out that...

On 16 February 2023, Algerian father of four and shop owner, Abderrahmane Zitout, started a hunger strike for the third time since his imprisonment, to protest against his prolonged, pre-trial detention which now exceeds 324 days. He languishes in arbitrary detention in El Harrach prison since 5...

On 14 February, according to information currently available to Amnesty International, state security officials detained former prisoner of conscience Josiel Guía Piloto in his home in Havana. At the time of his detention, he was hunger striking in protest over his constant harassment and...

On 4 February, Morris Mabior Awikjok Bak, a South Sudanese critic, was reportedly arbitrarily arrested, allegedly by armed Kenyan security forces and a South Sudanese man in civilian dress in Nairobi, Kenya where he resides. It is believed he was forcefully returned to Juba, South Sudan and is...