Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, has called for people to join mass election day protests against President Vladimir Putin. In a video on YouTube, Navalnaya on Wednesday urged Russians to gather at polling stations on March 17 and spoil their ballots or vote against Putin, who is almost certain to win a fifth term as president.

South Africa has asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to order additional emergency measures against Israel, which it says is breaching the measures already in place, the UN's top court said on March 6.

In its application, South Africa warned that Palestinians in Gaza were facing starvation and asked to court to order that all parties cease hostilities and release all hostages and detainees.

A Kashmiri journalist, who was released after spending more than five years in jail earlier this week, has been rearrested by police in another case under India’s stringent “anti-terror” law, according to his lawyer.

Aasif Sultan was arrested on Thursday in a 2019 case regarding violence inside the central jail in Srinagar under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). Rights activists have said getting bail under a UAPA case is nearly impossible, which means Sultan could stay in jail without trial indefinitely. Amnesty International has termed it a “lawless law.”

The crime lord behind a six-day gang mutiny against Haiti’s prime minister, Ariel Henry, has claimed the Caribbean country could be plunged into civil war unless its temporarily exiled leader steps down.

Over the last six days, gang fighters have released thousands of inmates from prisons stormed and laid siege to strategic locations in the capital, Port-au-Prince, including two airports, police stations, and a port. Nearly all flights in and out of the country’s main international airport have been cancelled, with gangs launching a renewed assault on the compound on March 5.

A draft amnesty law submitted by Senegal’s President Macky Sall to members of the National Assembly on March 4, 2024, opens the door to impunity for serious crimes, Human Rights Watch said today.

The United States says Israel has endorsed a framework for a proposed Gaza ceasefire and a captive release deal, and it was now up to the Palestinian group Hamas to agree to it. The comments on March 2 came hours before mediators were expected to reconvene in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, to find a formula acceptable to Israel and Hamas for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza.

Europe risked any credibility to speak on Russia’s actions in Ukraine if it remained silent on Gaza, according to a Belgian member of parliament, who is among the more than 200 lawmakers who have signed a letter calling for an arms embargo on Israel.

More than 200 legislators from countries, which fund Israel militarily, on March 1 called for their countries to stop selling weapons to Tel Aviv citing “violations of international law” as Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza has killed more than 30,000 people, most of them civilians.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk on March 4 called on China to implement recommendations to amend laws that violate fundamental rights, including in the Xinjiang and Tibet regions.

Rights groups accuse Beijing of widespread abuses of Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority that numbers around 10 million in the western region of Xinjiang, including the mass use of forced labor in camps. Beijing vigorously denies any abuses.

Vietnam’s Communist Party leaders have issued a sweeping directive aimed at clamping down on civil society, including trade unions and labor activism, even as it pledges to uphold human rights at the United Nations, according to a rights watchdog.

Among the many provisions of the order known as Directive 24, officials are asked to closely monitor trade unions and labor disputes, and ensure that new labor groups are not established based on ethnicity or religion, Bangkok-based The 88 Project, which obtained the directive, said on March 1.

The US military on March 2 carried out its first airdrop of aid into Gaza, after the deaths of Palestinians queuing for food underlined the growing humanitarian catastrophe in the crowded coastal enclave after months of Israeli military operations.

Other countries including Jordan and France have already conducted airdrops of aid into Gaza, where the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says a quarter of the population—576,000 people—are one step from famine.