Human Rights

On a secure military base in Tecamachalco, a Mexico City suburb, lies the country’s only gun shop. Prospective customers must fill out multiple forms before being allowed to enter and view weapons locked in glass cases. Advertising the store is illegal – so most Mexicans remain ignorant of its existence. Read More

Twitter, the social media company, quietly assisted Pentagon officials involved in putting a positive spin on the U.S. wars in the Middle East, according to new research into the Twitter Files, a tranche of internal company data provided to selected members of the media by CEO Elon Musk. Read More

Feonirici LLC, a Dubai based investment company, hired Stelix Civils, a construction company in Zimbabwe, to build a 5.4 kilometre long motor racing circuit in Hwange, close to the border of Botswana and Zambia, that they hoped would become the first ever Formula One track in Africa. The company evicted over 100 villagers from the proposed site who then sued to stop the project. The Bulawayo High Court ruled in favor of the villagers in September 2022. Read More

Photographs and interviews with dozens of Indonesian fishermen by the Environmental Justice Foundation, a UK based investigative NGO, and Mongabay have revealed that Dalian Ocean Fishing is using banned equipment to harvest shark fins, in violation of international law. Read More

On April 14, 2022, the UK government signed a £20 million deal with the Rwandan government to accept asylum seekers deported from the UK. Such deportations are typically conducted under contract with charter airlines. Under pressure from human rights groups, many airlines refused to take the contract. Read More

In 2008, Radiant Lagoon Sdn Bhd was granted two palm oil concessions covering an area of 4,400 hectares (10,900 acres) adjacent to Gunung Mulu National Park, the only UNESCO World Heritage site in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. In 2018, the company began logging the area without obtaining required permits. Read More

ArcelorMittal, the steel giant, has promised to invest $1 billion to upgrade its mining and metallurgical complex in Temirtau, Kazakhstan, where dozens of workers have died in industrial accidents in recent years and the pollution is so bad that winter snow sometimes turns black. Read More

As many as 300 migrant workers who staged a protest against the Bandary International Group in Qatar for failure to pay wages have been arrested and may have been deported back to their home countries, as the country gears up for the World Cup football tournament in November 2022. Read More

Six rockets landed on Ugimba village in Intan Jaya regency of West Papua, Indonesia, early on a January morning in 2020. Locals found unexploded parts that were stamped with the number FZ-68 so they took pictures to share with international activists who circulated them on Twitter requesting help. Read More

Undercover Global (UC Global), a now defunct private military contractor, is at the center of a lawsuit brought by a group of journalists and lawyers against the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency for allegedly spying on them when they met with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange at Ecuador’s embassy in London. Read More