Pakistan court sentences Baloch activist to life in prison
An anti-terrorism court in Quetta sentenced Mahrang Baloch, leader of the Balochistan Unity Committee and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize nominee, to life imprisonment on June 23. Fellow activist Sibghatullah Shah received the same sentence. Both were convicted of murder and terrorism charges linked to the death of a paramilitary soldier during a 2024 protest in Gwadar against enforced disappearances. Defence lawyers stated due process was denied and pledged appeals. The BYC campaigns against a pattern of disappearances and extrajudicial killings in Balochistan that Pakistani authorities have long denied.
RSF encircles el-Obeid as Sudan death toll passes 59,000
The U.S. State Department warned on June 22 that the Rapid Support Forces were massing around el-Obeid, a city of half a million in North Kordofan, and that mass atrocities could follow its fall — echoing the pattern seen in El Fasher, Darfur. Days earlier, UN High Commissioner Volker Türk told the Human Rights Council that drone strikes had killed more than 1,000 Sudanese civilians between January and May 2026 alone. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project puts the war's total dead at 59,000 since April 2023. The Security Council has not passed an enforceable resolution on Sudan since the war began.
Ghana criminalises same-sex relationships, African bloc follows
Ghana's parliament passed the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill on May 31, criminalising same-sex relationships with up to three years' imprisonment and penalising promotion or funding of LGBTQ+ activities with up to ten. The law includes a compulsory duty to report suspected individuals to police. At an African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Values and Sovereignty held in Accra in early June, lawmakers from more than a dozen countries pledged to advance similar legislation. Reuters reported that participants cited encouragement from conservative figures in the United States and Europe. The bills frame criminalisation as an exercise of cultural sovereignty rather than a restriction of individual rights.
Rights abuses at critical-minerals mines surge 73 percent
The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre's 2026 Transition Minerals Tracker, released June 24, recorded 329 allegations of human rights abuse at major copper, cobalt, lithium, nickel, and rare-earth operations in 2025 — up 73 percent from 156 in 2024. The report identified Indigenous peoples and local communities as the primary groups affected. South America had the highest number of recorded allegations; Africa posted the sharpest year-on-year increase, with abuses more than doubling. Global demand for transition minerals is accelerating under decarbonisation targets, and the tracker's data suggest the costs are falling disproportionately on the communities living on the land being mined.
Kalinga community challenges mining permit over FPIC breach
On June 10, the Balatoc Indigenous Cultural Community and Balatoc Young People in Pasil, Kalinga province (Philippines) petitioned the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples to cancel a Mineral Production Sharing Agreement granted to Makilala Mining Company. The petitioners argued the agreement was approved in March 2024 before the legally required NCIP Certification Precondition was issued six months later — a direct violation of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act. They also alleged the company used deceptive tactics and forged signatures to obtain a 2022 memorandum of agreement, breaching free, prior and informed consent requirements under Philippine law and ILO Convention 169.
Australian court hears slavery charges in Yazidi enslavement case
A Melbourne court heard bail arguments on June 5 for two women charged with slavery and terrorism offences connected to the alleged enslavement of a Yazidi woman in Raqqa during 2017–2018, when the city was under Islamic State control. The defendants, who returned to Australia from a Syrian refugee camp, were charged on May 8 at Melbourne Magistrates' Court. Both remained in custody as of the hearing date. The case is among a small number of prosecutions worldwide that attempt to hold individuals accountable for the enslavement of Yazidis during the genocide — a crime whose perpetrators have largely escaped justice. The allegations have not been tested at trial.
Rohingya funding crisis deepens as ninth year in camps begins
UNHCR described the Rohingya refugee response in Bangladesh as entering a "fragile phase" of declining international funding and deepening dependency, as reported on May 31. Bangladesh's government has urged the UN for swift repatriation, noting that nearly nine years have passed since the 2017 mass displacement. No voluntary repatriation has begun. Myanmar's ongoing civil war and the Rohingya's unresolved statelessness — they remain excluded from Myanmar's citizenship law — are the central obstacles. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya remain in Cox's Bazar camps, where aid agencies have reported steadily deteriorating conditions as donor attention has shifted elsewhere.
Subscribe to receive future issues directly in your inbox.
Libera Mondo is a human rights organisation based in Prague, reporting on those the world overlooks. libera-mondo.org
Libera Mondo z.s., Prague · libera-mondo.org/newsletter/en/2