Issue 9 · October 14, 2026 · Libera Mondo Newsletter

Hundreds occupy land of an isolated Amazon people

More than 500 people have invaded the Ituna/Itatá Indigenous Land in Pará, Brazil, opening illegal roads, setting fires and threatening federal agents, Mongabay reported on October 9. The land is protected for the Igarapé Ipiaçava, a people living in isolation. The invasions began in August, when a Pará state law created the Bacajaí Environmental Protection Area, about 142,400 hectares that overlap the Indigenous land entirely. On August 26 a federal court ordered the federal government and Funai to send the National Public Security Force within 48 hours, under a fine of R$50,000 a day. As of October 5 no team had arrived. The Justice Ministry says it needs the Pará government’s formal agreement to deploy.

Taliban push residents out of Hazara township

The Taliban are forcing residents out of Omid Sabz, a largely Hazara township of about 80,000 people in western Kabul, KabulNow reported on October 13, drawing on reporting by Etilaatroz. In April a special Taliban court declared about 301 hectares of the township state property. In early August Justice Minister Abdul Hakim Shara’i ordered residents to leave within days and banned sales and rentals. On October 7 tenants were told to pay the Justice Ministry 4,000 afghanis per room, including back rent and six months in advance. More than 30 residents were reportedly detained and beaten in the week before October 10 and made to promise to leave within two days. One resident estimated that 100 to 200 homes had been vacated, some taken over by Taliban members. “The plan is to put pressure on people until they leave on their own,” a resident said.

Peru commission blocks reserve for isolated peoples

Peru’s multisectoral commission on peoples in isolation and initial contact has voted 8 to 7 to reject the prior recognition study for the proposed Atacuari Indigenous Reserve in Loreto, between the provinces of Mariscal Ramón Castilla and Putumayo, AIDESEP reported on October 7. The study is a prerequisite for creating the reserve, so the decision halts the process. Five ministries, including Environment and Energy and Mines, voted against, with the Loreto regional government and two provincial municipalities. AIDESEP, the Amazonian confederation CONAP, the ministries of Culture, Health and Education and two universities voted in favor. AIDESEP and the regional organization ORPIO requested the reserve in 2020. AIDESEP, which sits on the commission, is the only source for this account. Two days earlier it asked Norway, Germany, the United Kingdom, KfW and the World Bank to suspend climate finance to the agencies it says obstruct protection.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court upholds Christian’s death sentence

Pakistan’s Supreme Court on October 7 upheld the death sentence of Qaiser Ayub, 49, a Christian convicted of blasphemy under Section 295-C of the Penal Code, and acquitted his brother Amoon Ayub, 46, on the benefit of the doubt, Morning Star News reported. The three-judge bench was headed by Chief Justice Yahya Afridi. The case concerns content posted on a blog on a website registered in Qaiser Ayub’s name. He says he closed the site in 2009 and that others revived it with his name left in the copyright line; the court rejected his claim that the files were planted. The complaint was first made in 2010. A trial court sentenced both brothers to death in 2018, and the Lahore High Court upheld the sentences in 2022. Their lawyers plan a revision petition.

Iran detains Kurds without warrants

Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence has detained at least 12 Kurdish men in Kurdistan Province since late September without presenting warrants, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network reports. Before dawn on October 8 agents raided homes in Saqqez and detained seven members of two local mountaineering groups; two were released after hours of interrogation, and the whereabouts of the other five are unknown. In Baneh, five men were detained between September 26 and October 9 and have not been heard from since. One, a local philanthropist, was seized while driving his child to hospital, and the child was left alone on the street.

Egypt detains six young Copts over film parody

Egyptian state security prosecutors are holding six young Coptic Christians, aged 17 to 22, over a TikTok video, the Coptic weekly Watani and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) report. The six, from a village in Samalout district, Minya, posted the clip on October 4. It reenacted a scene from the film Khalawees in which prisoners try to pray without knowing how; some viewers took it as mocking Muslim prayer, and it was deleted within hours. On October 6 families and church representatives handed five of them to the police. The Supreme State Security Prosecution ordered four days’ detention on October 10, and a judge extended it by 15 days the next day. The charges include contempt of religion. EIPR’s lawyers say there was no intent to offend.

Burundi wins UN rights council seat unopposed

The UN General Assembly elected Burundi to the Human Rights Council on October 13 for a term from 2027 to 2029. Every regional group ran exactly as many candidates as it had seats, so none of the 15 places was contested; Burundi stood with Ghana, Nigeria and Zambia for Africa’s four. Human Rights Watch says Burundi has made no meaningful reform, that extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention continue with impunity, and that the government refuses to cooperate with the council’s special rapporteur on the country. On October 6, at the council, Burundi called a vote on renewing that rapporteur’s mandate and voted against it. The renewal passed 22 to 7, with 17 abstentions.