Published May 8 in TIME, this essay surveys a global wave of state-sponsored attacks on lawyers, framing them as a deliberate authoritarian tactic to disable democratic checks. It highlights the April 2026 re-arrest of Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh — a Sakharov Prize laureate previously sentenced to 33 years and 148 lashes — and …
On April 30, 2026, an Istanbul court granted conditional release to 15 of the more than 400 defendants prosecuted alongside jailed Istanbul mayor and CHP opposition figure Ekrem İmamoğlu, who has now been detained for over a year and faces 142 charges with a potential cumulative sentence of up to 2,430 years. Several of the …
On April 28, 2026, Turkish Minute reported that the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office is seeking up to two years in prison for prominent legal scholar and penal code author İzzet Özgenç — a former legal adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — over twelve 2023 social media posts directed at former Court of Appeals …
JURIST reports in April 2026 that UN Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlor has issued a sharp warning that Mexico continues to fail in protecting human rights defenders and the lawyers who represent them, despite formal protective programs. Front Line Defenders ranked Mexico second worldwide in killings of human rights defenders in 2024, with at least 32 …
Human Rights Watch reported on April 23, 2026 that Vietnam’s Decree 109/2026, which takes effect May 18, empowers police and commune-level officials to revoke lawyers’ licenses and impose heavy fines for vaguely defined offenses such as “insulting” officials or “obstructing” state agencies — frequently the same officials a defense lawyer would be challenging in court. …
The U.S. Justice Department has indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a civil rights organization known for tracking hate groups, on charges of wire fraud, false statements to a bank, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced that between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC paid more than $3 million …
CNN reported on April 11 that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s public statements about Kilmar Abrego Garcia — a Salvadoran national whom the government wrongly deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador — may lead a federal judge to dismiss human smuggling charges against Abrego Garcia on grounds of vindictive prosecution. Blanche publicly linked Abrego …
In early April 2026, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) renewed calls for the Indonesian government to hold accountable all those responsible for the March 12 acid attack on human rights lawyer and legal aid defender Andrie Yunus, who sustained severe burns to his face, eye, chest, and hands after two assailants attacked him …
The Trump administration has been engaged in a legal battle against several prominent law firms — Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Jenner & Block, and Susman Godfrey — after issuing executive orders targeting them for representing clients and causes the president opposes. When the firms fought back, federal district courts ruled against the administration, finding the executive …
UN human rights experts issued an urgent appeal on April 2, 2026, demanding Pakistan immediately and unconditionally release human rights defender Idris Khattak, who has been detained for over six years following his enforced disappearance in November 2019. Khattak, whose detention was ruled arbitrary by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in November 2025, …