Belarusian prisoner of conscience and opposition politician Mikalai Statkevich was released from imprisonment Feb. 20 after suffering a stroke in January. Following his release, Amnesty International reiterated the need for justice for victims of human rights violations in Belarus.

During the annual State of the Nation address on Feb. 12, South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the deployment of military troops to support police efforts against illegal mining and gang violence in the provinces of Gauteng and Western Cape.

As the architecture of total surveillance falls inexorably into place, cellular technology comes to colonize more and more of daily human existence. Accepted in the banal interest of "convenience," this trajectory ultimately ends in not only the extinction of human freedom, but the abolition of humanity itself—an idea openly embraced by the fascist tech bros as "transhumanism," and warned of by CS Lewis in his eerily prescient 1943 work The Abolition of Man.  In Episode 317 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg urges a revolution of everyday life, in which we start saying no to the relentless encroachment of cellular and digital technology.

The UN's top human rights official on Feb. 5 demanded that Burkina Faso end its clampdown on civic freedoms, including an announced ban on political parties. In his comments, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk emphasized that the government's decision to prohibit political parties marks a serious setback for the freedoms of expression, association and political participation in Burkina Faso. He stated:

Laura Fernández, a 39-year-old political scientist and right-wing populist, will be Costa Rica's next president. Fernández secured nearly 50% of the vote in last week's election, becoming the first candidate in more than a decade to clear the threshold needed to win outright in the first round. She did so by promising to respond forcefully to the country's exaggerated yet real insecurity crisis linked to the drug trade—the overwhelming concern for most voters. On the campaign trail, Fernández drew openly from the playbook of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, whose brutal anti-gang crackdown has inspired conservatives across the region. She called for a "state of exception" to combat crime, promised to complete the construction of a massive Bukele-inspired prison, and spoke with Bukele before any other foreign leader after her win. Her Sovereign People's Party won a majority of congressional seats but fell short of the supermajority necessary to guarantee the constitutional or judicial reforms she promised on the campaign trail. (NACLA Update)

Pakistan's Balochistan has just witnessed one of the province's deadliest ever episodes: a wave of attacks and clashes across several cities that left dozens of civilians, fighters, and security personnel dead, with official but unconfirmed tolls as high as 200 overall. It marked the latest escalation in decades of conflict between separatist groups and the Pakistani state in Balochistan, where the central government has long been accused of exploiting rich resources while marginalizing the local population.

UN experts on Jan. 26 cautioned against the escalating use of arrests and criminal proceedings against agricultural trade union activity in France, after authorities detained 52 farmers during peaceful protests in Paris earlier this month.

Amnesty International on Jan. 22 called on Kazakhstan to immediately drop criminal charges against 19 activists affiliated with the local Atajurt human rights movement who face up to 10 years in prison for participating in a peaceful protest near the nation's border with China. Marie Struthers, Eastern Europe & Central Asia director at Amnesty International, condemned the case as a misuse of criminal law to silence dissent, stating: