UN experts on July 8 condemned the sentencing of Pakistani human rights defender Mahrang Baloch to two terms of life imprisonment by a court in Quetta, describing it as a "travesty" of justice.

Amnesty International on July 6 condemned the conviction in Türkiye of environmental activist Esra Işık. Amnesty's deputy regional director for Europe, Esther Major, spoke on the broader impacts of the conviction on the fight to defend the environment:

A new Lighthouse Reports investigation has brought to light new evidence of the United Arab Emirates' role in sustaining Sudan's civil war by backing the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) through a covert logistics and training network based in eastern Libya. The report draws on social media analysis, geolocation data, satellite imagery, and witness interviews to trace alleged RSF-linked camps, convoy routes, and transfers of weapons and fuel between Libya and Sudan. The investigation identified four previously unknown RSF staging areas in Libya, including one near Benghazi. RSF defectors described training alongside Libyan National Army soldiers and UAE-contracted Colombian mercenaries before being sent back to Sudan.

Bahrain's High Criminal Court held its first hearing July 5 in a national security case involving 19 defendants accused of forming and operating a terrorist organization linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Amnesty International on July 2 warned that the recent move by Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso to submit formal notifications of withdrawal from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) paints a bleak future for thousands of conflict survivors, threatening their right to truth, justice and reparations.

Digital technology continues to colonize every sphere of human activity with terrifying rapidity, and Artificial Intelligence portends the actual abolition of humanity. Even the United Nations' belated and insufficient efforts to put a regulatory regime in place for AI acknowledge that humans face imminent "loss of control" over the technology. There are glimmers of hope, however: teachers engaged in practical resistance to the rollout of AI in school classrooms, and the nationwide protests against the proliferation of data centers. In New York City, the local Luddite Club just held a Summer of Ludd festival—aimed at getting people to disconnect from the digital pseudo-reality that recuperates our very alienation from itself, and to reclaim real life in the public parks and streets. In Episode 335 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg offers a report from Manhattan's Lower East Side. 

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported June 30 that authorities in the Philippines continue to conduct extrajudicial killings, with no accountability, as part of the government's anti-drug campaign. Ten years after then-President Rodrigo Duterte launched his brutal "war on drugs," serious human rights violations remain ongoing.

A UN expert panel on July 1 condemned the latest murder of a Mexican human rights activist, and called for a thorough, impartial and transparent investigation by state authorities.