The global food supply is under threat from laws that criminalize the sale and exchange of traditional peasant seed varieties, a group of UN experts said Sept. 16. In their latest report to the Human Rights Council, the UN Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas indicated that almost all of the world's food comes from seeds and that traditional systems supply 70 to 90 percent of the seeds sown in many countries.

A group of UN experts called on Honduras Sept. 4 to immediately halt evictions of peasant, indigenous and Afro-descendant communities taking place under Decree No. 107-2026, also known as the Law for the Strengthening and Protection of the Agro-Industrial Sector, Energy Projects, Tourism, Livestock & Small Agricultural Producers. The experts wrote: "We cannot stand by and watch the deliberate closing of every legal door through which a peasant, Indigenous or Afro-descendant family in Honduras can challenge dispossession." 

Human Rights Watch urged Philippine authorities on Sept. 3 to drop charges against 11 indigenous rights protesters arrested during a police operation to clear an anti-mining blockade in Kasibu, Nueva Vizcaya province.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on Thai authorities Aug. 17 to halt the deportation of ethnic Karen villagers from Thailand's Phetchaburi province to Burma, citing grave risks to their safety if returned, and urging their immediate release from immigration detention.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres on July 27 condemned Israel's announcement of plans to accelerate the authorization of settlement outposts under Israeli domestic law in the occupied West Bank, warning that the move constitutes a "flagrant violation" of international law.

UN Special Rapporteur Morris Tidball-Binz on July 17 condemned the killing of 20 Honduran peasants earlier this year, and called for those responsible to be brought to justice. He also called for authorities to ensure that the victims' families are provided with reparations, and take measures to ensure that there will be no further outbreaks of violence.

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: