Tag - human-rights

 
Menu
Search
 
September 05, 2025
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

HUMAN RIGHTS

A mural depicts Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran on Monday. Within days of Israel's airstrikes beginning on June 13, Iranian security forces started a campaign of widespread arrests and an intensified street presence based around checkpoints.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 26, 2025
Iran turns to internal crackdown in wake of 12-day war with Israel
Iranian rights group HRNA said it had recorded the arrests of 705 people on political or security charges since the start of the war, many of them accused of spying for Israel.
Migrants are rescued from a wooden boat by Doctors Without Borders in international waters off the coast of Tunisia in the central Mediterranean Sea in July 2024.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 24, 2025
Hard EU line on migration rose from the ashes of compassion
A decade ago, the image of a 3-year-old Syrian boy washed up dead on a beach prompted an outpouring of emotion and renewed commitments to take in refugees.
The European Union's diplomatic service said in a report there were indications Israel had breached its human rights obligations under the terms of a pact governing its ties with the bloc.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 24, 2025
European Union divided over response to suspected Israeli rights breaches
The European Union's top diplomat said her priority was to improve the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip rather than to "punish Israel."
A person holding U.S. and LGBTQ+ flags stands in front of the Lincoln Memorial, ahead of the presidential inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, in Washington on Jan. 18.
WORLD
Jun 23, 2025
Pride and prejudice: Trump casts shadow on 10 years of gay marriage
At least two sitting Supreme Court justices have indicated they want to revisit Obergefell, which legalized same-sex marriage in the U.S., among other cases.
Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil speaks to reporters after being released from immigration custody in Jena, Louisiana, on Friday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jun 21, 2025
Pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil walks free after U.S. judge orders release
President Donald Trump has called protests against Israel's Gaza war antisemitic and vowed to deport foreign students who took part. Khalil became the first target of this policy.
A visitor looks into North Korea from South Korea's Odusan Unification Observatory in Paju on June 12.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Jun 20, 2025
Rights abuses continue in North Korea a decade after probe, says U.N.
A U.N official said he is still surprised by the continued prevalence of executions, forced labour and reports of starvation in the authoritarian country.
Social activists and artists remove graffiti from the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles on June 10, after days of protests against federal immigration sweeps.
JAPAN
Jun 19, 2025
Japanese American museum criticizes Trump order
U.S. authorities issued orders to put up notices for exhibitions, movies and others that are deemed to disparage U.S. history.
Foreign nationals applying for U.S. student and exchange visitor visas will now be asked to set their social media profiles to public so that they can be reviewed.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 19, 2025
U.S. orders social media vetting for student visa applicants
The move steps up measures to restrict foreign nationals’ entry to American campuses over national security concerns.
The Tokyo District Court has issued an order to the government to pay ¥1.2 million ($8,300) in damages to two overstayers who got sick while they were held at a detention center.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jun 18, 2025
Government ordered to compensate overstayers who got sick in detention
The Tokyo District Court held the government responsible over the deterioration of health of the two men — one Iranian, the other Turkish — at an immigration detention facility.
People shop at a covered market in Suva, Fiji, on Sept. 5.
BUSINESS
Jun 17, 2025
Pacific Islands should boost women's participation in work, says World Bank
Six countries did not have paid parental leave, often forcing women to leave the labor force when they started families, a report said.
A Ukrainian mother sits with her children near a refugee center in Sumy, Ukraine, on June 12.
WORLD
Jun 17, 2025
Stay or go? Ukrainian visa programs in U.K. leave refugees in limbo
Many Ukrainians who came to Britain on special visas from 2022 are running out of time.
A woman weeps as she holds a poster of TikTok star Sana Yousaf during a protest to condemn violence against women, after Yousaf was killed for rejecting a man's proposal in Islamabad.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Jun 16, 2025
'This is a culture': TikTok murder highlights Pakistan's unease with women online
TikTok is wildly popular in the nation, and women have found both audience and income. But as views have surged, so have efforts to police the platform.
Hong Kong Island and Victoria Harbor on May 19. New raids show Hong Kong’s clampdown on dissent is still expanding.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jun 16, 2025
China security office flexes new power with Hong Kong probe
Raids have shown the clampdown on dissent is still expanding, five years after Chinese President Xi Jinping imposed a security law on the city.
A library on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, late last month
WORLD / Society
Jun 13, 2025
Foreign students scrub social media as U.S. expands visa vetting
Digital rights lawyers argue that the level of scrutiny that appears to be under consideration could set a dangerous precedent for digital surveillance in immigration processes.
In an annual gender gap report, Japan recorded its strongest gains in economic participation, where its score climbed to 61.3% from 56.8% in 2024.
JAPAN / Society
Jun 12, 2025
Japan ranks 118th out of 148 countries in gender gap report
Japan's gender parity ranking was unchanged from a year ago and is still the lowest among Group of Seven countries.
Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki speaks to reporters in Tokyo on Friday. Suzuki said preparations for the changes that will focus more on rehabilitation are being actively made at each correctional facility.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal / FOCUS
Jun 5, 2025
Japan’s prison reform focuses on rehabilitation
Prison labor is no longer mandatory, which allows more time for educational and rehabilitative programs aimed at reducing recidivism.
Security personnel keep watch near the portrait of late Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong displayed on the Tiananmen Gate, in Beijing on Tuesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jun 4, 2025
We will never forget Tiananmen crackdown, Taiwan and U.S. say on 36th anniversary
The events are not publicly discussed in China and the anniversary is not officially marked.
Yasuhiko Morine (left), Esperanza Morine (center left), Lydia Morine (center right) and Naoaki Morine on the island of Linapacan in the western Philippines on May 25
JAPAN
Jun 4, 2025
Some descendants of Japanese in Philippines still without Japan nationality
As this year marks the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, the government is strengthening support for those seeking Japanese nationality based on their ancestry.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer meets U.S. President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the Oval Office on Feb. 27. U.S. conservatives may be unlikely defenders of free speech but their criticism of censorship in the U.K. and Europe raises real concerns about vague hate laws and curbs on liberty in the name of harmony. 
COMMENTARY
Jun 2, 2025
European kindness is threatening the foundations of free speech
Right-wing U.S. critics of U.K. and European censorship have a point.
The chief prosecutor of Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal, Mohammad Tajul Islam (center), speaks during a news conference in Dhaka on Sunday, the opening day of fugitive former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's trial for allegedly orchestrating a "systemic attack" to crush an uprising against her government.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 1, 2025
Bangladesh opens fugitive ex-PM's trial over protest killings
The prosecution of senior figures from Hasina's government is a key demand of several of the political parties now jostling for power.
Surrounded by Chinese bases, a tiny Philippine island stands firm
A Philippine Navy sailor looks at a China Coast Guard vessel just off the coast of Pag-asa Island in the disputed South China Sea last month.
Anger in Japan after Instagrammer drinks burial site offering
Foreign tourists visit a park near the Imperial Palace in Tokyo in August.
Tamagotchi hatches 100 million shipments worldwide thanks to ’90s nostalgia
The latest version of Tamagotchi, called Tamagotchi Paradise, is awarded the best digital toy at Tokyo Toy Show on Aug. 28.
Tropical Storm Peipah forms off southwestern Japan
Tropical Storm Peipah, which formed off southeastern Japan, is expected to travel east off the Tokai area and the Kanto region.
What we know about the supplements scandal linked to Suntory’s ex-CEO
Takeshi Niinami, the former chairman and CEO of Suntory Holdings, at a news conference in Tokyo on Wednesday
London’s calling and sumo’s top division — along with Hello Kitty — are ready to answer
Yokozuna Hoshoryu and Hello Kitty, an ambassador for sumo's upcoming tour to London, at Tokyo's Kokugikan on Tuesday
Resonac creates 27-member consortium to pursue advanced chip developments
Representatives from member companies of JOINT3, a consortium working together on semiconductor-related developments announced by Resonac, pose for a photo in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Haru Nemuri’s radical new album refuses easy listening
Musician Haruna Kimishima, better known as Haru Nemuri, confronts Japan’s politics, nationalism and censorship on her recent output.
Overseas sluggers step up to bat in small-town Hokkaido
The Betsukai Pilot Spirits welcomed new players (left to right) Yuta Yamanaka, Roman Guthrie, Scott Bellina and Leo Jiminian this year, pictured here with Yassir Lachkar of the Ishikari Red Phoenix.
Xi — joined by Kim and Putin — delivers stark warning at military parade
Chinese leader Xi Jinping walks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un before a military parade marking the 80th anniversary of victory over Japan and the end of World War II, in Beijing on Wednesday.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Maruhachi never sleeps in quest for better futons
Maruhachi never sleeps in quest for better futons

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER