Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world. It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments in the field.
“I am certain that the machinery of violence and repression remains active in Venezuela—though not at the same level as before,” Manuel Virgüez, lawyer and director of Venezuela-based human rights NGO Movimiento Vinotinto, told CGFoE recently. “An interview like this might not have been very advisable a few months ago,” he added, “today, it is necessary.”
In the aftermath of the US intervention on January 3, 2026—leading to the extradition of then-President Nicolás Maduro—the human rights landscape in Venezuela appears to be changing. Hundreds of political prisoners have been released. The media enjoy a level of freedom that had been beyond reach for years. To Virgüez, there is “motivation to reclaim freedom of expression” in the country today. And people have been publicly demanding respect for their rights—see this week’s Protest Monitor spotlight.
Yet traces of the old regime, a perpetrator of mass human rights violations, endure. Senior Legal Editor Juan Manuel Ospina spoke with Manuel Virgüez about the current state of human rights in Venezuela and the many challenges that accompany today’s transitional period. Read an excerpt below. Find the full interview in English and Spanish on our website.
We at CGFoE are thinking of all those affected by the devastating earthquakes in Venezuela. We join calls for a full commitment to human rights as the nation and international community respond to this tragedy.
Photo: Courtesy of Manuel Virgüez
Juan Manuel Ospina: How has the defense of human rights in Venezuela changed since 2014?
Manuel Virgüez: In 2014, when our organization was founded, we saw the true face of a regime that was willing to kill its own people. It was a baptism by fire. In early 2017, we witnessed a humanitarian and migration crisis that is still being felt throughout Latin America and the world. At that time, we didn’t have all the necessary tools to address it.
The period between 2017 and 2019 was one of social mobilization: with widespread violence in the streets, we became acutely aware that we could face consequences—such as the arrest of colleagues from our organization in 2020. In the three years that followed, the country underwent a realignment as the social fabric and civil society healed. In 2024, starting on July 28, the day of the presidential election, a scenario unlike anything I had ever seen before unfolded. Venezuela came distinctly close to a fratricidal conflict. Thank God, this did not happen, and I hope it never does.
2025 was a year of strategic silence for all civil society organizations, under the watchful eye of the so-called Operation Knock Knock, which involved mass detentions of government critics and had several phases. That strategic silence ended after January 3, 2026. Once Nicolás Maduro was no longer in office, some political prisoners were released, civic space was restored, and the media—both digital and on radio and television—are now broadcasting freely, something that hadn’t happened in years.
Read the full interview in English or Spanish.
Canada
The Attorney General of Ontario v. John Doe
Decision Date: March 14, 2026
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice dismissed the Attorney General of Ontario’s application for an anticipatory interlocutory injunction to prohibit an Al Quds Day protest in Toronto. The Attorney General sought the injunction based on concerns that the rally could lead to criminal activity, public nuisance, or hate speech. The Court ruled that the evidentiary record was insufficient to justify such extraordinary relief, as it lacked specific evidence linking the protest to past unlawful conduct or a clear risk of future violations. The Court emphasized that blanket, pre-emptive restrictions on the rights of assembly and free expression require clear and compelling justification on the basis of necessity and proportionality, which had not been established in this case.
United Kingdom
R v. Secretary of State for the Home Department
Decision Date: February 13, 2026
The High Court of Justice, King’s Bench Division, Divisional Court, quashed the Secretary of State for the Home Department’s (SSHD) decision to proscribe the protest group Palestine Action. The case originated when the SSHD proscribed Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000, effectively criminalizing membership and expressions of support for the group due to its campaign of direct action against defense sector companies. This formal designation triggered severe penal consequences, making it a criminal offense for any citizen to convey “an opinion or belief that is supportive” of the prohibited entity. The claimant, a co-founder of the group, challenged this decision as an unjustified interference with the fundamental rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. The Court held that while some of the group’s activities involved criminal damage, the blanket ban on expressing support for or associating with the group resulted in a highly disproportionate infringement upon the right to freedom of expression and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly under Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights, respectively. It reasoned that the standard penal laws were sufficient to address the specific acts of violence and property damage without resorting to extreme measures that stifle protected political speech and cause widespread self-censorship.
On June 15, 2026, the Court of Appeal issued a decision setting aside the quashing order by the Divisional Court. We’ll update this case analysis soon to reflect this latest decision’s arguments.
North Macedonia
Nikolovska Todorova v. North Macedonia
Decision Date: November 19, 2025
The Constitutional Court of the Republic of North Macedonia held that the state violated the right to freedom of thought and public expression of a journalist, a cameraman, and a news-crew organizer who were reporting for TV Telma during violent events at the government Assembly building on April 27, 2017. The applicants had been sent to cover both the public protest outside the Assembly and the parliamentary session taking place inside, but became trapped with the crowd and alleged that the authorities failed to take measures to protect their safety and their ability to report. The lower civil courts rejected their claim, reasoning that Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights did not protect reporting during violent unrest and that the state’s primary duty in those circumstances was to protect life, health, and property. The Constitutional Court disagreed. It held that the applicants were accredited media workers covering matters of public interest, that their safety had to be assessed as part of their freedom of expression, and that the state’s failure to take preventive and protective measures prevented them from reporting. The Court granted their request and found a violation of Article 16 of the Constitution and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Online Seminar on Freedom of Expression in the Digital Realm: New Actors and Novel Challenges—2026. This week, the fourth edition of CGFoE’s flagship seminar, Freedom of Expression in the Digital Realm, begins at Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt. Coordinated by CGFoE Legal Researcher and digital rights scholar Ibrahim Sabra, this six-week online course is designed for student teams qualified from the MENA Rounds of the Price Media Law Moot Court Competition and runs in collaboration with Ahmed Khalifa, Professor of Law and MENA Rounds Coordinator at Ain Shams. The seminar will examine Meta’s Oversight Board, threats of disinformation, hate speech, and deepfakes, as well as the role of generative AI in amplifying them. The CGFoE Team will teach the sessions, along with guest speakers Joan Barata and Jordi Calvet-Bademunt of the Future Free Speech and Eliza Bechtold of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, Oxford University. Learn more here.
● Venezuela: UN Fact-Finding Mission Underscores Access to Information after the Earthquakes. The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela stresses that a full commitment to human rights must guide the national and international responses to the devastating earthquakes that hit the country on June 24. The mission directly addresses CONATEL, Venezuela’s telecommunications regulator, with a demand to lift restrictions on access to social media and all media outlets. “In the coming hours and days, access to information will be a matter of life and death,” the Mission states. “There can be no excuse for failing to do so immediately.”
● UK: The Judiciary Exits the Scene—The Palestine Action Ban in the England and Wales Court of Appeal, by Alan Greene, Daniella Lock, Colin Murray. Verfassungsblog unpacks last week’s decision by a special five-judge panel of London’s Court of Appeal upholding the UK government’s proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist group. “[T]he Court creates an impression of judicial scrutiny,” the authors write, “but one so lacking in substance as to embolden even more far reaching uses of executive powers in the future.” CGFoE has analyzed the February 2026 High Court ruling that found the ban unlawful—we will soon be back with an update.
● Canada: Civil Society Denounces the Adoption of Bill C-9, the Combating Hate Act. Over 60 Canadian civil society groups signed a statement criticizing the adoption of Bill C-9, the Combating Hate Act, and warning that the legislation might lead to the criminalization of peaceful protest. “While the objective of combatting hate is both legitimate and necessary,” the joint statement reads, “legislative measures should be precise, evidence-based, and accompanied by appropriate safeguards to minimize risks of overbreadth and inconsistent application.”
● New Reports: HRW on Human Rights Crisis in Minnesota; OHCHR Releases Human Rights Count 2026. Human Rights Watch interviewed 130 witnesses of the anti-immigration crackdown in Minnesota, the United States, documenting unlawful killings, arrests and detentions of hundreds, racial profiling, harassment, and surveillance, all of which undermined freedoms of expression and assembly, among other rights. The UN Human Rights Office published a report recording a surge in global violence against human rights defenders: in 2025, at least 743 defenders were killed and 202 disappeared—that is: one killed or disappeared every ten hours.
On Wednesday, June 17, in Mary, Turkmenistan, hundreds joined a rare protest over chronic power cuts, refusing police orders and forcing the governor to negotiate. On Friday, near Ramallah, the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces detained seven at a march against a new settler outpost. In Albania, protesters have been filling the streets of Tirana every evening since late May, with over 250,000 joining on Saturday; sparked by a controversial resort linked to Trump’s family, protests demand that Prime Minister Edi Rama resign. Also on Saturday, in Santiago, Chile, around 5,000 rallied in solidarity with Palestine; lawyers in Chile are petitioning the UN over Israel, with the support of over 80,000 signatures. That day in New Delhi, India, the Gen Z “Cockroach” movement, which emerged in response to a comment by the chief justice, set up an indefinite camp over an exam leak and student suicides, defying police and demanding that the education minister resign. On Sunday in Prague, Czech Republic, thousands rallied against the government’s plans to put public broadcasters’ funding under state control.
Protests have returned to the streets of Venezuela. This June in Caracas, hundreds rallied demanding presidential elections five months after Nicolás Maduro’s removal, and relatives of political prisoners have sustained a vigil outside the US embassy for over two weeks, calling for the release of their loved ones. Hundreds of other mobilizations have been happening nationwide since the US intervention in January.
Background & Demands: “We have more freedom to protest, to shout, to say what we want,” a pensioner said at a recent demonstration in Caracas. The Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict (OVCS) has recorded 1,926 protests in the first quarter of 2026, a 144% increase compared to the same period in 2025. Demonstrators have demanded respect for fundamental rights, democratic guarantees, and improved living conditions. A clear central call is the release of all political prisoners, whose relatives have consistently held protests outside prisons, courts, and state offices for months.
Significance: The remarkable public mobilization—of students, workers, pensioners, activists, opposition groups—follows years of heavily suppressed protests, especially following the July 2024 presidential election, when Maduro’s regime killed, jailed, tortured, and forcefully disappeared government critics.
Partial Results: In February 2026, the National Assembly passed an amnesty law, criticized by human rights groups as limited and excluding many of the arbitrarily detained. Lawyer Manuel Virgüez told CGFoE this week that more than 700 political prisoners have been released, yet over 350, dissidents among them, remain in jail.
State Response: While the authorities have largely allowed demonstrations to proceed, repression has not disappeared but evolved into tactics of reduced visibility. The OVCS recorded 21 repressed protests during the first quarter of 2026. Political prisoners have been mired in judicial delays, and their families lack information about their transfers between prisons. The interim government has not announced an election yet.
FoE Violations: Remnants of Maduro’s repression patterns—documented arbitrary detentions, intimidation, and restrictions on access to public spaces—create a chilling effect on civic participation and raise concerns about Venezuela’s reopening of protest space. Repressive laws are still in place. “[I]t is important to repeal the Anti-Hate Law, the Anti-Organized Crime Law, and the Bolívar Law,” Virgüez told CGFoE.
Venezuela: Journalist Details Complicated Fight for Amnesty Post-Maduro. The Committee to Protect Journalists spoke with Venezuelan journalist Rory Branker, who was released from prison, but his petition for amnesty was denied. Branker’s story shows that press freedom in Venezuela remains at risk. La Patilla, the independent news outlet where Branker works, is among 65 media organizations still blocked in the country.
This newsletter is reproduced with the permission of Global Freedom of Expression. For an archive of previous newsletters, see here.
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