Over the course of the last 12 months, the Russian authorities have unleashed an unprecedented campaign of repression and reprisals against wrongfully imprisoned opposition leader Aleksei Navalny and his supporters, destroying all remnants of the rights to freedom of expression and association, Amnesty International said today on the first anniversary of the politician's arrest.

A joint investigation by Access Now and the Citizen Lab has identified the use of NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware against journalists and members of civil society organizations in El Salvador on a massive scale. Technical experts from the Amnesty International Security Lab have peer-reviewed the report and independently verified forensic evidence showing that Pegasus has been misused in the country.

Responding to a decision of the Higher Regional Court in Koblenz, Germany, which has convicted former Syrian intelligence officer Anwar Raslan to life in prison for crimes against humanity, including torture, murder and rape of detainees in Branch 251, an infamous military intelligence facility in Damascus city, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Lynn Maalouf, said: “Today’s verdict is a historic victory that amplifies the voices of tens of thousands of survivors of unlawful detention, torture and sexual violence, as well as the voices of the families of victims who died in Syria’s prisons and detention centres as a result of the treatment of Syrian security forces for over a decade. Notably, it also recognizes the systematized nature of sexual violence as crime against humanity. This wouldn’t have come about without those who dared to share their stories, Syria’s civil society actors, and human rights and litigation organizations who have doggedly pursued justice, truth and reparation over the years.