Daily Brief Audio Series

How bad can things get when it comes to sexual and reproductive health rights?

When the government is telling you what you can and can’t do with your own body, like in parts of the US today, things are already very grim. The threat of digital surveillance in people’s medical decisions compounds the dangers.

But things can get even worse. And you don’t need the internet for it.

Romania’s history offers a disturbing, yet instructive, example.

In 1966, the country’s communist government adopted “Decree 770.” Its supposed aim was to drive up population growth. It imposed draconian bans on access to contraception and abortion.

The government monitored women’s reproductive status by having informants – usually medical workers or students – spy on them. They also subjected women to invasive and humiliating medical checkups in the presence of police.

Decree 770 was in place for decades. It was only repealed after the revolution and the overthrow of the communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu in 1989.

While in force, Decree 770 did tremendous damage. By pushing women and girls with unwanted pregnancies to have unsafe abortions, it led to the deaths of an estimated 10,000 women and girls.

With such a stark lesson in living memory, you might think the country’s democratic leaders today would all be strong supporters of reproductive rights. You might think they’d never want to take even a single step back down that deadly road.

And you’d be wrong.

Romania today has significantly eroded the sexual and reproductive health rights of women and girls, including the right to abortion and family planning methods. Romanian authorities are supposed to be upholding these rights, but instead, they are often enabling efforts to block people from exercising them.

Their methods may not be as extreme as under the Ceaușescu regime, but, as a new Human Rights Watch report found, they are still abusive and dangerous.

Women and girls face illegal barriers to accessing contraception. State authorities fail to provide age-appropriate, scientifically accurate, and comprehensive sexuality education in schools.

Abortion on request is legal in Romania until 14 weeks of pregnancy, but good luck finding a doctor to perform the medical procedure in time. A growing number of doctors and public hospitals no longer provide the service for a variety of reasons, many rather dubious, including misinterpreting laws.

Romanian authorities facilitate the work of anti-abortion groups and so-called crisis pregnancy centers that seek to dissuade or prevent people from accessing abortion. Their methods are sometimes deceptive and unethical.

The whole system seems almost intended to confuse and delay patients until they are past the 14-week limit.

All these measures mean Romania is backsliding seriously on sexual and reproductive health rights.

A country with Romania’s history ought to know better.

Anyone in the US who likes to think they live in a free country ought to be outraged by the case of Rumeysa Ozturk.

The video of the Tufts University doctoral student being seized on the sidewalk near her home in a Boston suburb is chilling. It shows about half a dozen individuals with covered faces surrounding Ozturk, grabbing her, and then leading her away.

Ozturk’s only “crime” – the apparent reason masked federal agents snatched her off the street – was she’d written something the government didn’t like. Specifically, something the Trump administration didn’t like.

Ozturk co-authored a commentary article in a student newspaper. It highlighted credible accusations of atrocities committed by the government of Israel in Gaza, and linked to reports by the UN and Amnesty international. The article also called on Tufts University to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and divest from investments connected to Israel.

Was the article controversial? Maybe, depending on your opinion of the mounting credible allegations of Israeli government atrocities in Gaza. Was the article criminal? Obviously not.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says Ozturk “engaged in activities in support of Hamas.” The word “Hamas” does not even appear in the jointly written commentary article. Again, it’s about university policies in light of credible allegations the Israeli government is committing atrocities.

Ozturk’s case is not isolated. It is one incident in the US government’s wider effort to arbitrarily arrest and deport international students and scholars in retaliation for their political viewpoints and activism related to Palestine.

Ozturk is from Türkiye. She’s in the US on a student visa.

This doesn’t mean she somehow loses her right to free speech, by the way. Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the US ratified in 1992, noncitizens have the right to hold opinions and to express them.

Punishing people for exercising their right to free speech is a violation of international human rights law.

The Trump administration is carrying on regardless with a wide crackdown on noncitizen students and academics who hold opinions the government doesn’t like. The cases of Mahmoud Khalil and Yunseo Chung have also rightly gained media attention, like Ozturk’s, but what’s happening goes far beyond a few individuals.

The administration says it has revoked hundreds of student visas already.

What’s going on right now in the US right now is outrageous enough. But also, where is it leading? What political opinions will the government target next? Who will be snatched off the street next by masked thugs solely for expressing an opinion the government doesn’t like?

As HRW’s John Raphling, says: “The Trump administration’s actions are an attack on free speech and threaten the very foundations of a free society.” 

They built a big detention camp overseas. It cost a fortune. They now can’t use it for its original purpose, so they’re desperately trying to find other ways to use it.

Welcome to the upside-down world of the Italian government’s embarrassing – and abusive – approach to immigration.

This chapter of the story begins with an agreement between Italy and Albania in 2023. Under the deal, a large detention facility was built in Gjadër, Albania, to hold adult males intercepted at sea by Italian ships and process their asylum claims.

Men from countries Italy considers “safe” would be sent directly to Albania, never touching Italian soil. There they would supposedly be subjected to a fast-track asylum procedure on the presumption they wouldn’t need protection.

However, Italy’s courts said no.

The courts rightly pointed out that the countries the Italian government lists as “safe countries of origin” may not actually be safe for everyone.

In other words, a country might be safe in one location but not in another or safe for some people and not for others. There are all sorts of things to consider, and each asylum case has to be looked at individually.

Italy’s courts declared it would be unlawful to detain people under the assumption the country they come from is safe for everyone.

So, Italy’s detention facility in Gjadër, Albania – part of a scheme that has cost an estimated 800 million euros – now lies completely empty.

Obviously, such a costly mistake is embarrassing for the Italian government. So, they’ve come up with another proposal for the facility.

They now want to use it to hold undocumented migrants whose claims have been rejected. They want to take people who are currently in Italy and have been ordered detained pending deportation, and send them to detention in Albania.

It’s a bizarre move, to say the least.

Italy already has ten such detention centers in Italy. There, they hold people for up to 18 months while the government tries to deport them.

These facilities in Italy are grim. Recent expert reports describe them as “black holes” and denounce the whole system as costly and inhumane.

It’s hard to see how an eleventh center – this one in Albania – won’t simply replicate these abuses. It might even be worse, given it’s even further from the public eye.

What’s more, the detention centers in Italy generally don’t even “work” in the way the government wants. Only ten percent of people under deportation orders are actually deported.

Their being in Albania isn’t going to change that. There’s no benefit for anyone here. It’s just internationalizing abuse.

Like so many governments across the European Union, the Italian government has spent years tying itself in knots on asylum. By trying to appear “tough,” they’ve only abused people while embarrassing themselves and wasting huge amounts of taxpayers’ money.

Perhaps someday, these governments will come to their senses and invest in managing migration in a humane and rational way. At the moment, however, they seem to be trying just about everything but.

This week, the Georgian parliament is set to vote on a new bill which introduces criminal penalties for activists and nongovernmental groups that refuse to register as “foreign agents”.

Individuals or groups will need to register as foreign agents if they operate under the vaguely defined “influence” of, or receive funding from, a foreign principal and engage in “political activities” in the interests of this principal.

It also requires them to submit to authorities detailed annual financial declarations and two copies of any public statement. Registered individuals and groups must also mark their public statements as coming from a “foreign agent.”

Sounds familiar? Well, the new bill, it is likely to replace the “foreign influence” law passed last year and has sparked huge protests in the streets of Georgia since its introduction.

What happens if activists and organizations don’t comply with this new repressive bill?

False choices only: Either you accept to be stigmatized as a “foreign agent” or you face criminal fines in the thousands. You might even face up to five years in prison.

So not only does the bill violate fundamental human rights, it will also likely force Georgia’s civil society into exile or abandoning work altogether.

The ruling party responsible for this bill, Georgian Dream, is plunging the country ever deeper into a human rights crisis.

In its rapid slide towards authoritarianism, which accelerated after the November 2024 decision to abandon the country’s EU accession, has prompted nationwide mass public protests, which continue in Tbilisi today.

The government responded to these protests in 2024 with tear gas, water cannons, and rubber bullets against largely peaceful protesters. Police beat, detained, and tortured hundreds of protesters.

It has since amended the criminal and administrative code with abusive measures including steep fines and jail time for “verbally insulting” public officials and authorizing police to “preventively” detain a person for 48 hours if they have previously been implicated in an administrative offense.

While all these amendments are highly problematic, the new bill’s provisions clearly violate Georgia’s obligations under multiple human rights treaties to uphold the rights to freedom of association and expression.

Simply put: If this law is adopted, it could be the end of Georgia’s civil society.

Don’t let this bill pass parliament, it is a false choice for Georgia.

Armed groups fighting near the Colombia-Venezuela border have committed grave abuses against residents and displaced thousands.

Since mid-January, the National Liberation Army (ELN) has been carrying out a campaign to regain control of large parts of the Catatumbo region. The area is known as a location for drug production and trafficking.

The ELN, which for years has benefited from the complicity of Venezuelan security forces, is fighting against another armed group in Colombia called the 33rd Front. The 33rd Front emerged from the 2017 demobilization of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), as one of many FARC dissident groups.

For years, the ELN and the 33rd Front had shared control over large parts of the Catatumbo territory in a kind of “armed coexistence.”

All this broke down in January with the new fighting, which has brought misery and suffering to local residents.

A new HRW report details how the ELN have killed, assaulted, kidnapped, and disappeared civilians whom they accuse of having ties with the 33rd Front.

Witnesses we interviewed also detailed grave abuses by the 33rd Front, including recruiting children and forced labor.

The fighting and abuses by both sides have reportedly forced more than 56,000 people to flee their homes. It’s one of the largest mass displacements in Colombia for decades.

Where are Colombia’s authorities in all this?

When the fighting broke out in January, the Colombian government suspended peace talks with the ELN and declared a “state of emergency” in the Catatumbo region. The military used helicopters to evacuate more than 750 people at risk of ELN violence.

The government has also announced several new local development measures. This includes a program to give money to individual farmers who promise to replace their coca crops with food and other legal sources of income.

That sounds encouraging, but if recent history is any judge, it’s not without risks.

The Colombian government has long been having talks with the 33rd Front, and well before this year’s renewed fighting, the parties had agreed on a ceasefire and local development plans. The deal was the 33rd Front, the government, and local communities would carry out those plans.

However, as interviewees describe in the new report, civilians who helped on these local development initiatives were at high risk of ELN attacks.

The new development plans for the region need to avoid creating such perverse incentives.

More broadly, the government needs to urgently put in place a justice and security policy to protect residents from armed groups and re-establish the rule of law in Catatumbo. Otherwise, ordinary people will continue to be the ones to suffer.