According to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the US will decide whether to push for a resolution to end Ukraine’s and Russia’s peace agreement. Talks have stalled, but the Trump administration had made ending the war a priority.
The seventh election in Uganda since 1986, when Yoweri Museveni took office, is in January 2026. Repression is rising as in the weeks leading up to previous polls. However, it has now spread beyond Uganda’s own borders.
Opposition politician Kizza Besigye and his aide Obeid Lutale were kidnapped on November 16, 2024, in Nairobi, Kenya. They were detained on security charges in Kampala, Uganda, and appeared in court four days later. The two civilians faced military justice when they were sent to Uganda in flagrant violation of international law that forbids extraordinary rendition and due process.
Besigye and Lutale attracted a 40-person defense team led by Kenya’s former justice minister, Martha Karua, outraged by this militarisation of justice.
The state’s practices have done the opposite if the goal was to silence opposing voices. These trials have sparked a national dialogue on human rights and the role of the military, far from deterring other people from speaking up.
General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Museveni’s son, is the country’s Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), and he has frequently made comments about Besigye’s case on X. Despite current law prohibiting serving military officers from engaging in partisan politics, Kainerugaba is widely perceived as a potential successor to his aging father.
The Supreme Court of Uganda has been putting off a decision in a case brought by former parliamentarian Michael Kabaziguruka challenging the prosecution of civilians in military courts since 2016. Kababiguruka, who was accused of treason, claimed that his military tribunal trial violated the law’s fair trial standards. He claimed that military law applied to him as a civilian. This was given new life by the case of Besigye and Lutale.
The Supreme Court ruled on January 31, 2025, that civilian trials involving civilians in military courts are unconstitutional, and it is required that all civil trial cases involving civilians must be adjourned and sent to regular courts as soon as possible.
President Museveni and his son have vowed to use military courts for civilian trials despite this ruling. Besigye began a 10-day hunger strike to protest delays in turning his case over to a regular court. Before the 2026 elections, the case has now served as a litmus test for Uganda’s military justice system.
Not just opposition politicians face military justice, Besigye and Lutale. The National Unity Platform (NUP), led by Robert Kyagulanyi and known as Bobi Wine, have had their convictions over a number of offences by military courts. Despite their distinct differences, the NUP’s signature red berets and other party attire were reported to have resembled military uniforms. In addition, a number of lesser-known political activists are facing charges in military courts.
Since 2002, more than 1, 000 civilians have been charged with crimes like murder and armed robbery in Uganda’s military courts.
For context, the state changed the UPDF Act to allow the military to bring civil rights cases before military courts in 2005. These amendments occurred during the military’s investigation of civilians detained between 2001 and 2004, including Kizza Besigye, which was no accident.
Military trials of civilians violate regional and international standards. They open the door to a flurry of human rights violations, including forced confessions, shady procedures, unfair trials, and executions.
The 2001 Principles and Guidelines for Fair Trial and Legal Assistance in Africa and Article 7 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights are both violated by military courts in which countries. The region’s leading human rights organization, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, has long condemned their usage in Uganda.
Opposition to military justice has not just been expressed informally. Following the Supreme Court’s ruling, religious leaders expressed concern about Besigye’s continued detention, as did Anita Among, the speaker of Uganda’s Parliament and a member of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM), who said, “Injustice to anyone equals injustice to everyone. Dr. Besigye is currently receiving treatment, and anyone else will experience it tomorrow.
Besigye and Lutale were moved to a civilian court on February 21 following the court’s ruling and widespread outcry. Besigye called a stop to his hunger strike. They are still being held, as is their attorney. However, their illegal release, which was just started with illegality, still has flaws. Scores of more civilians have their cases pending in military courts despite the transfer of their case, with little hope that they will be transferred to civilian courts.
For this reason, 11 organizations, including Amnesty Kenya, the Pan-African Lawyers Union, the Law Society of Kenya, the Kenya Human Rights Commission, and the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists, and Dentists Union (KMPDU), request their immediate release.
The military courts are now a tool in President Museveni’s arsenal to silence dissent as elections near in Uganda. Uganda should take note of the Supreme Court’s ruling, but for the time being, military justice is also being tried.
According to a joint statement released on Thursday, the humanitarian aid system in Gaza “is facing total collapse” as a result of the last 18 months of Israel’s military operation and the recent beginning of a full blockade.
Due to “widespread and indiscriminate bombing making it extremely dangerous to move around,” it added, an estimated 95 percent of the 43 international and Palestinian aid organizations have already suspended or cut their services in Gaza.
Bushra Khalil, policy director of the aid organization Oxfam, said that “kids are struggling to find their next meal.” “Everyone is merely consuming canned food,” according to the statement. “Gaza is experiencing famine and malnourishment without a doubt.”
Aid workers have been forced to watch people suffer and die, according to Amande Bazerolle, the emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Gaza, as they carry “the impossible burden of providing relief with exhausted supplies.”
She said, “This is not a humanitarian failure; it is a political choice and a deliberate assault on a people’s capacity to survive, carried out with impunity.”
Hani Mahmoud of Al Jazeera reported on Friday that the enclave was running out of baby formula, leaving malnourished children and young people in Gaza City.
“We’ve seen a lot of severe malnutrition cases,” he said. Even the most vulnerable, such as children and newborn babies, cannot families provide for their most basic needs. The market and pharmacy lacks baby formula, according to Mahmoud. “Gaza is quickly running out of everything.”
Palestinians told Al Jazeera that they are losing their children to malnutrition outside of Deir el-Balah Hospital.
Fadi Ahmed, who lost his son, claimed that hospital staff “found massive lungs that caused a severe lack of oxygen in his blood.”
After spending a week in the hospital, the boy’s weakness and severe malnutrition caused his inability to resist and eventually his death.
Grandma’s granddaughter Intisar Hamdan claimed he and his parents had been unable to get any milk for three days and that he had lost their grandson.
According to Tareq Abu Azzoum of Al Jazeera, “children are suffering from serious medical complications and diseases that cannot be easily treated and require medical supplies that are scarce.”
At least 60 000 children in the Palestinian territory are categorized as malnourished, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Gaza is known as the “deadliest place on earth for humanitarian workers,” according to the aid organizations, making it even more challenging to provide services to children.
Despite international humanitarian law’s requirement that humanitarian and health workers be protected, more than 400 aid workers and 1,300 health workers have died in Gaza since October 2023.
The recent murder of 15 Palestinian rescue workers and paramedics, whose bodies were discovered in a mass grave, sparked outcry worldwide, but many crimes and attacks remain unreported, according to the statement.
Patrice Motsepe, a South African mining billionaire and vice president of FIFA, owned Mamelodi Sundowns, which violated safety and security regulations by hosting a game against Esperance of Tunisia on April 1st, according to a late Thursday CAF disciplinary ruling.
Motsepe was elected unopposed last month and has served as the president of the African football organization CAF for four years.
Sundowns, according to the African football organization, is “required to strictly implement the safety and security measures specified in the CAF regulations, guidelines, and directives, especially in their upcoming matches.”
According to CAF, Esperance was fined $150, 000 for the fan misconduct related to the first-leg clashes in the stands during the quarterfinal match.
Sundowns won the first game 1-0 in Pretoria before moving on to the semifinals a week later when the return match ended goalless in Tunis. In the first leg of the semifinals on Saturday, the South African team takes on Al Ahly of Egypt, a second Club World Cup team.
As two of FIFA’s first 32-team Club World Cup entries, Sundowns and Esperance will both be exhibiting in the US in June.
Both qualified because of consistently strong CAF Champions League performance through 2024.
Sundowns will play games in Orlando, Cincinnati, and Miami as part of a Club World Cup group that includes South Korean players Ulsan, Borussia Dortmund, Germany, and Fluminense of Brazil.
Because Esperance belongs to the same ownership as another Mexican team that qualified, Pachuca, FIFA disqualified it from the group with Chelsea of England, Brazil’s Flamengo, and a third team that was supposed to be Leon. Philadelphia and Nashville are the locations of those games.
Since Donald Trump’s second term in office on January 20, 2025, immigration officials have revoked hundreds of students’ visas, with several also being detained.
Many of the targets of the visa revocations and arrests are students who participated in pro-Palestine protests which erupted on campuses across the country in 2024 amid Israel’s brutal war on Gaza. Others are people who have shown support for Gaza on social media or have more indirect ties to Palestine.
The Trump administration alleges that these students spread anti-Semitism and pro-Hamas sentiment on campus – a claim students, lawyers and activists have all rebutted. Many of the most well-known US protests against the Gaza war have involved Jewish activists and organizations.
Others have had visas removed after minor legal infractions – a speeding ticket or other traffic violations, for instance.
What we know about the number of universities they cover, the frequency of visa revocations, and some of the students who have been targeted:
US Secretary of State March Rubio claimed that the administration had revoked 300 student visas by the end of March.
But the real number is higher – much higher.
Estimates vary. At the higher end is the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s count, according to which more than 4, 700 students have been removed from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement-maintained database known as the Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems (SEVIS).
Yet even more conservative tabulations suggest a figure that is comfortably greater than 1,000. The National Association of Foreign Student Advisers (NAFSA) estimates that as of April 17, there are reports of about 1, 400 students who now face deportation.
1, 489 students had lost their visas as of April 17, according to Inside Higher Ed, a publication with a focus on higher education in the US.
More than 240 US universities and colleges have had student visas suspended, according to Inside Higher Ed’s count.
Colleges affected include private universities such as Harvard and Stanford, large public colleges and institutions such as Ohio State University and the University of Maryland, as well as some small arts colleges.
The Trump administration claims it is trying to stop activists from taking over campuses.
“We won’t be importing activists into the United States,” he said. They’re here to study. They are arriving for class. They’re not here to lead activist movements that are disruptive and undermine the – our universities”, Rubio said on March 28.
However, many students have reported that they were given no notice of their legal status in the US.
Several among them, like Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi , and Momodou Taal, were active on social media in pro-Palestine protests on campuses.
Others have been denied visas in some cases due to past traffic violations or, in some cases, without any clear justification, according to Mohammad Ali Syed, who leads an immigration practice group in Washington, DC.
“This widespread action has led to legal challenges and raised concerns about due process and the impact on US higher education institutions”, said Syed, who emphasised that international students ought to consult with immigration lawyers promptly to explore legal remedies and protect their rights.
“Students can file lawsuits in federal courts, bringing charges of violating the law and seeking to regain their legal status. For instance, students at Michigan universities have initiated legal actions against the Department of Homeland Security, alleging that their F-1 statuses were terminated without sufficient notice or explanation”, he said.
He continued, students may request temporary restraining orders (TROs) in urgent circumstances to avoid being deported and to reinstate their status while legal proceedings are pending. Federal judges in states like Montana have granted such orders to protect students from immediate removal, he said.
According to Syed, “Many universities are actively assisting affected students by providing legal resources, collaborating with federal authorities, and providing academic accommodations.” “For example, George Mason University has engaged with federal officials to understand the rationale behind visa terminations and is exploring legal options to support its international students”.
Hafsa Kanjwal, an associate professor at Lafayette College, a liberal arts college in Pennsylvania, says there is a large amount of fear and uncertainty on college campuses for both students and faculty. People are having to reevaluate their travel plans because of the country’s restrictions on their entry.
“Some students and faculty don’t have a place to ‘ go back ‘ to, given the political turmoil in their respective places of origin”, she told Al Jazeera. “They are in the minority,” according to the statement from some colleges and universities, who are taking more proactive measures. It seems most campuses have not really provided reassurances to international students and faculty to address their concerns, especially around what kinds of accommodations will be made for them to address these changing developments”.
International students are afraid, according to another faculty member, a naturalized citizen at a state college, who wished to remain anonymous in order to avoid any issues that might arise from his speaking freely.
Many of them – even those who have not staked out political positions publicly – are deleting their social media profiles and are terrified that some small mistake, anything they posted or said, might get them abducted and deported, ruining their education, he said.
I can recall having a green card and playing politics. We understood that as long as we remained within the bounds of the law, we had the right to express our opinions and engage in politics”, he recalled.
He said, “I actively participated in [protests against] both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and I publicly opposed war on terror initiatives like drone strikes.” “What the Trump administration wants to do is communicate to immigrants and international students that their rights here are in fact privileges and contingent on them staying in line, and more broadly they want to shut down pathways to immigration by targeting green card holders.
They want to discipline universities and make them crack down on liberal and left-leaning content in classrooms, he added, adding that they also see universities and colleges as bastions of liberal and left-wing politics.
• Date of arrest: March 8
• Algerian-Palestinian nationality
• University: Columbia graduate
• Holder of a green card legally in the US
• How was he arrested? Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate from Columbia University who served as the group’s lead negotiator during the campus protests last year, was taken into custody by ICE agents last month. He was taken from his university-owned New York City apartment while his US citizen wife, Noor Abdalla, who is pregnant, recorded the arrest on her phone. Under the Trump administration, this was the first of its kind to be publicly known student deportation effort.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, alleged Khalil” led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organisation”, but no evidence for this was provided. Abdalla claimed that the agents conducted the arrest without a warrant. Khalil was transferred to an ICE processing facility in Jena, Louisiana.
Khalil was a permanent resident with a green card at the time of his arrest. When the ICE agents were told that Khalil had a green card, they said this would be revoked.
• Charges: It is unknown whether he has been charged with a crime.
However, Rubio posted the link to a news article about Khalil’s arrest, captioning it:” We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported. “Khalil’s case has drawn a lot of attention because rights activists accuse the administration of restricting free speech and pro-Palestine activism under the pretext of fighting anti-Semitism,” according to Khalil.
The administration is trying to deport Khalil under a rarely used provision of an immigration law that gives the secretary of state the power to remove any non-citizen whose presence in the US is deemed to have” adverse foreign policy consequences”.
Khalil is being held in Jena, Louisiana’s LaSalle Detention Center.
• March 26 as the date of the arrest
• Nationality: Turkish
• Tufts University as a school
• Legal status in the US: Student visa
• How did she get arrested? Security camera footage shows six individuals in plainclothes taking Ozturk into custody in late March near her apartment in Somerville, Massachusetts. Some of these police officers had their faces partially covered. Ozturk had headed out alone to meet her friends for Iftar, the evening meal to break her Ramadan fast.
• Charges: It is unknown whether she has been charged with a crime.
On March 26, 2024, Ozturk co-wrote an opinion piece for her university’s student news website, the Tufts Daily, with four other students. The authors in this article criticized Sunil Kumar, the institute’s president, for rejecting resolutions that the Tufts Community Union Senate had recommended the university “recognize the genocide of the Palestinians” and “recognized the institution’s president.”
Ozturk’s lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai, filed a petition in a Boston federal court, arguing that Ozturk had been unlawfully detained. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was given the result of US District Judge Indira Talwani’s request to not move Ozturk out of Massachusetts without giving 48-hour notice.
Despite this, Ozturk was moved to Louisiana within a day, according to her lawyer.
Tricia McLaughlin, a representative for the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), stated in an X-post on March 26 that “DHS + ICE investigations discovered Ozturk engaging in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.” “McLaughlin did not specify what these activities were.
As of April 18, Ozturk is a detainee at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center on the ICE portal.
• March 17 as the date of arrest
• Nationality: Indian
• Georgetown University Institution
• Legal status in the US: Student visa
• How was he arrested? At his northern Virginian home in the evening, he was detained.
• Charges: It is unknown whether he has been charged with a crime.
Department of Homeland Security Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin attributed Suri’s arrest to his” spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting anti-Semitism”. Suri is a senior advisor to Hamas, she wrote on X: “She has close ties to a known or suspected terrorist.
Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, is a US citizen, she confirmed to Al Jazeera. Saleh was the daughter of a senior Hamas adviser, according to a post on X on February 13. Ahmed Yousef, a former adviser to assassinated Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, confirmed to The New York Times that he is Suri’s father-in-law.
Suri’s deportation was halted by Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles of the Eastern District of Virginia Court on March 20.
According to the ICE website, Suri is currently being held in the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas.
• Date of arrest: March 5
• South Korean nationality
• Institution: Barnard, a Columbia-affiliated undergraduate college
Permanent resident status in the US:
• How did she get arrested? Chung was one of the many students detained by police because of their anti-Palestine demonstrations.
• Charges: It is unknown whether she has been charged with a crime.
She has sued the Trump administration in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York to avoid being deported. US district judge Naomi Reice Buchwald halted her deportation.
• Nationality: Both The Gambia and the United Kingdom are citizens.
• Institution: Was a doctoral candidate in Africana Studies at Cornell University
• Legal status in the US: Student visa
• Charges: It is unknown whether he has been charged with a crime.
He called on Cornell to stop buying weapons from organizations that sell weapons to Israel last year while organizing pro-Palestine demonstrations. Taal was suspended from Cornell twice last year for his participation in protest activities and encampment. Although he hasn’t been detained, he thinks the US government made an attempt to detain him.
Taal told Al Jazeera that he filed a lawsuit on March 8 alongside two other plaintiffs – a doctoral candidate and a Cornell professor who are both US citizens – after Khalil was arrested, against two Trump executive orders, including the one focused on university campuses.
Unidentified law enforcement appeared on X the morning of March 19 the day after a federal judge set a hearing for Taal’s lawsuit. Taal posted a written statement on the statement on the statement on the day. He added that later in the day, Cornell students saw additional law enforcement cars positioned at different spots near his residence, including on campus.
Taal left the United States on March 14 after his visa was voided.
• March 25, 2025, as the date of arrest
• Nationality: Iranian
University of Alabama: Institution
• Legal status in the US: Student visa
• How was he arrested? taken into custody from his residence
• Charges: It is unknown whether he has been charged with a crime.
The Department of Homeland Security stated the student visa was revoked and he was then arrested because he” posed significant national security concerns”.
• Nationality: Indian
• University: Columbia
• Legal status in the US: Student visa which has been revoked
• Charges: It is unknown whether she has been charged with a crime.
On March 7, unauthorized immigrants knocked on Srinivasan’s university residence hall apartment, which she had resided in since 2021. The individuals said they planned to put Srinivasan through proceedings to remove her from the US, before eventually leaving.
Srinivasan was suspended from Columbia’s student body on March 9.
By March 11, Srinivasan had flown out of New York to Canada on a visitor visa to stay with her family and friends. Srinivasan had left the US, according to her attorneys’ communication to ICE.
• March 13, 2025, the date of arrest
• Nationality: Palestinian
• Unknown institution
• Legal status in the US: Overstayed a student visa
• Charges: According to the DHS, Kordia had overstayed her student visa because she “did not show up” in class in 2022. In April 2024 she was arrested for her involvement in protests for Gaza at Columbia University.
• Nationality: Chinese
• University: Dartmouth College, New Hampshire
• Legal status in the US: Student visa which was revoked
• Charges: There are no known charges.
On April 3, Liu’s college ran a routine check on his legal status and discovered that his student visa had been revoked without notice.
The university informed him that he could not continue earning a doctorate in computer science the following day.
Liu says he has not been charged with any crime and did not take part in any protests.
He brought a lawsuit against the US government and the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, alleging that his visa had been “rejected without any notice and justification.”
On April 9, a federal judge in New Hampshire halted the decision temporarily, saying she would block the Trump administration’s apparent revocation of Liu’s status.
• Date of arrest: April 14, 2025
• Nationality: Palestinian
• University: Columbia
• Holder of a green card legally in the US
• How was he detained: According to his attorneys, Mohsen Mahdawi was detained on Monday while attending an immigration office interview regarding his citizenship application.
• Charges: It is unknown whether he has been charged with a crime.
Shortly after Mahdawi’s detention, District Judge William Sessions ordered that he must not be taken from the state of Vermont or the US. Along with Khalil, Mahdawi co-founded a Palestinian student organization at Columbia University.
What they claim the White House is attacking academic freedoms is a violation of students and staff at US college campuses. In New York, hundreds of people gathered to protest the administration’s policies. There was Gabriel Elizondo.