Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization

Four years after the #Catalangate revelations, victims of unlawful spyware surveillance are still waiting for justice. UNPO and Assemblea have submitted a new communication to three UN Special Rapporteurs, urging renewed action and calling on Spain to ensure accountability, transparency, and effective remedies for those affected. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eMbkNHek

UNPO expresses concern over the recent events in Mauritania. Anti-slavery leader and MP Biram Dah Abeid, his wife Leïla Hmaida, and numerous peaceful demonstrators were injured after Mauritanian security forces violently dispersed a gathering outside the Nouakchott-West Court on 1 July. UNPO calls for those responsible to be held accountable and for the protection of the rights to peaceful assembly, physical integrity, and due process. Read more in our latest news: https://lnkd.in/dy9n_9bU

Dr. Mahrang Baloch, a prominent Baloch human rights defender and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize nominee, has been sentenced to life imprisonment in Pakistan following her arrest during a peaceful protest in March 2025. Her sentencing, alongside fellow activist Sibghatullah Shahji, has raised serious concerns among human rights organizations and UN experts about the use of counter-terrorism legislation to criminalize peaceful dissent and human rights advocacy. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/dvmQpxaN

📖 New #UyghurReader – A biweekly roundup of essential reporting and analysis on the Uyghur crisis, curated by UHRP staff. Issue 26: June 11, 2026 – June 24, 2026 🇨🇳 Ethnic Unity Law: China's new Ethnic Unity Law claims the power to hold people abroad liable for "undermining ethnic unity" – while rights groups warn this could expand transnational repression of diaspora communities, including Uyghurs (Reuters). 🇨🇦 Forced-Labor Imports: Canada needs stronger forced-labor legislation to prevent imports linked to Uyghur forced labor from entering the market, argue Mehmet Tohti, Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, Sarah Teich, and Charles Burton, writing for The Globe and Mail. ⚖️ Flawed Trial: FIDH - International Federation for Human Rights condemned the death sentence handed down by a Thai court to two Uyghur men convicted in connection with the 2015 Bangkok bombing, citing allegations of serious due process violations. 📡 Exporting Mass Surveillance: China is promoting mass surveillance practices used against Uyghurs as model for other nations to follow, including Afghanistan, warns Tommaso Franco, writing for Fair Observer. 📖 Future Amid Loss: In a moving reflection, Rizwana Ilham writes about growing up in a generation of Uyghurs told they were the future – only to later see their culture and community systematically dismantled (Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization). 🔎 Read the full Uyghur Reader: https://lnkd.in/g4w62XnJ

Language. The next edition of Peoples Represented. Launching Tuesday, 30 June. Language: carrier of memory, law, kinship, and the way a people sees the world. Where states have tried to assimilate and erase, the loss of a language has meant the loss of a people's standing. This edition presents what it means to keep a language spoken, written, and passed on, told by the people living it. Subscribe now to read it first: peoplesrepresented.com

Archives are more than records of the past. For unrepresented nations and peoples, they preserve collective memory, support advocacy, document human rights abuses, and help safeguard identity across generations. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/et7s7EMJ

What happens when cultural rights frameworks are built around states, but many communities remain unrecognised by them? Drawing on evidence from unrepresented and stateless peoples, a new submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on Cultural Rights argues that cultural rights cannot be assessed without considering questions of recognition, participation, and self-determination. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eNqc8Xci

Bien que l’esclavage ait été officiellement aboli, il continue d’affecter des milliers de personnes en Mauritanie, tandis que les militants antiesclavagistes, les opposants politiques et les défenseurs des droits humains font face à une répression croissante. Dans ce nouvel épisode de Hidden Geopolitics: Flash Edition, la Secrétaire générale de l’UNPO, Mercè, s’entretient avec Biram Dah Abeid sur l’esclavage, les discriminations, les libertés politiques et les enjeux de redevabilité en Mauritanie. Écoutez l’épisode ici : https://lnkd.in/eEnyGG4D

From the mass detention of Uyghurs and the religious sinicisation of Tibetans, to the persecution of Baloch, Kurdish, Ahwazi Arab, Hmong, Khmer-Krom, Crimean Tatar, and Sindhi communities, patterns of repression reveal how religious freedom is often restricted in the name of national security, counter-extremism, or political unity. Across these communities, states have criminalised peaceful religious expression, targeted clergy and community leaders, restricted places of worship, and used administrative and security frameworks to suppress minority religious identities. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/ejwB3nSk

Unrepresented, minority and Indigenous youth carry a disproportionate share of the struggles facing their communities. Edition No. 5 of Peoples Represented, published with First Draft Media, is dedicated to amplifying their voices and the role they play within the longer arc of their peoples' fights for recognition, and the continuation of their communities' knowledge and heritage carried forward across generations. Out Friday, 29 May. Subscribe at peoplesrepresented.com to be the first to read.