Orbán's defeat carried weight beyond the Hungarian borders.

We need to learn from that defeat and hope it inspires us. Some thoughts to that effect ⤵️

Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán is ejected after 16 years in a European electoral earthquake Hungarian voters have ousted long-serving Prime Minister Viktor Orbán after 16 years in power, rejecting the authoritarian policies and global far-right movement that he embodied in favor of a pro-European challenger in a bombshell election result with ...

Viktor Orbán’s 16-year grip on power has ended in Hungary.

The new government should act fast: end rule by decree, suspend Sovereignty Protection Office, drop politically motivated cases, guarantee peaceful protest, restore judicial independence, & meet EU rule of law milestones. Rights can’t wait.

Was für ein Unsinn: Was die Welt über Orbáns historische Niederlage berichtet, spiegelt sich in der Überschrift des @blick.ch überhaupt nicht wider!

Im Gegenteil: Die Welt ist sich einig, dass die EU durch den Machtwechsel in Ungarn gestärkt und Trump und Putin geschwächt wurden.

Today.

Hungary freed itself from 16 years of a despotic illiberal regime 🇭🇺

It’s Day 500 of the protests in Georgia against a despotic illiberal regime 🇬🇪

Europe can make a difference 🇪🇺 Now.

Goodbye Mr Orbán ⚡️

Now Europe needs to stand up. Now.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, left, and U.S. Vice President JD Vance shake hands and hug at the end of a pre-election rally in Budapest, Hungary, Tuesday, April 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Denes Erdos)

Orbán built an “illiberal” country. He also built the EU's poorest one.
By real household consumption, Hungary ranks last of 27 EU members.

Trump endorsed him & Vance flew to Budapest to campaign. Orbán still trails. Not even the MAGA seal of approval can rescue a failing authoritarian.

A large crowd fills Heroes' Square (Hősök tere) in Budapest at dusk, holding lit torches and Hungarian flags. At the centre, a lone figure stands at a podium on a raised stage — Tisza party leader Péter Magyar, addressing the National March demonstration on 23 October 2025, Hungary's national holiday marking the 1956 revolution. A large EU flag is prominently displayed on a flagpole in the foreground left. Behind the stage, Budapest's iconic Heroes' Square colonnade is visible, including the Millennium Monument with its bronze statues on horseback. A large video screen to the left of the stage shows crowd footage. The overcast sky and torchlight give the scene a dramatic, charged atmosphere. (Janos Kummer · Getty)

Today, Hungarians vote.

16 years of Orbán's illiberalism face a genuine threat: Tisza's Péter Magyar leads every independent poll.

But the field is rigged: gerrymandered districts, captured media, a captive judiciary. Magyar must win big to win at all 🇭🇺⚡️🗳️

Twenty photographs from the past week selected by @theguardian.com. The planet, seen from afar, is breathtaking. The moment, lived on it, is not.

Worth a few minutes of your day 🌍

🔗 www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Bravo à @franceinter.fr qui ce matin présente deux voix féminines pour parler géopolitique — un domaine souvent réservé aux hommes dans les médias.

Morocco's authorities are still holding Ibtissame Betty Lachgar in prison ⚡️ She is denied urgent medical care 🏥

In this context, no royal grace is just disgraceful.

UN Special Rapporteur @marylawlorhrds.bsky.social now calling for her humanitarian release ⤵️

💡 Just dropping something here that was said at the ongoing Human Rights Compass Convening, as it’s worth to be shared:

*Human rights is security infrastructure:* because they reduce volatility, prevent conflict, and build trust in institutions.

As the US gets mired in Iran, Putin is preparing his next move: the Narva People’s Republic.

It feels great to be starting Human Rights Compass's 3rd season.

A year in, with a great group of colleagues from across the globe, as the global realignment accelerates and the stakes for human rights keep rising. Proud of what we've built & energised for what comes next.

Iran's 1979 constitution: intact.
Supreme Leader post: intact.
Mojtaba Khamenei—viewed as more extreme than his father—now holds it.

Switzerland's mandate to maintain minimal contact is mooted.
Nuclear oversight is gone since Trump tore up the 2015 deal.

Trump calls this "new, more reasonable" 🇺🇸⚡️🇮🇷

US Escalation Is the Most Likely Scenario in Iran Nouriel Roubini thinks President Donald Trump is on the hook politically to try to “finish the job” of regime change.

Looks more and more like Trump trapped himself (and the whole world) into an impossible situation…

He now has every reason to try to “finish the job,” writes Nouriel Roubini @projectsyndicate.bsky.social

www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/u...

Absolutel 💯

Yesterday, Liechtenstein with 13 States shared a draft resolution on Article 27.3 of the Charter, which essentially forbids a state from voting when party to a dispute.

Intigam Aliyev receiving the Homo Homini Award on 4 March 2013 in Prague from the hands of at the time Minister of Foreign Affairs Karel Schwarzenberg (source: Human Rights House Foundation).

🕊️ 10 years ago today, Intigam Aliyev was released from prison: Azerbaijan’s leading human rights lawyer, teacher of a generation, jailed for doing his job.

His release came in a decade of repression that has never stopped.

Cover of “Mr Men Little Miss: I Am Angry,” part of the Discover You series by Roger Hargreaves. A blue rectangular Mr Men character with a top hat and a pink square Little Miss character both wear angry expressions, with yellow lightning bolts around them. The subtitle reads: “A book about managing anger.”

Just read “Mr Men Little Miss: I Am Angry” putting my 4yo to bed.

Trump’s last State of the Union scores at fourth grade on the same readability scale.

Hargreaves had the excuse: he was writing for 3–4 year-olds 📖

The honour is ours, @mainakiai.bsky.social — welcome to Progress & Change's Thought Circle 🙏

Self-Preservation and the Erosion of International Law Self-preservation should not be invoked as a justification for distorting or bypassing the existing rules of international law.

The Epic Risk: self-preservation vs international law ⚡️

Why self-preservation is a structural principle within international law, not a freestanding right that can justify violating other rules, via @justsecurity.org.

www.justsecurity.org/134361/self-...

Daniel-Cohn Bendit: «Ich bin der Schweiz nicht böse. Aber ihr Konzept ist völlig uninteressant» Der Politiker und Intellektuelle Daniel Cohn-Bendit spricht über sein Verhältnis zur Schweiz, über seine Vorwürfe an die Linken und über seinen grössten Makel. Und er erklärt, warum er trotz allem Optimist bleibt.

„Die Frage ist nur, wann die direkte Demokratie sich ihres nationalen Egoismus entledigen kann.“ Lesenswertes Interview mit Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Ja, er ist ein Boomer).
www.tagesanzeiger.ch/daniel-cohn-...

Iran- und Ukraine-Krieg: So ähnlich argumentieren Trump und Putin Die Begründungen von Kreml und Weissem Haus ähneln sich auffällig. Das hat seine Gründe – und lässt wenig Gutes ahnen.

“Special military operation." "Large-scale combat operations."

Same logic writes @calummackenzie.bsky.social in Swiss public Radio TV: frame aggression as defence, ignore international law, underestimate resistance.

The authoritarian playbook, right there in the words ⚡️

www.srf.ch/news/interna...

Sources Briefed on Iran War Say U.S. Has No Plans for What Comes Next “The administration doesn’t have a clue. They do not have an actual, real rationale, endgame, or plan for the aftermath of this.”

“No plans for what comes next.” 🇮🇷

The Trump administration doesn't have an actual, real rationale, endgame, or plan for the aftermath of its attacks on Iran, an official told @theintercept.com ⚡️

A must read!

theintercept.com/2026/03/05/t...

Ontario Human Rights Code plaque A blue heritage plaque on a metal post, erected by the Ontario Heritage Trust, marking the Ontario Human Rights Code which came into effect on 15 June 1962. The plaque stands in a courtyard in front of a large stone building, with patches of snow on the ground.

than Phillips Square ice rink People ice-skating at Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto, with the large white TORONTO sign and City Hall's twin curved towers visible in the background under a partly cloudy winter sky.

Caroline Monnet paintings Two large-format paintings by Canadian artist Caroline Monnet, displayed on a white wall at the law firm McCarthy Tétrault in Toronto.

Group photo at McCarthy Tétrault Group photo of the members of the Board and leadership of the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL). Thirteen people are posing in a high-rise office, with a panoramic view of the Toronto skyline visible through floor-to-ceiling windows behind them. The St. Regis hotel sign is visible in the background.

A few days in Toronto on the future of civic space 🇨🇦 A meeting with Canadian civil society and lawmakers, and ICNL's board meeting.

The work of protecting human rights is built on exactly this kind of sustained, committed coalition-building ⚖️

61 years ago today, marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge were met with tear gas, batons and brutality ⚡️

The images shocked the world and changed it: rights are won in the streets before they are written into law.

And we lost Jesse Jackson #RIP

#BloodySunday #Selma

“If a government attacks its own people, silences journalists, and curtails freedom, there are consequences…” except if it happens in Azerbaijan 😵‍💫

Tonight, Barack Obama spoke to the American people.

Don’t we all miss him?

This ⚠️⤵️

68 years old = the average age of the four first known candidates to become UN Secretary-General.

⚠️ 10 years older than the average age of when previous UNSGs took office.

#NothingToAdd

Iran’s oppressive regime shaped my life, and my family’s. I’m afraid of where Donald Trump’s war will lead As Canadian Iranians who advocate for justice and human rights in Iran, we should remember that the U.S. and Israel have been as harmful to civilians through their domestic and

To friends of human rights, pay attention ⚠️

Abandoning international law now will harm generations of Iranians to come writes @amandaghahremani.com in the Toronto Star: www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...