Eurotopics.net

Over the past few days, lawyers and relatives of a number of well-known political prisoners in Russia have been informed that the prisoners are no longer in the jails where they had been held up to now. Their current location is unknown. The missing prisoners include 18-year-old German student Kevin Lick, the artist Sasha Skochilenko, the human rights activist Oleg Orlov and politicians Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza.

Two women boxers who were disqualified from the 2023 world championships after failing the gender tests are being allowed to fight in the Olympics: Taiwan's Lin Yu-ting and Algeria's Imane Khelif, who will compete against the Italian Angela Carini today. Members of Italy's far-right conservative government are now calling it an unfair fight, claiming that Khelif is trans and male.

For years, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has used the stage of the Summer University in the Romanian, but predominantly Hungarian-speaking Băile Tușnad to give highly provocative speeches. This year his vitriol was again directed at Brussels, Washington and Warsaw. But this time Poland's Secretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Władysław Teofil Bartoszewski, did not beat about the bush in his response: Orbán should ask himself why he is still in the EU.

The opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics takes place in Paris on Friday. Europe's commentators survey the city and the event, in which international conflicts and tough security measures seem to be the dominant themes so far.