Two members of the feminist rock group Pussy Riot , Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, were released from prison on Monday after the Russian government’s approval of sweeping new amnesty laws . The laws were approved unanimously by the Russian Duma’s lower house of parliament and adopted last Thursday. The amnesty provided would free about [...]
The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) announced Sunday that it has begun relocating all non-critical staff from Juba, the capital city, amid the escalating violence between military factions in South Sudan. UNMISS is moving its staff from Juba to Entebbe, Uganda, as a precautionary measure to reduce pressure on its limited sources. Special Representative [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Sujitha Subramanian of the Bristol University School of Law discusses the Indian Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the constitutional validity of a statute effectively criminalizing homosexual acts …
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday urged the international community to provide more support for central Philippine communities devastated by powerful typhoon Haiyan last month. The rebuilding effort is based on a four-year plan, which amounts to about $ 8.17 billion, will restore the affected areas. The typhoon killed about 6,000 and displaced millions of [...]
An Egyptian court on Sunday sentenced three human rights activists to three years in prison and fined each of them $7,000 USD for violating the country’s controversial new anti-protest law. Ahmed Maher, Ahmed Douma and Mohammed Adel were convicted of participating in an illegal protest and allegedly assaulting policemen during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution . [...]
US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper declassified documents on Saturday that show how the National Security Agency (NSA) was authorized to collect bulk phone and internet records from US citizens without individualized suspicion. Clapper disclosed that President George W. Bush first authorized the data collection in October 2001 as part of the Terrorist Surveillance [...]
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed a controversial immigration bill Friday that will allow students in the country illegally to be eligible for in-state rates to attend state colleges, effective immediately. Christie’s administration and the state senate reached a compromise on what has been known as the state’s version of the DREAM Act on Friday, [...]
Egyptian prosecutors on Saturday referred former President Mohamed Morsi to trial for charges of organizing a 2011 prison break, spreading chaos and abducting policemen in the country. The trial for these charges will be the third trial that has been referred by prosecutors since Morsi was ousted in July. The charges center around actions taken [...]
US District Court for the District of Utah on Friday ruled that Utah’s constitutional and statutory bans on same-sex marriage violate due process and equal protection guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. Constitutional Amendment 3 , which amended Utah’s constitution to define marriage as a “legal union between a man and a [...]
The Ugandan Parliament announced on Friday the passing of the anti-gay bill that, if signed by President Yoweri Museveni in the next 30 days, will criminalize homosexuality and impose harsh jail terms for same-sex relationships. The bill stipulates a fourteen-year jail term for one convicted of homosexuality and a sentence of life imprisonment for those [...]
