The Supreme Court of the Maldives on Monday indefinitely delayed the second round of presidential elections, which were scheduled to occur later this week. The injunction, signed by four of the seven-judge bench, calls for the election commission to delay the runoff election until the court rules on the challenge filed by the Jumhooree Party [...]

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The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran Ahmed Shaheed on Wednesday hailed the recent release of more than a dozen prisoners of conscience but urged the government to release hundreds of other prisoners detained “solely for exercising their rights to freedoms of expression, association and assembly.” [...]

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The International Criminal Court (ICC) Monday excused Kenyan deputy president William Ruto from trial proceedings for one week in order for him to return to Kenya to help respond to the terrorist attack at a Nairobi shopping mall on Saturday. Ruto’s lawyers filed an urgent motion asking for proceedings against Ruto to be adjourned , [...]

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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday condemned a terrorist attack on a Christian church in Peshawar, Pakistan, which has reportedly killed more than 80 people and wounded more than 100. Ban expressed his condolences to the families of the victims and urged Pakistani authorities do everything in their power to combat “repeated acts of blind [...]

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Voters in Ticino , an Italian-speaking region of Switzerland, approved a referendum on Sunday to ban the wearing of full-face veils. Although the referendum does not explicitly target Muslims, it drew outrage from Muslim groups in Switzerland, who denounced the referendum as a blow to the constitutional rights of Muslim women. The referendum, which stipulates [...]

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An Egyptian court on Monday banned the Muslim Brotherhood and ordered its assets confiscated as part of the military government’s crackdown on the group. The Cairo administrative court declared that its ruling would apply to all organizations affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood , including its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party . Although the [...]

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Participants of the Sixth Asian and Pacific Population Conference (APPC) hosted by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) declared Sunday that gender equality and reproductive health are indispensable to sustainable development. Ministers and senior officials from 47 countries adopted a comprehensive Asian and Pacific Ministerial Declaration on Population and [...]

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