The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled Monday that a defendant’s request for a lawyer may not be used as evidence of guilt. Tayfun Okatan was convicted on three counts relating to illegally bringing a German citizen into the US. When detained by an officer and asked whether he was attempting to [...]
The Rajya Sabha , the upper house of the Indian parliament, approved an amendment to the Marriage Law , 2010 Monday that would grant both men and woman the ability to file for divorce on the grounds of “irretrievable breakdown” of marriage. Both parties must live apart for three years before being able to file [...]
The Texas Supreme Court announced Friday that it will consider whether the state has jurisdiction to grant divorces to two same-sex couples who were legally married in Massachusetts. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said in a brief that the state would benefit from the court ruling on the issue and declaring the state’s same-sex marriage [...]
UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova on Monday condemned the death of three journalists in Egypt and called for a thorough investigation into the incidents. Two journalists, Ahmed Abdel of Al-Akhbar and Gawad Mosab Al-Shami, a photojournalist for Rassd News Network (RNN) , were killed during demonstrations in Cairo on August 14. On August 20 Tamer Abdel [...]
At the beginning of a week-long visit to Sri Lanka, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay pledged to raise concerns with the government’s human rights record, particularly with regard to alleged war crimes against ethnic Tamils. Sri Lanka’s government fought a brutal 26-year civil war with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Sunday urged the government of Myanmar to significantly revise or discard their draft association law. The draft law, if enacted, would require nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to obtain official registration to operate; would provide broad and difficult to interpret regulatory authority for NGOs; and could subject groups to arbitrary decisions without [...]
Ecuador’s criminal code, which prohibit abortions even in the case of rape, threatens the health of victims of sexual violence, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported Friday. Ecuador’s abortion laws impose prison terms ranging from one to five years for women who obtain abortions. In the press release accompanying the report, HRW women’s rights researcher Amanda [...]
The Obama administration on Friday released a policy directive known as the “Family Interest Directive” emphasizing that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents should apply “prosecutorial discretion” towards undocumented immigrant parents of minors to limit detaining parents and to safeguard their parental rights. The directive does not give deportation relief to undocumented immigrants, but does [...]
A Cairo court on Sunday adjourned the trial of three Muslim Brotherhood leaders, Mohammed Badie, Khairat al-Shater and Rashad Bayoumy, after the three failed to appear in court, citing security conserns. The judge postponed the trial to October 29. Badie was arrested earlier this week. The charges against the three include incitement to violence in [...]
Former Egyptian prime minister Hosni Mubarak appeared in court on Sunday to face retrial on complicity charges in the killing of over 100 protesters during the country’s 2011 uprising. Mubarak was recently released from prison and placed under house arrest at a military hospital after a court concluded that he served the maximum in time [...]
