California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill into law on Monday intended to protect transgender public school students throughout the state. AB 1266 amends the state’s education code to specifically prohibit public schools from discriminating on the basis of gender identity and gender expression and allow students to participate in sex-segregated activities consistent with their [...]
North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory on Monday signed a voter ID bill into law that will require voters to present government-issued photo identification at the polls. The law will effectively roll back the early voting period and repeal one-stop registration during early voting. The North Carolina General Assembly approved the bill last month, despite criticism [...]
Lawyers for the Pennsylvania Department of Health and Governor Tom Corbett argued In a legal filing on Monday that a Montgomery County Register of Wills decision to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples is a separation-of-powers violation that “risks causing serious and limitless harm” in Pennsylvania. Montgomery County court clerk D. Bruce Hanes issued 116 [...]
Russia’s Constitutional Court on Tuesday received the first official complaint against the country’s new law which requires political non-governmental organizations (NGOs) receiving funding from abroad to register as “foreign agents.” Kostroma Center was fined 300,000 rubles (USD $9,000) for organizing a roundtable with US diplomats, which investigators said counted as “political activity.” The Center filed [...]
US Attorney General Eric Holder announced on Monday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) should avoid charging low-level, nonviolent drug offenders with no ties to gangs or drug cartels with crimes carrying mandatory minimum sentences. Holder outlined additional reforms as part of his new “Smart on Crime” plan during his speech to the American Bar [...]
Laszlo Csatary, a 98-year-old Hungarian man charged with the unlawful execution and torture of people in connection with the Holocaust, died Monday after suffering a number of medical problems. Csatary died in a Hungarian hospital while awaiting trial, which was set to begin in September. Csatary was apprehended in Budapest in July 2012 and charged [...]
UK authorities announced on Monday that they are considering legal action against Spain to force the country to loosen border controls in Gibraltar. British Prime Minister David Cameron accused Spain of blocking British fishing vessels in disproportionate numbers and said Spain was “politically motivated” in its actions. Spain contends that the border checks are proportional [...]
An Egyptian judge on Monday extended the detention of ousted president Mohamed Morsi by 15 days. Morsi has been held since July 3 when he was deposed by the Egyptian military, which then suspended the constitution and established an interim government. Morsi’s detention was extended in order to allow more time to investigate claims that [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Monday ruled that the New York Police Department (NYPD) stop-and-frisk policy violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments . The use of the “stop-and-frisk” tactic was popularized during the Mayor Michael Bloomberg administration, and over the past decade the city has [...]
A human rights activist for Frontline Defenders reported Friday that the lawyer representing a Bahraini blogger held by authorities has been detained himself days after alleging his client had been tortured while in police custody. Abdul Aziz Moussa is representing Mohamed Hassan, who acted as a media contact point for various foreign news stories, which [...]
