The chief judge of the US District Court for the District of Kansas on Sunday refused to block a portion of a Kansas abortion law that requires abortion providers’ websites to contain a link to a state information page. The ruling, in a suit brought by Planned Parenthood, follows a ruling by a state court [...]
US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on Sunday rejected a request by Proposition 8 supporters to block the issuance of same-sex marriage licenses in California. The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) , a Christian legal advocacy group, had filed an emergency petition ] on Saturday arguing that the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged European Union’s High Representative Catherine Ashton and other EU member states’ representatives to condemn Saudi Arabia for recently convicting seven governmental critics of inciting protests through Facebook. The men were detained for a year and a half before being charged and sent to trial. All seven were convicted of inciting [...]
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) , a Christian legal advocacy group, filed an emergency petition on Saturday, stating that the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s recent decision lifting California’s ban on gay marriage was not legal and was decided prematurely. This petition comes one day after the Ninth Circuit announced in a [...]
A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on Friday ruled that a Fremont, Nebraska ordinance that bans renting to undocumented immigrants is constitutional. The panel held that the ordinance does not have an “impermissible effect by removing a class of aliens from the city” or intrude on federal immigration [...]
Russia President Vladimir Putin on Sunday signed into law a bill banning the promotion of “homosexual propaganda” among minors. The law also imposes fines of up to 5,000 rubles ($166) and creates the power to suspend legal entities for 90 days for citizens who disseminate information suggesting that homosexuality is “socially equivalent” to heterosexuality. Additionally, [...]
A federal judge on Friday blocked Michigan’s ban on domestic partner benefits for employees who work for public schools or local governments, saying the plaintiffs have demonstrated a likelihood of success on their equal protection claim by providing evidence of the state’s discriminatory purpose. Passed in 2011 by a Republican-controlled Legislature, the law ended insurance [...]
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Friday warned that recent appointments to Afghanistan’s top human rights body compromise its independence, recommending that President Hamid Karzai reconsider the appointments and re-open the selection process. Earlier this month President Karzai appointed five new commissioners to the human rights board, known as the Afghanistan [...]
The U.S. military’s highest court, the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces , overturned the murder conviction of Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III. The Court’s decision was based on the claim that Sgt. Hutchins’s constitutional rights were violated when he was held in solitary confinement without access to a lawyer for seven days in 2006. [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Friday announced in a one-sentence order that the ban on same-sex marriages “is dissolved effective immediately”. This order comes after the Supreme Court’s decision on Wednesday that upheld the invalidation of Proposition 8 . After Friday’s court order, California Governor Jerry Brown declared that same-sex [...]
