Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Human Rights Monitoring Institute on Tuesday urged Lithuania to reopen its investigation into secret CIA prisons that may have operated in the country from 2001-2006. In 2010 Lithuania launched an investigation into illegal detentions but closed it a year later. Lithuania has refused to disclose the information from the [...]
UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons urged Morocco on Tuesday to adopt a victim-centered approach to combat human trafficking in the country. Joy Ngozi Ezeilo said “ictims of trafficking are most often not being identified or being misidentified as smuggled and/or irregular migrants due the absence of appropriate tools and protocols for victim identification.” [...]
A Saudi Arabian court on Monday sentenced human rights activist Abdulkarim al-Khader to eight years in prison for sedition. Abdulkarim al-Khader was one of the founders of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA) , which aimed to increase awareness of civil rights in the country. He was sentenced to prison after the ACPRA [...]
The International Crimes Tribunal Bangladesh (ICTB) on Monday ordered Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin and Ashrafuzzaman Khan to be tried in absentia for the murders of 19 intellectuals and 11 crimes against humanity committed during the 1971 independence war. Khan is a US citizen, and Mueee-Uddin is a British Muslim leader. Their alleged victims included nine teachers, six [...]
An advocate general for the European Court of Justice (ECJ) released an advisory opinion Tuesday finding that EU data protection law does not require Google and other Internet search companies to withdraw sensitive data from search indices even when found to be harmful. In November 2009 a Spanish citizen found that a Google search of [...]
The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) filed a lawsuit Tuesday in the US District Court for the District of North Dakota alleging that two restrictive North Dakota abortion laws violate the US constitution. CRR filed suit on behalf of the Red River Women’s Clinic challenging HB 1456 and HB 1305 , which, respectively, prohibit abortion [...]
The Intellectual Property High Court in Tokyo on Tuesday ruled that Samsung did not infringe an Apple patent regarding the synchronization of music and data on multiple devices. In so doing, the High Court affirmed the ruling of the Tokyo District Court last August. Neither company has issued an official statement in response to Tuesday’s [...]
The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Tuesday in Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District in favor of a landowner in a property rights case. Carl Koontz, Sr. refused to contribute money to protect the wetlands in order to get a permit to redevelop some acres of land. The St. Johns River Water Management [...]
The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Tuesday in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl that §1912(f) and §1912(d) of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA) do not bar the termination of the biological father’s parental rights. In this case, a woman put her baby, who was fathered by an American Indian, up for adoption. [...]
The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Tuesday in Shelby County v. Holder that section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) is unconstitutional, and its formula can no longer be used as a basis for subjecting jurisdictions to preclearance. Section 5 of the VRA requires jurisdictions with a history of preventing minority groups [...]
