Kenyan police engaged in a 10-week rampage in Nairobi beginning in late 2012, torturing and abusing more than 1,000 refugees, asylum seekers and Somali Kenyans, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported Wednesday. HRW claims that the Kenyan police used grenades and other attacks to relocate refugees to camps “as an excuse to rape, beat, extort money [...]
Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper on Tuesday signed a new set of laws regulating the use and sale of recreational marijuana. One law expands the medical marijuana enforcement division to encompass retail marijuana. The law also prohibits retail marijuana stores from selling more than one-fourth of an ounce of marijuana to nonresidents. Another law, subject to [...]
The UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants Francois Crepeau urged the EU on Tuesday to focus on human rights in its migration policies . Crepeau visited both sides of the border in Turkey, Greece, Tunisia and Italy to investigate the experience of migrants. He found that those irregular migrants related to the [...]
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday denied an appeal by the state of Indiana challenging a lower court decision that blocked patient reimbursement through Medicaid if the health providers performed abortions as a part of overall medical care. Planned Parenthood is one of the largest providers that can now continue to receive Medicaid funding in [...]
The UN special rapporteur for extreme poverty and human rights Magdalena Sepulveda on Tuesday presented her annual report to the UN Human Rights Council. Sepulveda urged world governments to enable participation amongst persons living in poverty in decisions that affect their lives. She also recommended that states set up a legal and institutional framework to [...]
Former Michigan Supreme Court justice Diane Hathaway was sentenced on Tuesday to a year and a day in prison for bank fraud. Hathaway concealed assets while dealing with a bank to arrange a short sale on her home, which allowed her to sell her home for less than she owed and to avoid foreclosure. She [...]
Former Guatemalan president Alfonso Portillo pleaded not guilty to money laundering charges in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday. He is charged with having laundered more than $70 million through US banks during his four years as president. Portillo was extradited to the US after being acquitted in [...]
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Monday that he wants to punish those people who deny that atrocities occurred during the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime, which was widely held responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million people. Hun Sen has suggested that the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party shares the regime’s philosophy by comparing their [...]
Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi sent a bill to the country’s interim parliament on Monday that would regulate non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The most recent draft allocates wider financial autonomy to civic associations and NGOs. According to presidential aides, the bill does not require NGOs to hold their money in public funds and removes wording that required [...]
The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in McQuiggin v. Perkins that “actual innocence … serves as a gateway through which a petitioner may pass” in a federal habeas action. In Schlup v. Delo (1995) and House v. Bell (2006) , the Supreme Court held that a convincing showing of actual innocence enabled habeas petitioners to [...]
