A Toronto judge ruled Wednesday that a Muslim woman must remove her niqab while testifying in a sexual abuse case. The woman, known as NS, has been fighting for years to be allowed to wear her niqab while testifying and took her case to the Supreme Court of Canada , which ruled in December that [...]
The Rhode Island Senate voted 26 to 12 Wednesday in favor of a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage . The House passed its own version of the bill in January, but must now vote on Senate amendments. A vote is expected as early as next week. Governor Lincoln Chafee, who last year signed an [...]
Israel’s Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein confirmed Wednesday that security personnel can ask visitors to the country to open their e-mail accounts if they are perceived as suspicious. The attorney general’s approval comes in response to an inquiry by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) which has criticized such security measures. Under the law, [...]
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday criticized for limiting freedom of speech since Vladimir Putin returned to the presidency. HRW’s report calls the restrictive laws “unprecedented” in Russia’s post-Soviet history. Amnesty International’s report focused on the multiple new laws and amendments passed in the last year that they claim infringe on individual [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases Wednesday. In Metrish v. Lancaster the court heard arguments on whether the Michigan Supreme Court violated due process rights when it recognized a state statute that abolished the diminished capacity defense and applied it retroactively to defendant Burt Lancaster’s re-trial. The Michigan Solicitor General argued [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday resentenced Wadih El-Hage to life in prison for his role in the 1998 bombing of two US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. El-Hage was permitted to speak before the sentencing, where he complained that the jury was biased and [...]
Deputy commander of the JEM-Bashar and International Criminal Court (ICC) war crimes suspect, Saleh Mohammed Jerbo Jamus has reportedly been killed in Northern Darfur. The group reported his death on Monday , which was later confirmed by his defense team on Wednesday. Jamus was charged in connection with an attack on African Union (AU) Peace [...]
Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf was denied bail on Wednesday in the case regarding the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto . Musharraf was applying for pre-arrest interim bail, citing severe threats to his safety. Specifically, Pakistani authorities defused a car bomb near Musharraf’s house on Tuesday. The court, however, was not swayed by [...]
The German Federal Constitutional Court ruled Wednesday that an anti-terrorism database does not violate any rights guaranteed by the country’s constitution. The court, however, requested the that government perform security enhancements and further access restrictions to the database by the conclusion of 2014. The court also requested that data protection experts regularly check the database [...]
The Guatemalan Constitutional Court on Tuesday ordered Judge Jasmine Barrios to annul the case of former Guatemalan dictator General Efrain Rios Montt over the genocide of Mayan Indians . The Constitutional Court also ordered the case sent back to Judge Carol Patricia Flores, who now has 24 to 48 hours to resolve the limited and [...]
