The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled earlier this week that groups seeking information through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) can immediately appeal if their request is denied or unanswered. The court held that FOIA requires agencies to review responsive documents and to tell requesters what documents the agency [...]
Italian president Giorgio Napolitano on Friday pardoned US Air Force Colonel Joseph Romano of his conviction related to the US Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) abduction and extraordinary rendition of Egyptian cleric and terror suspect Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr. Joseph Romano was security chief of northern Italy’s Aviano air base where Nasr, also known as Abu [...]
The Montreal Police on Friday arrested 279 protestors at an allegedly illegal demonstration aimed at protesting police tactics. The protesters were speaking out against Montreal’s Municipal Bylaw P-6 , which allows the police to declare illegal any demonstration where participants failed to provide government authorities a copy of the itinerary in advance. The police said [...]
An Egyptian court on Saturday dismissed a lawsuit against popular satirist Bassem Youssef , stating that the Islamist lawyer who brought the suit did not have standing. The lawyer, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood , supporters of President Mohamed Morsi , filed the complaint earlier this week against Youssef, who hosts Bernameg al-Bernameg, a [...]
Portugal’s Constitutional Court ruled that four out of nine contested austerity measures of the 2013 state budget were unconstitutional. The court’s decision came in response to the request of Portugal’s President Anibal Cavaco Silva for the court to determine whether retirees and public workers were being treated unfairly under the terms of the country’s constitution. [...]
Thousands in Bangladesh on Saturday demanded that the government introduce anti-blasphemy laws, including provisions to prosecute and hang atheist bloggers, in a rally organized by Hefazat-e-Islam, an Islamic group drawing support from thousands of seminaries and allegedly backed by Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) . The protest was alleged to have sparked in response to bloggers criticizing conservative [...]
The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) issued a report on Friday calling on the government of South Sudan to protect communities that are at risk of violence. The UNMISS report detailed the findings of a human rights investigation into the killing of 85 cattle herders in South Sudan’s Jonglei state , a majority of [...]
A court in Pakistan ruled on Friday that election officials must refrain from asking irrelevant and intrusive questions of candidates for public office. Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah of the Lahore High Court issued the ruling in the wake of Returning Officers, who are primarily lower court judges, asking candidates to recite specific passages in [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio (ACLU) released a report on Thursday urging the Ohio Supreme Court to bring an end to the state’s practice of jailing people who cannot pay their court fines. The ACLU alleges that this practice is used in seven of the 11 counties investigated. The report claims that “there [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York on Friday ruled that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Plan B emergency contraception prescription requirement for adolescents under age 16 was “unjustified and burdensome.” In 30 days women of all ages can access the over-the-counter (OTC) emergency contraceptive. According to [...]
