The US National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) on Wednesday published its 2011 Report on Terrorism which concluded that the total number of worldwide terrorism attacks has dropped 12 percent from 2010 and 29 percent from 2007. The report is compiled based on data collected through the US Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (WITS), which uses specific guidelines [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Wednesday that since July 2011 at least 40 people including women and children have been killed during cross-border attacks on Ivory Coast villages by armed militants in Liberia . The report stated that militants were using children to conduct those attacks on the villages in the Ivory Coast and [...]
A lawsuit filed against the state of Florida on Monday in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida alleges that the state’s ban on local authorities hiring companies that do business in Cuba or Syria is unconstitutional. Odebrecht Construction, Inc. , a Brazilian conglomerate in engineering, seeks declaratory and injunctive relief to [...]
A Muslim rights group filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of New Jersey on Wednesday seeking to end the New York Police Department (NYPD) controversial surveillance program, which allegedly targets individuals based on religious affiliation. The complaint, filed by the Muslim Advocates alleges that “the NYPD Program is founded upon [...]
Prominent Bahraini rights activist Nabeel Rajab was arrested and returned to prison on Wednesday after posting critical comments about the government on his social media page, according to his lawyer. This is not the first time Rajab has been arrested in connection with comments posted to his Twitter account. Rajab was released on bail last [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the District of Idaho on Tuesday rejected a petition for full access to executions submitted by the Associated Press and 16 other newspaper agencies. The Idaho Department of Correction (IDOC) policy of having witnesses present during execution proceedings allows witnesses to view the execution only after the [...]
The Philippine Congress on Wednesday approved the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012 that criminalize the financing of terrorism. The bill penalizes an individual who organizes or directs the commission of the crime of financing terrorism with imprisonment of 40 years and a fine of not less than five hundred thousand pesos (USD [...]
The bipartisan legal advisory group in charge of defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) filed its brief on Monday defending the act’s provision denying federal benefits to lawfully married same-sex couples. The brief, filed in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit , argues that laws relating to sexual orientation should be [...]
The European Commission on Wednesday announced a proposal that would address the problems of bailing out large banks with public funds during financial crises in the future. The proposal rests on Article 114 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) which “allows the adoption of measures for the approximation of national provisions [...]
North Korea’s caste system leads to abuses and human rights violations in the country, the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) reported Wednesday. The report alleges that the caste system, known as Songbun, is used as justification for the systematic abuse and arbitrary detention of some North Korean citizens. Members of the lower [...]
