An Oslo district court on Monday began hearing a suit initiated by tobacco company Philip Morris against Norway for the country’s display ban on tobacco products. The company argues that the ban is in violation of the European Economic Area (EEA) rules because it makes competition too difficult. The Norwegian Cancer Society , a group [...]
The International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh (ICTB) on Monday indicted a leader of Bangladesh’s largest Islamic party for alleged human rights atrocities committed during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War against Pakistan, making him the fifth member to be indicted. Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, the third-highest ranking member of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party, was indicted on several counts [...]
A Libyan military court on Monday sentenced a group of 24 men from the former Soviet Union to prison terms after finding them guilty of serving as mercenaries for former Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi . The military trial, which is the first trial to hold mercenaries accountable since the conflict ended, is seen an attempt [...]
A Kuwait court on Monday sentenced a man to ten years of imprisonment for posting insulting and defaming comments about the Prophet Muhammad and the Sunni Muslim rulers of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain on Twitter . Judge Hisham Abdullah found 26-year-old Hamad al-Naqi, a Shia Muslim , guilty on all charges of endangering state security [...]
The Justice Ministry of Bahrain on Sunday announced that it would file a lawsuit seeking to ban the Islamic party known as the Islamic Action Society, or Amal, a party composed of mostly Shiite Muslims who have been critical of the monarchy. Reports on Monday indicated that the Ministry of Justice alleges that Amal has [...]
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged countries on Sunday to increase their efforts to counter the prevalent threat of terrorism . At a second meeting of the advisory board of the UN Centre for Counter-Terrorism (UNCCT) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Ban stated that nations have to work together to prevent and counter terrorism having a detrimental [...]
The Supreme Court in Azerbaijan on Monday ordered that youth activist Bakhtiyar Hajiyev be released nine months early on the condition that he remain in the country. Hajiyev, a conscientious objector (CO), was imprisoned last March after he failed to register for mandatory military service. Advocacy group Freedom Now said on Monday that they were [...]
A court in Kazakhstan sentenced 13 out of 37 defendants to between three and seven years of imprisonment for their participation in unrest last December that resulted in at least 15 deaths and hundreds of injuries. The unrest occurred in a remote desert oil town of Zhanaozen when oil workers demanded higher pay and better [...]
Japanese police have arrested one of the last fugitive members of Aum Shinrikyo suspected of involvement in a nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995, a Japanese newspaper reported on Monday. The attacks killed 12 people and sickened over 5,500 more. Naoko Kikuchi is one of two suspects of the gas attacks [...]
The Glostrup City Court on Monday sentenced four men to 12 years in prison for their attempt to kill people inside the office of Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten (JP) . Mounir Ben Mohamed Dhahri, Munir Awad, Omar Abdalla Aboelazm and Sabhi Ben Mohamed Zalouti, all Swedish residents of African or Middle Eastern origin, attempted a shooting [...]
