Mali is facing its worst human rights crisis since it gained independence in 1960, Amnesty International (AI) reported Wednesday. In a report , “Mali: Five months of crisis, armed rebellion and military coup,” AI claims that hundreds of thousands of citizens have been displaced while dozens have been subjected to arbitrary detention, extrajudicial executions or [...]
Mass arrests and incommunicado detentions persist at Camp Honor, a prison in Iraq’s capital Baghdad that the Iraqi government promised to close last year, Human Rights Watch (HRW) , reported Tuesday. According to HRW, the Iraqi government is reportedly holding hundreds of detainees incommunicado for months at a time at Camp Honor, as well as [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday denied petitions by book publishers and Apple to dismiss a class action lawsuit alleging that companies are illegally conspiring to fix electronic book (e-book) prices. The lawsuit was originally filed in August. The complaint alleges that Apple and five [...]
UN experts and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on Monday urged an end to the threats and killings of human rights advocates and journalists in Mexico. The UN and IACHR called on the Mexican government to implement the “Law for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists” in order to avoid the [...]
Kansas Governor Sam Brownback has signed a bill allowing pharmacists to refuse to dispense drugs that they “reasonably believe” might result in the termination of a pregnancy, his office announced Monday. Critics of the legislation claim that it will allow pharmacists to refuse to distribute emergency contraception , but supporters claim that the bill was [...]
Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee on Monday signed an executive order requiring government agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed out-of-state. Rhode Island law currently allows civil unions for same-sex couples, but the law was silent on whether same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions should be recognized. In 2007, the attorney general issued an opinion in [...]
The US Supreme Court denied certiorari on Monday in Igartua v. United States, a case challenging Puerto Ricans’ inability to vote in US presidential elections. The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled in November 2010 that Puerto Ricans could not vote because Puerto Rico is not a state. The court pointed out [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit partially on Monday reversed the district court’s refusal to grant a temporary injunction for Apple against Samsung for Samsung’s “Galaxy” line of products. The appeals court agreed with the district court in denying a temporary injunction on three of the four appeals but remanded the case [...]
International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced Monday that his office will seek arrest warrants for two rebel leaders in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The office filed an arrest warrant application for Sylvestre Mudacumura , a foreign militia leader in the DRC, and [...]
The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Monday in Hall v. United States that family farmers filing bankruptcy under Chapter 12 of the bankruptcy code cannot discharge a capital gains tax incurred by a post-petition sale of a farm, as the profit of that sale is not considered part of the estate. The majority, in an [...]
