The Malaysian Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW) on Friday found former US president George W. Bush and seven administration officials guilty of war crimes after a symbolic trial. The five-member tribunal convicted Bush, former vice president Dick Cheney, former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former attorney general Alberto Gonzales , and several other administration [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the District of Colombia ruled Thursday that the final volume in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) history of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba will remain secret. US District Judge Gladys Kessler ordered the volume to remain secret because it is merely a draft document [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Friday urged Libya’s ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) to amend a new law that protects people who committed crimes during last year’s Libya conflict . The new law protects from prosecution those whose actions were focused on “promoting or protecting the revolution” against Muammar Gaddafi . Additionally, the law allows [...]
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday urged the Israeli government to try or release more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners without delay to avoid any further risk on their health condition. The prisoners, who have been in Israeli custody, began their open-ended hunger strike two weeks ago to protest against unjust arrest procedures, arbitrary detention and [...]
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed suit Thursday against Maricopa County, Arizona, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, and Sheriff Joe Arpaio alleging discriminatory conduct. The DOJ claims that Arpaio and his department engaged in a pattern or practice of discriminatory and unlawful law enforcement actions against Latinos. According to the complaint, “Latinos in Maricopa [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged the National Assembly of Kosovo Wednesday to remove certain provisions in the draft criminal code that they claim violate freedom of the press . In a letter , HRW claims that articles 37 and 38 of the draft code will significantly interfere with journalists’ work. Article 37 allows the punishment [...]
The Argentine Senate approved a measure on Wednesday that allows people who want sex-change surgery or hormone therapy to have these treatments covered under their public or private health plans. The measure, known as the Gender Identity law, also allows any adult to change his or her gender or birth name on official documents without [...]
A Dutch court on Thursday ordered Internet service providers (ISPs) in the Netherlands to block the file-sharing website The Pirate Bay or else pay a fine of USD $12,750 per day. Rechtbank-Gravenhage , a Dutch district court, issued its ruling on Thursday in favor of Stichting Brien , an anti-piracy organization composed of artists, authors [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Samar Warsi, a Senior Volunteer Attorney for the Muslim Civil Liberties Union, says that the recent revelations regarding NYPD surveillance of Muslims and Muslim-affiliated groups has serious implications for civil liberties in the US… When law enforcement starts to make assumptions about an individual’s propensity for terrorism based on whether that individual [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled Tuesday that the public videotaping of police at work does not constitute a crime under the Illinois eavesdropping statute. The suit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois (ACLU-IL) to challenge a 1961 Illinois eavesdropping law on First Amendment free speech grounds. [...]
