Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission on Friday released a report contending that military and law enforcement officials routinely conduct illegal searches in their efforts to combat the country’s narcotics trade. The report describes a “systematic pattern” of coercive, threatening and physically abusive behavior, often accompanied by property damage, theft and evidence tampering. Documented complaints of [...]
Chinese authorities in Beijing on Friday began the trial against Wang Lihong, one of the dozens of human rights activists the government detained earlier this year as part of a crackdown on dissidents in the country. Wang is charged with one count of creating a disturbance for allegedly utilizing the Internet to attempt organizing anti-government [...]
A federal appeals court on Friday upheld the conviction of ex-Merrill Lynch executive James Brown stemming from his role in the Enron fraud scandal . Brown was indicted on five counts in 2003 stemming from a 1999 transaction in which Merrill took a $28 million equity interest in a facility of barge-mounted power generators on [...]
A federal judge for the US District Court for the District of Wyoming on Friday struck down a set of administrative rules advanced by the Obama administration last year that placed stricter limits on environmental impact requirements of oil and gas drilling operations. Judge Nancy Freudenthal ruled that administrative memos restricting categorical exemptions to environmental [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled 2-1 Friday that the individual mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is unconstitutional. Although the decision in the US District Court for the Northern District of Florida rejected the entirety of the law, the Eleventh Circuit judges upheld the law without [...]
The Arizona Court of Appeals on Thursday ended a two-year injunction on portions of a law that restricted abortion practices. The original injunction by the Maricopa County Superior Court held the following provisions as “undue burdens” on a woman’s right to an abortion: prohibitions on anyone but a licensed physician performing an abortion; a requirement [...]
The District Court of Rotterdam sentenced five Somali men on Friday to prison terms ranging from four to seven years for acts of maritime piracy . All five of the sentenced pirates were discovered in a navy supply ship off the coast of Somalia earlier this year, and while all five were convicted of piracy, [...]
Relatives of former Tunisian president Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali were sentenced on Friday, while one notable ally, his security chief Ali al-Seriati, was acquitted on charges of forgery. All were sentenced on varying charges related to aiding Ben Ali and his wife Leila’s escape from the nation in January. Seriati still awaits hearings on [...]
The president of the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) made a public plea on Thursday for the four men wanted for killing former prime minister Rafik Hariri to turn themselves in. Judge Antonio Cassese guaranteed a fair trial and adequate representation and pressed Lebanese citizens to allow the STL to hold the assassins accountable. [...]
The Kiev Appeals Court on Friday refused the appeal by former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko of her detention for contempt charges . The judge stated Tymoshenko had no legal grounds to contest her recent arrest. Tymoshenko plans on appealing to both the Ukraine Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) . Defense [...]
