A panel of the Ugandan Constitutional Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that a law criminalizing sedition violates the guarantees of free speech and freedom of the press under the Ugandan Constitution . The law made it a crime to say or publish statements that promoted hatred, contempt or disaffection for the Ugandan government, president or judiciary [...]
Amnesty International (AI) on Wednesday criticized methods used by the government of Yemen in counter-terror operations as violations of human rights. In a report, “Yemen: Cracking Down Under Pressure,” the rights group accused the government of perpetrating numerous human right abuses in attempting to quell the rebel movements of the Zaidi Shi’a in the north [...]
Equatorial Guinea on Tuesday defended the execution of four men convicted on Saturday of attempting to assassinate President Teodoro Obiang during a 2009 attack on the presidential palace. Jose Abeso Nsue, Manuel Ndong Anseme, Alipio Ndong Asumu and Jacinto Micha Obiang were executed immediately after being convicted by a military court in Malabo. Amnesty International [...]
The US Department of Justice announced Tuesday that it will appeal a preliminary injunction issued earlier this week blocking federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. The DOJ will seek to appeal the suspension and also to stay the suspension while the appeal is pending. Last year, President Barack Obama signed an executive order permitting [...]
Capital punishment advocates in Switzerland on Wednesday unexpectedly withdrew from their campaign to reinstate the death penalty only one day after the Federal Chancellery allowed them to begin collecting signatures in support of a referendum . The advocacy group did not give a reason for its sudden withdrawal from the campaign, though it continues to [...]
Lawyers for former Khmer Rouge official Kaing Guek Eav on Tuesday filed a notice of an appeal of his conviction by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) . Last month, the trial chamber of the ECCC convicted Kaing , also known as “Duch,” of crimes against humanity and of violating the 1949 [...]
A gay couple has filed suit in the US District Court for the District of Wyoming challenging the state’s law defining marriage as only existing between a man and a woman. The suit was filed earlier this month by David Shupe-Roderick and Ryan W. Dupree of Cheyenne after they were denied a marriage license from [...]
Austria’s conservative Freedom Party on Monday called for a special vote on whether to ban face veils and the construction of minarets, two of the most visible symbols of the Islamic faith. Specifically, the referendum would ask Viennese citizens to decide whether to ban the construction of mosques with minarets, whether to ban the wearing [...]
The Israeli Police on Monday recommended that former prime minister Ehud Olmert stand trial for his alleged involvement in the Holyland bribery scandal that occurred during his time as mayor of Jerusalem. A investigation was commenced in April to probe Olmert’s involvement in the alleged scandal in which top Jerusalem officials are believed to have [...]
The US District Court for the Southern District of Georgia on Tuesday denied the habeas corpus petition of Troy Anthony Davis , convicted and sentenced to death for murdering an off-duty Savannah, Georgia, police officer. After Davis exhausted his appeals under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act , the US Supreme Court took the [...]
