The Bangladeshi Supreme Court ruled Sunday that workplaces and schools cannot force individuals to wear religious clothing such as veils and skull caps. The court found that wearing religious clothing is an individual choice and cannot be made mandatory , and requiring individuals to wear religious clothing is a human rights violation in contravention of [...]
Iraqi Deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim disclosed Sunday that Ali Lutfi Jassar al-Rawi, convicted last year of the 2004 kidnapping and murder of British aid worker Margaret Hassan , escaped custody last September. An investigation confirmed earlier this month that al-Rawi fled almost one year ago from Abu Ghraib , where he was serving a [...]
US military judge Army Colonel Patrick Parrish rejected claims by Canadian Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr that his confession was a byproduct of torture, in a ruling released Friday. Khadr’s lawyers had argued that his statements were illegally obtained through threats of rape and death by interrogators. Parrish rejected the suppression motion, finding: There is [...]
The Obama administration on Friday urged Libyan authorities to return convicted Pan Am Flight 103 bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi to a Scottish prison to serve the remainder of his sentence. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton released a statement explaining the US position on al Megrahi’s situation: The United States continues to categorically [...]
The EU General Court has issued a temporary injunction exempting Inuit hunters from Canada and Greenland from an EU ban on seal hunting that went into effect on Friday. Regulation (EC) No 1007/2009 recognizes seals as “sentient beings that can experience pain, distress, fear and other forms of suffering,” and bans all imports containing seal [...]
The Dutch National Prosecution Office announced Friday that it will open an investigation into whether Dutch peacekeeping soldiers should face criminal charges for their actions during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia. The inquiry was commenced after relatives of victims began proceedings against three soldiers for failing to protect their family members by forcing the [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Mark Brown, holder of the Newton D. Baker/Baker and Hostetler Chair at Capital University School of Law, says that more states should follow Utah’s lead in allowing electronic signatures to be used when petitioning to include candidates on election ballots… The Utah Supreme Court ruled earlier this summer (Anderson v. Bell , [...]
An appeals court in Thailand ruled Friday that accused Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout can be extradited to the US to face charges including conspiracy to kill US nationals and conspiracy to provide material support to a proscribe terrorist group. The court’s decision overturned a decision issued by the Bangkok Criminal Court last August, refusing [...]
A Guatemalan judge ruled Wednesday that former president Alfonso Portillo and two of his former ministers will stand trial on charges of embezzlement. Portillo, president of Guatemala from 2000-2004, is accused of diverting approximately USD $15 million in funds from the Ministry of Defense. The ministers of finance and defense who served under Portillo face [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Alternatives-Cameroun on Thursday urged the government of Cameroon to decriminalize consensual sexual acts between adults of the same sex . Under Article 347 of the Cameroon Penal Code , same-sex acts are subject to a punishment of six months to five years in prison. The groups called on the Cameroon [...]
