The Chicago City Council on Friday unanimously approved an ordinance placing new regulations on handgun ownership within the city. Under the new ordinance , citizens possessing handguns must keep them inside their homes. The gun owners are not permitted to take their guns into the yard, garage or porch of the home. Additional requirements were [...]
A federal judge on Thursday ruled that former Guantanamo Bay detainee Ahmed Ghailani is not suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and is therefore fit to stand trial. The issue of Ghailani’s psychological state arose after he requested to be exempt from prison strip searches because it triggers his PTSD, which he allegedly acquired while [...]
An Argentine court on Friday commenced the trial of former Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla , who is facing several human rights violations for his role in the nation’s “Dirty War” . Videla was tried and convicted in 1985 along with eight other junta leaders on abduction, torture and murder charges, but was pardoned in [...]
A South African court on Friday convicted former INTERPOL president and South African police chief Jackie Selebi on corruption charges but found him not guilty on charges of obstruction of justice. Selebi was charged with receiving $170,000 in bribes from convicted drug smuggler Glenn Agliotti , who was suspected of killing South African mining magnate [...]
Amnesty International (AI) on Friday urged the Chinese government to launch an independent investigation into the July 2009 Xinjiang riots , after receiving new testimony contradicting the current official version of events. AI claims that police officials committed several human rights violations during the riots, including arbitrary arrests, shootings to disperse peaceful protesters and the [...]
Kyrgyzstan’s new constitution came into effect on Thursday after election authorities released the final results of Sunday’s referendum on the charter . The new constitution will allow the interim government to establish a legitimate government through parliamentary elections in the fall. Final results from the referendum showed that the new constitution was adopted by 90.55 [...]
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on Thursday filed eight Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests seeking information relating to the US government’s knowledge of the May Israeli raid on several Turkish ships bound for the blockaded Gaza Strip . Several governmental departments received the requests, including the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of [...]
The US House of Representatives on Thursday approved a bill that would increase compensation for injured workers and victims’ families that have filed claims against BP as a result of the recent Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The bill marks the first piece of legislation passed by the House in response [...]
Ugandan police announced Friday that a former Rwandan pastor accused of committing genocide and crimes against humanity relating to the 1994 Rwandan genocide was taken into custody Wednesday. Jean-Bosco Uwinkindi , indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in 2001, has been charged with genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and extermination as a [...]
Joseph Nzirorera , former president of the Rwanda National Assembly and secretary general of the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (MRND), died Thursday following complications from a long illness. Nzirorera was arrested by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in July 1998 for crimes relating to the 1994 Rwandan genocide and has [...]
