The former attorney general for England and Wales Lord Peter Goldsmith called for an investigation into whether British intelligence agencies were complicit in the torture of terror suspects abroad. Goldsmith said that government arguments against their complicity in torture by foreign intelligence services had only created more confusion about the issue. He stopped short of [...]
The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) on Friday ordered Elections Canada (EC) to comply with the Canadian Human Rights Act by ensuring that polling facilities are accessible to voters with disabilities. The CHRT ruled that in failing to provide accessible facilities for voters with disabilities, the EC "engaged in a discriminatory practice within the meaning [...]
Piper Hendricks : "Last Friday, February 5, 2010, while preparing for what has been called the "snowpocalypse" here in Washington, DC, we at Human Rights USA learned that the Court in our civil case against Charles Taylor, Jr. ("Taylor Jr.") had awarded a total of $22.4 million in damages to our five clients for the [...]
The Chinese Embassy in Washington DC claims that prominent Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng , missing for more than a year, is working in the Urumqi region , according to human rights organization Dui Hua Foundation on Saturday. The statement characterizes the information as "sparse," and it contradicts Gao's family by declaring that the [...]
JURIST Guest Columnists Moeen Cheema of Australian National University College of Law and Shahzad Akbar, an advocate practicing at the Lahore High Court in Pakistan, say that since Pakistan President's Zardari's refusal to appoint judges to the Lahore High Court (LHC) seriously undermines the capacity of that key court to provide justice in human rights [...]
The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Saturday deferred the appointment of two judges by President Asif Ali Zardari in an emergency ruling which has once again pitched the country's judiciary against its executive. Current Lahore High Court Justices Khawaja Muhammad Sharif and Mian Saqib Nisar were to be appointed as a Judge of the Supreme [...]
Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo on Friday dissolved the country's parliament and electoral commission based on allegations of voter fraud in the long delayed presidential elections in the African nation. On disbanding the government, Gbagbo charged Prime Minister Guillaume Soro with creation of new government and deciding on a new election format. Gbagbo had accused [...]
The government of Myanmar released 82-year old democracy activist U Tin Oo from six years of house arrest on Friday, just days before UN special envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana is to visit the country . Oo, a decorated general, is the Vice-Chairman of the National League of Democracy (NLD) , the opposition party headed by [...]
The US Supreme Court Friday ordered the Obama administration and lawyers for Chinese Uighurs detained at Guantanamo Bay to file briefs explaining how Switzerland's decision to accept two Uighurs as refugees affects their pending habeas petition . The Court originally granted certiorari in Kiyemba v. Obama to determine whether it is within the power of [...]
French Immigration Minister Eric Besson on Friday presented a bill that would create "transit zones" allowing the French government to immediately detain undocumented immigrants wherever they are found. According to Besson, the draft law will allow the government to hold either a single individual or a group if they arrive outside a specified checkpoint. The [...]
