Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Court has sentenced former vice president and reformer Mohammad Ali Abtahi to six years in jail for his role in the unrest that followed the disputed June 12 presidential elections , according to Iranian news agencies Saturday. Abtahi, who had been in custody since just after the election has been temporarily released [...]
Alexander Abdo : "Historically, the United States has championed the use of photographic evidence of human-rights abuses to advance the cause of justice. The reason is simple: Pictures have a unique ability to transform public debate. They convey in plain and unadulterated form what words cannot. It was the video of the Rodney King beating, [...]
Marking its own 20th anniversary, Israeli human rights group B'Tselem claimed Sunday that almost 9,000 people have been killed in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians since 1989. A majority of the deaths – 7,398 – were Palestinians. Of that number, 1,537 were thought to be minors. The report also said that 2009 has [...]
Federal prosecutors from the US Department of Justice (DOJ) indicated Friday that they will drop manslaughter charges against a Blackwater Worldwide security guard who had been involved in the September 2007 shooting incident in Baghdad that killed 17 Iraqis. According to the US Attorney for the District of Columbia, Channing Phillips , a motion was [...]
Groups representing key witnesses appearing before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) told Reuters Saturday that they may no longer participate in court trials following the acquittal of two suspects involved in the 1994 Rwandan genocide . The umbrella organization for the various survivor groups in Rwanda, IBUKA , threatened that if the ICTR [...]
The UN Human Rights Committee Friday passed a resolution criticizing Iran for human rights violations, especially in the aftermath of the controversial reelection earlier this year of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad . The committee flagged detentions, arrests and the disappearance of individuals for exercising their freedoms of assembly and expression as areas of particular concern . [...]
Canada's Federal Court Friday ordered a review of a denial of refugee status for a lesbian US soldier who deserted the US Army in 2007 and fled to Canada. The Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) originally rejected Bethany Smith's application in February, finding that she had failed to seek protection within the US and that [...]
A federal judge on Friday ordered the release of Algerian Guantanamo Bay detainee Farhi Saeed Bin Mohammed. Judge Gladys Kessler directed the government to "take all necessary and approrpriate steps to facilitate release forthwith." The order resulted from a civil action brought against the US government for unlawfully detaining Farhi Saeed since 2002. Kessler's opinion [...]
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Friday appointed British lawyer Richard Harvey to represent Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic if he continues to boycott his trial when proceedings resume in March. Harvey is currently joint head of the British defense firm Garden Court Chambers and has extensive experience in high profile [...]
The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has begun lobbying for the UN General Assembly to pass an international treaty protecting religious beliefs and symbols from defamation, according to an AP report Friday. The efforts of the OIC are being led by Pakistan and Algeria with full support of the organization's 54 remaining members. The [...]
