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 [...]
Mohammed v. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Queen's Bench, November 19, 2009 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here. JURIST has more on Guantanamo detainees.
The Supreme Court of Israel banned privately-run prisons on Thursday, ruling 8-1 that they violate prisoners' fundamental rights and introduce an element of profit into the prison system. The decision followed a 2005 lawsuit brought by the Academic College of Law's Human Rights Department against Israel's Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Public Security, the [...]
