Alleged al Qaeda propagandist Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al Bahlul went on trial Monday before a military commission at the Guantanamo Bay prison. Al Bahlul is only the second detainee to go on trial in Guantanamo since it opened in 2002. He attended the initial proceeding Monday, but sat in silence. His appointed military attorney, [...]

The Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) found the government of Niger liable Monday for failing to aid a young woman who was held in slavery for ten years. The West African court ruled under a 2003 law that made the ownership of slaves a criminal offense, and [...]

A new regulation by the Israeli Ministry of the Interior would prevent illegal immigrants who had left the country returning again, the newspaper Ha'aretz reported Sunday. The regulation covering persons from a wide range of countries would subject persons entering illegally, leaving again and then attempting to re-enter again to a two year "cooling off [...]

The US Air Force is conducting an ethics investigation of Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann over allegations that he abused his power and inappropriately influenced the prosecution of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay , military officials said Saturday. Hartmann was the legal advisor to the US military commissions at Guantanamo and supervisor of the [...]

Farzana Hassan : "The Muslim Canadian Congress, in welcoming the decision of the Constitutional Court of Turkey to disallow the lifting of the ban on hijabs, viewed it as a significant triumph of secularism over repressive Islamist practices. The court recently ruled that amendments to the constitution by the ruling AKP in an effort to [...]

The UN-backed Global Migration Group (GMG) released a report Friday asserting that nations have a duty to protect the human rights of migrants even while exercising their sovereign power because it increases their ability to contribute to the development of their destination countries. The report is intended to give countries guidance in designing a human [...]

UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment Manfred Nowak said Friday that despite numerous international conventions banning torture and other abusive treatment, its use is still widespread around the world. Reporting to the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) of the UN General Assembly, Nowak praised the 1948 [...]

Judge R. Barclay Surrick of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on Friday dismissed a lawsuit challenging the citizenship status and eligibility of Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) to become US president. The lawsuit , filed by Pennsylvania attorney Philip Berg, had alleged that Obama did not meet the constitutional requirement of [...]

Moazzam Begg : "Few people outside of western China or the neighboring central Asian states of the former Soviet Union have heard of the Uighurs. I hadn't heard of them either, until I was held in their company after the launch of "Operation Enduring Freedom" in Kandahar and Bagram detention facilities, Afghanistan, in early 2001, [...]

A three-judge panel of the US Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday granted a provisional stay of the execution of Troy Anthony Davis , which had been scheduled for Monday, October 27. In granting the stay, the Eleventh Circuit directed the parties to address through briefs whether Davis can meet the stringent requirements of [...]