Banu Altunbasof, the Sudan head of international aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) , was ejected from the country's Darfur region Thursday, after authorities said that she blocked state investigations into alleged MSF transgressions. The Sudanese government has long alleged that aid agencies have falsely accused the government of human rights abuses in Darfur for [...]
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour Thursday sharply criticized Zimbabwean political groups for violence surrounding the country's ongoing presidential elections and said that mediation efforts should be based on the need for accountability and justice. Members of both the ruling ZANU PF party and occasionally the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) commit [...]
Controversial US interrogation policies outlined in two 2002 and 2003 memoranda were reviewed by top Department of Justice (DOJ) officials, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft , according to two former Bush administration officials testifying before the House Judiciary Committee Thursday. The documents advised the Department of Defense (DOD) that the military could use a [...]
A judge in the US District Court for the Northern District of California Wednesday granted a motion to enforce a previous settlement agreement between two social networking websites, Facebook and ConnectU . The ruling effectively ends the two companies' ongoing legal battle concerning ownership of source code forming the basis of Facebook. The two sides [...]
East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta Friday declined what he described as an offer to become the next UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, despite having told parliament last week that he had accepted the position. Ramos-Horta said he changed his mind because resigning from the presidency would force new elections to be held within 90 [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Benjamin Davis of the University of Toledo College of Law says that in the face of disconcertedly-vague and incomplete recollections by Cheney chief of staff David Addington and former DOJ lawyer John Yoo, other officials who witnessed the development of the Bush administration's torture policies should stand up for justice and tell [...]
Belarusian online news services and journalist organizations have denounced a proposed new law that would restrict online press freedom by requiring news services to register with the government. The House of Representatives of Belarus' National Assembly approved the "On Mass Media" law Tuesday after its second reading. Belarusian online news sources Wednesday posted black banners [...]
US President George W. Bush Thursday announced plans to remove North Korea from a State Department list of terror sponsors . The move comes after the North Korean government presented China with a detailed report outlining its nuclear energy and weapons programs, in accordance with international efforts to end its nuclear ambitions. Other sanctions against [...]
Officials from the UK Government Equalities Office (GEO) introduced a new equality bill Thursday designed to combat discrimination based on age or gender. Equalities Minister Harriet Harman told the House of Commons that 40 years of anti-discrimination laws have not sufficiently reduced inequality in the UK: This package will see us make further progress towards [...]
Amnesty International marked International Day in Support of Victims of Torture by protesting in front of the European Parliament in Brussels on Thursday. The protest criticized European Union states for failing to condemn alleged abuses in countries like the United States and Tunisia, warning that many governments were using the threat of terrorism as a [...]
