Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the government of Pakistan to abolish the country's death penalty in a letter sent Tuesday to Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani . In the letter, HRW expresses concern over the number of executions in the country, the high number of executable offenses in Pakistan's penal code, and the availability [...]
Russia will not recognize the new Kosovar constitution because it is illegal, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation announced Monday. The Assembly of Kosovo adopted the constitution in April, and the EU later certified it as guaranteeing the individual and community rights of all its citizens. The constitution went into effect Sunday [...]
The district court in The Hague Monday began hearing the first civil action against the Dutch State for the actions of its peacekeeping troops during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre . The plaintiffs – UN translator Hasan Nuhanovic , whose family was killed in the massacre, and the family members of murdered electrician Rizo Mustafic – [...]
The International Criminal Court (ICC) Monday announced it has imposed an indefinite stay on the war crimes trial of Congolese ex-militia leader Thomas Lubanga . The court said it may consider releasing Lubanga because prosecutorial misconduct could deny him a fair trial; the court accused the prosecution of using confidentiality agreements to withhold possible exonerating [...]
A judge in the US District Court for the District of Columbia Monday dismissed a lawsuit brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) seeking access to e-mail records from the White House Office of Administration (OA) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The court held that the OA "is not an [...]
A man accused of hacking US government computers in 2001 and 2002 appealed to the judicial panel of the UK House of Lords Monday, arguing that his extradition to the US would violate his human rights. British police arrested systems analyst Gary McKinnon in 2002, and US authorities indicted him later that year on charges [...]
Dozens of accused terror detainees held in US military prisons actually have no ties to terrorism, according to an investigative report published Sunday by McClatchy Newspapers . McClatchy reporters found that many of the 66 former terror detainees interviewed were ordinary civilians or petty criminals; only 34 had ties to militant groups or activities and [...]
The US Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear three cases , including Ashcroft v. Iqbal, et al. (07-1015) , in which the Court will consider whether high-ranking US officials are protected by qualified immunity from suit for alleged religious and ethnic discrimination by their subordinates. Javaid Iqbal, a Pakistani national detained during a terror [...]
The Supreme Court of Victoria Court of Appeal Monday upheld a December 2006 decision ordering a retrial of suspected terrorist Joseph Thomas , nicknamed "Jihad Jack" by the popular media. Thomas' original convictions for carrying a fake passport and receiving funds from terrorists were overturned when a lower court ruled that police had obtained statements [...]
A Singapore court Monday charged a US citizen and former Singapore lawyer with insulting a public servant after he published critical comments about a judge on his blog. California-based Gopalan Nair was arrested last week after accusing a judge presiding over a defamation case brought by former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew against the [...]
