Bill Van Esveld : "The Egyptian government has extended for two more years Law 162 of 1958 that authorizes prolonged detention without charge and severe limitations on freedom of assembly and expression. Egypt's state of emergency, first implemented in 1967, has been continuously in force throughout President Hosni Mubarak's 27-year rule. The emergency law has [...]

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Competing Palestinian governments controlled by Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza have been committing human rights violations in their bids for dominance over the Palestinian territories, the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens' Rights (PICCR) said Tuesday. PICCR reported that it had received over 2,000 reports of human rights abuses in 2007, including [...]

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The 601-member Nepalese Constituent Assembly voted Wednesday to abolish the country's monarchy and establish a republic. The decision gives King Gyanendera fifteen days to abandon the royal palace in the capital Kathmandu, and declares him to be an ordinary citizen. Wednesday's vote finalizes a development that had been expected since December 2007, when Nepal's interim [...]

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Amnesty International (AI) released its annual report on the state of human rights around the world on Tuesday. The major themes of this year's report include violence against women, US detention of terrorism suspects, persecution of human rights activists, and the continued use of the death penalty in criminal prosecutions. The organization's Secretary General, Irene [...]

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Russian authorities are wrongly indicting thousands of citizens every year, Russian Prosecutor-General Yury Chaika said Tuesday at a Moscow meeting held to discuss compensation for those falsely charged. Chaika said that in 2007, 5,265 people were eventually cleared after having charges wrongly laid against them. Critics have long slammed the Russian justice system as riddled [...]

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Zimbabwe will not return former Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam to Ethiopia to face a death sentence, a Zimbabwean Information Ministry official said Tuesday. The Ethiopian Supreme Court sentenced Mengistu to death in absentia on Monday after Ethiopian prosecutors appealed his January 2007 life sentence on charges of genocide, homicide, illegal imprisonment, and illegal property [...]

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