Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday sent a joint letter to Nepalese Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, urging an end to the violent crackdown by Nepalese government security forces against Tibetan protesters and accusing the Nepalese government of preemptively detaining Tibetans to prevent the assembly of protests. Last week, HRW reported that [...]
The US Justice Department filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court on Monday seeking review of a Ninth Circuit ruling affirming a district court opinion rejecting the Bush administration's attempt to exempt the US Navy from environmental laws so that the Navy could continue using sonar in its anti-submarine warfare [...]
Far-right Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders , who released a controversial 15-minute film titled "Fitna" through his website last week, agreed on Monday to edit out a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad after its creator threatened to sue Wilders for copyright infringement. The film, dismissed by the UN secretary-general as "offensively anti-Islamic" shows images of the [...]
Former Argentinean naval officer Ricardo Miguel Cavallo was extradited Monday from Spain to Argentina, where he will face trial for crimes committed during Argentina's 1976-83 "Dirty War" . Cavallo was a lieutenant at the Navy School of Mechanics (ESMA) in Buenos Aires, where an estimated 5,000 people were detained on suspicion of being involved in [...]
Aung Din : "All the points mentioned in the resolution are truly strong and necessary. However, this resolution can not be called "strong" as it does not have binding power and enforcement mechanism. There were more than a dozen resolutions adopted by the then UN Commission on Human Rights and now UNHRC with strong languages [...]
Asim Qureshi : "Two weeks after the 11th September 2001 attacks, Nihad Karsic and Almin Hardaus were kidnapped off the streets of Bosnia and flown in helicopters to a US base where they were held in a shipping container in conditions which would later perfectly resonate with those detained in Afghanistan and sent to Guantanamo [...]
Two Tajikistani men have admitted to killing Russian journalist Ilyas Shurpayev , Tajikistani Interior Ministry officials said Monday. Shurpayev, a correspondent for Russia's state-run Channel One , was found dead in his Moscow apartment earlier this month with stab wounds and a belt around his neck when firefighters responded to a fire, apparently set after [...]
A US Department of Justice spokesman said Monday that the department would continue to press its bribery case against Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) despite the US Supreme Court's refusal to review an appeals court ruling that held the FBI's conduct during an 18-hour raid on Jefferson's congressional offices was unconstitutional. The US Court of Appeals [...]
Negotiations on a new international treaty to combat global warming began Monday in Bangkok. The week-long negotiations, part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) , are intended to establish an agenda for the negotiation of a new agreement to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol . Pursuant to the Bali Roadmap negotiated [...]
The Greek Ministry of Justice has agreed to establish a working group to analyze the potential impact of recognizing same-sex civil marriages in Greece, according to Monday media reports. The move comes after the Greek National Commission for Human Rights proposed legislation to allow same-sex marriage in the country. RIA Novosti has more. Currently, Belgium, [...]
