The Constitutional Court of Indonesia rejected an appeal by five convicted drug smugglers against the death penalty Tuesday, ruling that capital punishment did not violate the Indonesian constitution . Lawyers representing the five had argued that the death penalty violated the defendant's constitutional right to life. The drug smugglers, including three Australians and two Indonesian [...]
Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz temporarily suspended a government plan to cut electricity to the Palestinian Gaza Strip Monday, pending legal challenges from several human rights groups in the Israeli Supreme Court. The human rights groups allege that the Israeli government's plan to restrict energy supples in Gaza constituted collective punishment and had unsuccessfully sought [...]
China has arrested 774 people in a crackdown on the production of substandard products, officials said Monday. The Chinese General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) conducted 626 criminal investigations into the manufacture and sale of fake or poor quality food, medicine and agricultural products between August and October. China came under fire [...]
Eleven plaintiffs, including the R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF) have sued the US Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) to prevent a rule change that would allow Canadian cattle over 30 months old and beef products from such cattle to be imported into the country starting Nov. 19. The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Fred Cate of Indiana University School of Law Bloomington says that a series of dramatic moves over the past five years – most recently the passage of the Protect America Act – has weakened statutory and judicial oversight of domestic surveillance to the point that one wonders whether, by the time the [...]
UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism Martin Scheinin called on the US in a report released Monday to quickly prosecute or release terror suspects detained at Guantanamo Bay so that the US can close the detention center. Scheinin paid an official visit to the United States in May after receiving permission from US [...]
A judge in Chad has approved kidnapping charges against six French nationals after French charity Zoe's Arc tried to fly 103 children believed to be orphans from the embattled Darfur region of Sudan to France, Chadean officials said Tuesday. If found guilty the six accused could face up to 20 years in prison. Three French [...]
Farzana Hassan : "The Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC) has welcomed the Conservative Government's decision to introduce Bill C-6 to ban veiled voting. The organization considers this an essential and appropriate move to protect the integrity of Canada 's electoral process. All voters, including veiled Muslim women will now be required to identify themselves visually. The [...]
The Canadian government Monday rejected fresh allegations that members of the Taliban captured by Canadian troops in Afghanistan were tortured by Afghan investigators after being transferred from Canadian custody. According to Montreal's La Presse, three prisoners said they were tortured by Afghan authorities after receiving assurances from Canadian officials them that Afghanistan no longer tortured [...]
UN Special Rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak said Monday that torture was widespread and routine throughout Sri Lanka. Nowak visited Sri Lanka in early October and reported to the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly that torture has become pervasive in the country's counter-terrorism procedures. While Sri Lanka had attempted to reduce torture with [...]
