Iraq's Interior Ministry announced Tuesday that 57 members of its Shiite-led police force have been charged with torturing hundreds of detainees at a prison in eastern Baghdad. This is the first time the Iraqi government has filed charges against members of the police amidst ongoing accusations of corruption and human rights violations. Besides the police [...]
Lawyers in Jordan held a one-hour strike Tuesday to protest the death sentences imposed over the weekend against Saddam Hussein and two co-defendants in the Dujail crimes against humanity case . The Jordan Bar Association led the brief work stoppage for its 10,000 members; about 250 lawyers staged a demonstration outside the Palace of Justice [...]
The Australian Senate voted Tuesday to lift restrictions on stem cell research and permit the therapeutic cloning of human embryos. By a 34-32 vote, lawmakers approved the Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Bill 2006 , which also includes stricter penalties of up to 15 years in [...]
Thai Prime Minister Chulanont Surayud Tuesday proposed a plan to the country's new military-led Council for National Security for lifting martial law in peaceful areas of the country. He also asked for a report on when martial law could be lifted in the rest of the nation. Surayud said last month the Thai government will [...]
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has failed to treat violence against women as criminal conduct, according to a report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday. The 101-page report entitled "A Question of Security: Violence Against Palestinian Women and Girls" says "little action has been taken to seriously address these abuses. Indeed, there is some [...]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has dropped charges previously filed against ABC's "NYPD Blue" and CBS's "The Early Show," holding Monday that the shows were not indecent based on language content. The FCC also renewed charges against "The 2003 Billboard Music Awards" and "The 2002 Billboard Music Awards." According to the FCC order , the [...]
Saddam Hussein was back in court Tuesday as the genocide trial against him resumed for the alleged killing of 100,000 Kurds in the late 1980s during the so-called "Anfal" campaign . Hussein entered the court calmly, two days after being sentenced to death JURIST report] in a separate case for crimes against humanity committed in [...]
Dhiren Barot , a British man who pleaded guilty to planning a series of bombs on US and British targets, was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday. Barot was accused of planning several attacks, including the "Gas Limo Project" to blow up three limousines filled with explosives in underground parking garages in Britain. Justice Butterfield [...]
The Iraqi government's DeBaathification Commission plans to submit a proposal to Iraq's parliament that would allow most members of Saddam Hussein's now-defunct Baath Party to be reinstated to public life, the commission's executive director said Tuesday. The commission was set up with the approval of the US-run Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003 and its early [...]
UN Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland called Tuesday for a freeze on the use of controversial cluster munitions at the outset of the Third Review Conference in Geneva on the 1983 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons , which already bans or limits the use of incendiary weapons, mines and booby-traps, blinding laser weapons [...]
