The European Court of Human Rights based in Strasbourg announced Thursday that it has received an application from French Muslims asking it to declare the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in French newspapers an infringement of the non-discrimination provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights . The complaint, originally filed in February [...]
US Defense Department officials said Thursday afternoon that reports originating from earlier statements by a military spokesman in Iraq that the US intended to close Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison within three months before handing the facility back to the Iraqi government were "premature". Officials told DOD's American Forces Press Service in a story reported on [...]
The Tennessee Senate on Thursday passed a bill to remove from Tennessee constitutional law any guarantees of a woman's right to abortion. The vote was 24-9. Under Tennessee law, both chambers of the General Assembly must approve the change in two separate votes over the next two years before voters have a chance to rule [...]
In an extension of an earlier lawsuit , the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed motions in federal court in New York Thursday asking the court to immediately stop the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program . Both groups said they were prompted by indications that GOP senators are working with [...]
In an open letter in the British medical journal Lancet , more than 250 doctors from seven countries have urged the US government to ensure that detainees at Guantanamo Bay are examined by independent physicians and that methods such as force-feeding through the use of restraint chairs are not continued. Amnesty International has also urged [...]
An official of Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council has confirmed that Iraqi authorities executed 13 insurgents by hanging Thursday in Baghdad, the first official executions of insurgents carried out in the country since the restoration of the death penalty in 2004. The insurgents were said to have been convicted in separate trials earlier this year. Three [...]
President Bush has signed legislation to renew the USA PATRIOT Act , making permanent several sunsetting provisions in the anti-terror law, extending two provisions until 2009, and incorporating a number of new rights protections. Bush approved two separate but related bills: the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 , the actual renewal that [...]
Recently released documents reveal that former Associate Deputy Attorney General David S. Kris expressed reservations about the Bush administration's legal rationale for its warrantless domestic surveillance program . In an e-mail to an aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made public Wednesday, Kris said that the Department of Justice's statutory arguments "had a slightly after-the-fact [...]
CNN is reporting that US Sen. John Warner (R-VA) has said that Dubai Ports World has decided to transfer operation of six major US ports to a US entity. DP World, a government-owned company from the United Arab Emirates, was set to take over operations after acquiring British shipping company P&O . The prospect of [...]
Human Rights Record of the US in 2004, China State Council, March 8, 2006. Read the full report as reprinted in the Chinese government's People's Daily. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
