UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein expressed his concerns on Friday regarding rising conflicts Burundi that have given rise to gang rapes, torture, ethnic repression, mass graves, and secret detentions and disappearances. Zeid reports that 432 people have been killed in Burundi since last April. He has called for the investigation [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of Louisiana filed a class action lawsuit on Thursday against the New Orleans Public Defenders Office and the Louisiana Public Defender Board due to the lack of available public defenders for individuals with no access to an attorney. The ACLU claims that as a result of [...]
A judge for the Superior Court of California in the County of San Francisco ruled Thursday that requiring a Catholic hospital to perform a tubal ligation sterilization would violate its religious freedom. The plaintiff, Rebecca Chamorro, requested to have the procedure performed at the hospital after the birth of her third child as a preventative [...]
The trial of former Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra began in the Supreme Court of Thailand on Friday, as she appeared in court to face corruption charges involving mismanagement of a rice-subsidy program. The charges against Shinawatra include dereliction of duty and failure to stop the corruption in connection with the rice-subsidy program, which is [...]
Brazil’s Federal Police have accused seven people and three companies of environmental crimes in its probe into the major Fundão dam collapse that occurred on November 5. The collapse, which has been termed the worst environmental disaster in the nation’s history, released a flood of sludge burying rural villages, killing 19 people, and polluting more [...]
A court in Lisbon, Portugal, ruled on Friday that a former CIA operative shall be extradited to Italy to serve a seven-year sentence for her involvement in the 2003 kidnapping and rendition of Egyptian terror suspect Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr. Operative Sabrina De Sousa was one of 26 former agents convicted in absentia for the [...]
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday that the use of starvation as a weapon in Syria is a war crime . According to Ban, UN teams have witnessed horrifying scenes of “the elderly and children, men and women, who were little more than skin and bones.” Ban said, ” All sides—including the Syrian government which [...]
Germany’s Federal Court of Justice ruled Thursday that a Facebook feature is unlawful. Confirming two lower court decisions, the court ruled that Facebook’s “friend finder” feature constitutes advertising harassment. The lawsuit was filed in 2010 when the Federation of German Consumer Organisations challenged whether Facebook breached German consumer protection law by sending e-mails to consumers [...]
Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit on Thursday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California against anti-abortion activists. The organization claims criminal misconduct by the activists who produced undercover videos discussing the handling and sale of fetal tissue at several Planned Parenthood clinics. The group, Center for Medical Progress , released several [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio on Tuesday certified class action status in a lawsuit alleging the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) specifically targeted conservative tea party groups. Judge Susan Dlott filed a sealed order to protect privacy interests but said the seal would be lifted within three weeks. [...]
