Ethiopian government security forces have killed 140 protesters in the Oromia region despite December reports of only five deaths, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Thursday. The protesters began demonstrations in November against the government’s plan to expand the country’s capitol, Addis Ababa, onto farmland and property occupied by approximately 2 million Oromia people. HRW also [...]
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein on Friday encouraged the Yemen government to reconsider its decision to expel the country’s human rights representative. The government claimed that George Abu al-Zulof, the human rights representative, was biased and failed in assessing the country’s human rights situation. Zeid said: Our job is not [...]
US-based tech companies Facebook, Twitter, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo submitted evidence on Friday of possible conflicts that may arise from the UK government’s proposed Investigatory Powers Bill . Should the bill pass, tech companies would be required to perform bulk data collections of all user activity within a 12-month period in order to help prevent [...]
The New York Police Department (NYPD) came to a settlement agreement on Thursday in two civil rights lawsuits accusing the NYPD of wrongfully monitoring Muslims after the 9/11 attacks. In October the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit revived the civil rights lawsuit filed by a coalition of Muslim groups that accused the [...]
A federal court in Ohio on Tuesday sentenced Serbian refugee Slobodan Mutic to two years in prison for lying on immigration forms about his participation in ethnic cleansing and genocide in the former Yugoslavia. A spokesperson for the Cleveland District Attorney’s Office said that Mutic will be sent back to Croatia to stand trial for [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday urged the Chinese authorities to release 38 lawyers and activists associated with the Beijing Fengrui Law Firm who have been held in “designated residential surveillance” since July. Designated Residential Surveillance allows legal incommunicado solitary detention in secret locations for up to six months. Citing the fact that January 9 [...]
Venezuela’s National Assembly swore in three opposition deputies on Tuesday despite a Supreme Court ruling that barred the induction of the elected lawmakers. The ruling suspended four elected lawmakers for alleged election fraud in the December 6 elections. The elections resulted in the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) coalition winning 112 seats and the United Socialist [...]
Alabama chief justice Roy Moore on Wednesday instructed state judges not to issue same-sex marriage licenses . The Alabama Supreme Court had ruled in March that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage is legal, and Moore’s order states that ruling remains in effect despite the June Supreme Court ruling finding such bans unconstitutional: Until further [...]
Guatemalan prosecutors arrested 17 former military and government officials on Wednesday on charges of committing massacres and other human rights abuses during the Guatemalan civil war. Government security forces have been blamed for the vast majority of the 245,000 killings and disappearances that occurred during the conflict. The prosecutors brought charges against officials suspected of [...]
Polish President Andrzej Duda on Thursday signed a controversial media control bill into law. Under the new law, the treasury minister will replace the National Broadcasting Council in appointing and removing media executives in charge of public radio and television programming. The bill will also shorten the terms of the executives and create a new [...]
