A United Nations body responsible for protecting displaced people on Friday warned that many of the promising developments made in recent refugee history in Africa are at risk of being undone as over 50,000 people have fled Burundi in response to the start of the pre-election violence that began last month. The UN Refugee Agency [...]
UN human rights experts on Friday condemned the growing number of executions in Iran in recent years. According to the Special Rapporteurs on the situation of human rights in Iran and on extrajudicial executions, Iran has executed about 350 people in 2015 and executed approximately six people per day between April 9 and April 26. [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Western District of Washington on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit challenging a state law requiring universal background checks for all gun transfers, including noncommercial, online or gun show sales. In November voters passed Initiative 594 with 59 percent of the vote. The suit , brought fourth by [...]
JURIST Guest Columnists Alan Ellis and Mark H. Allenbaugh, discuss the US Sentencing Commission votes for fundamental fixes to the US Sentencing Guidelines … On April 9, 2015, the US Sentencing Commission voted to fundamentally fix some portions of the US Sentencing Guidelines that have been in need of addressing for quite some time. On [...]
A judge for the Alberta Court of Appeal on Thursday ruled that former Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr can be released on bail while he appeals his US war crimes conviction. According to Justice Myra Bielby, the ruling was based on her belief that there was “no clear evidence there would be irreparable harm if he [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday reported that Palestinian authorities in the West Bank have begun to crack down on freedom of expression, detaining students for their political affiliations or political criticism. In the past six months, according to HRW, at least four West Bank students have been detained , seemingly for connections with Hamas [...]
Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed House Bill 1409 into law Wednesday extending the mandatory waiting period for women seeking an abortion from 24 to 72 hours. Fallin said the new law, “will allow for more time to consider medical risks as well as explore alternatives to abortion, such as adoption.” The bill also requires that [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Jordan Lorence of Alliance Defending Freedom discusses the benefits of religious freedom to liberty protections … Listening carefully to objections to state religious freedom laws, two assumptions emerge that are demonstratively false. Those who assert them should weigh their implications carefully and reconsider their opposition to these laws. The first wrong assumption [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled Thursday that the Patriot Act does not authorize the National Security Agency (NSA) to collect millions of Americans’ phone records. The court found that section 215 of the act did not preclude judicial review and remanded the case for further consideration to determine if NSA’s [...]
The European Commission on Wednesday opened an investigation into potential antitrust violations in the e-commerce market with the scope of the investigation including a number of the world’s largest technology and search companies. The commission seeks to identify any possible anti-competitive behavior that is limiting trade in the 28-country EU. The commission derives its authority [...]
