The European Parliament approved a resolution on Wednesday calling the massacre of Armenians during World War I a “genocide,” while urging Armenia and Turkey to reconcile their diplomatic relations. The resolution comes days after Pope Francis instigated outrage by using the same term in Turkey. Members of the European Parliament commended the statement of the [...]
A French court on Thursday permitted four lesbian women to adopt their wives’ children born in foreign countries through artificial insemination. France has legalized same-sex marriage and adoption, but only heterosexual couples are authorized to have medically assisted fertilization. In April 2014 a lower Versailles court ruled that a birth mother had committed fraud by [...]
The Colombian government on Tuesday modified proposed legislation that would have allowed an expansion of the military courts’ jurisdiction and power. President Juan Manuel Santos introduced Senate Bill 85 of 2013 to strengthen the military justice system after Colombia’s “false positive” scandal, where army officers tried to present civilians as guerrillas killed in combat to [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday ruled that the Maricopa County Sherrif’s Office and, specifically, Sheriff Joseph Arpaio, engaged in practices of racial profiling in conducting traffic stops. The court found that the Sheriff’s office was improperly named as a defendant, and that the Sheriff, in his official capacity, is [...]
The Supreme Court of Paksitan suspended all death sentences on Thursday rendered by the country’s new military tribunal after the Supreme Court Bar Association challenged the constitutional amendment that created the tribunals. This move directly affects six prisoners who faced imminent executions . The 17-judge panel held that the military tribunals will not be permitted [...]
Alabama and 12 other states filed an amicus brief with the US Supreme Court on Wednesday in support of the three-drug combination being used in Oklahoma for executions. Lethal injection executions in many states have been put on hold until the Supreme Court considers Glossip v. Gross , a case determining whether Oklahoma’s three-drug method [...]
Reforms in Bahrain have failed to end serious human rights violations, Amnesty International (AI) reported Wednesday. The 79-page report claims that activists are still being jailed and detainees have been mistreated and tortured. The government implemented the reforms four years ago after anti-government protests began to shake the nation. Although the political system was overhauled [...]
Missouri executed its third inmate of 2015 Tuesday after the US Supreme Court denied his final appeal, which claimed that mental illness made him unfit for execution. Missouri Governor Jay Nixon also denied Andrew Cole’s clemency petition, which had raised concerns that the black inmate was convicted by an all white jury. Mike O’Connell, spokesperson [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday urged the EU to put into place a search and rescue operation in the Mediterranean following reports of 400 lives lost at sea. HRW acting deputy Europe and Central Asia director Judith Sutherland stated that if reports from a recent confirmed shipwreck, from which 11 bodies were recovered, are [...]
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Monday ordered the provisional release pursuant to an interlocutory appeal for Goran Hadžic , the former president of the Republic of Serbian Krajina during the Croatian War of Independence . Hadzic is accused of coordinating, supporting and instigating efforts to achieve the “permanent removal of [...]
