The Turkish Parliament on Friday approved a controversial security bill giving police more powers to search, arrest and use firearms. The bill passed with a vote of 199 to 32. Last month, the government withdrew a more expansive version of this bill after a debate on the proposed law led to a brawl between lawmakers [...]
More than 1,000 civilians have been killed so far in 2015 at the hands of the Islamist armed group Boko Haram, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Thursday. According to HRW, “Boko Haram fighters have deliberately attacked villages and committed mass killings and abductions as their attacks have spread from Nigeria into Cameroon, Chad, and Niger [...]
The California Senate Committee on Health on Wednesday approved legislation that would allow physicians to provide lethal doses of drugs to terminally ill patients to accelerate their deaths. The approval of SB 128 comes after two failed attempts to pass similar legislation. The measure must now be delivered to the Senate Standing Committee on Judiciary [...]
Kansas and Arizona on Wednesday filed notice of an appeal to the US Supreme Court asking that federal elections officials force residents of their states to prove US citizenship before registering to vote. In November the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled that the two states cannot demand help from federal officials [...]
JURIST Guest Columnists B. Shaw Drake and Mai El-Sadany, Georgetown University Law Center, Class of 2015, discuss the military’s violations of the due process of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay since 9/11…On March 18th President Obama said if he could relive his first day in office he would have closed Guantanamo Bay. As disastrous as the [...]
Armed groups in Libya are deliberately attacking human rights defenders, according to a UN report released Wednesday. Attacks have increased since fighting escalated in May 2014 and have been documented in a joint report by the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) . Attacks [...]
The Georgia General Assembly approved a bill on Wednesday legalizing marijuana for limited medical purposes. The proposed legislation is expected to be signed into law shortly by Governor Nathan Deal . The bill, also known as Haleigh’s Hope Act, would specifically allow for the use of a marijuana-based oil upon a doctor’s recommendation to treat [...]
The Kansas legislature on Wednesday approved SB 95 , a proposed ban on an abortion procedure typically used in second trimester abortions, becoming the first state in the country to do so. The procedure, dilation and evacuation, is used in about 8 percent of all abortions conducted in Kansas. The measure was drafted by the [...]
Palestinian militants committed war crimes during the 2014 conflict in Gaza by killing both Israeli and Palestinian civilians using indiscriminate rockets, Amnesty International (AI) reported Thursday. The report provides evidence that in July and August 2014, several rockets were fired from Gaza City towards Israel and landed in refugee camps. During the 50-day conflict, according [...]
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Wednesday urged all sides of conflict in Yemen to obey the rules of war, expressing concern over reports of civilian casualties following air strikes in the capital Sana’a and other parts of the country. The ICRC reminded all parties involved in the current violence that they [...]
