The Oregon Senate Committee on Health Care is scheduled to hear testimony on a bill that would limit the option for parents to receive non-medical exemptions from school vaccinations. Sponsored by state Senator Elizabeth Steiner Hayward (D-Portland), this bill seeks to amend the current process for claiming non-medical exemptions to school immunizations laid out in [...]
The Supreme Court of Canada on Monday began hearing arguments in a series of five cases challenging human smuggling laws within Canada. Section 117 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act , the law at issue in all five cases, criminalizes the act of knowingly assisting an undocumented individual in entering Canada. In May, the [...]
The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Monday delayed the release of a report investigating alleged war crimes committed during Sri Lanka’s civil war . The government had requested that the release of the report be postponed on the grounds that President Maithripala Sirisena was about to launch his own inquiry into these allegations. High [...]
South Sudan government forces are recruiting child soldiers , Human Rights Watch (HRW) . A UN report has documented the use of more than 561 child soldiers since the beginning of the conflict. Daniel Bekele, the Africa director at HRW, stated that government forces are taking children from right outside the UN compound. In May [...]
Danish police on Sunday arrested two individuals suspected to have aided a gunman in the Copenhagen attacks that left two dead over the weekend. On Saturday a 22-year-old gunman, whose name has not yet been released, opened fire at a cultural center that was hosting cartoonist Lars Vilks, who had been targeted by Muslim extremists [...]
Chinese officials said Monday that they will prosecute former vice-chairman of the country’s top parliamentary advisory body Su Rong for graft, including taking bribes and selling ranks and titles. Su Rong was one of the 23 vice-chairmen of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference until authorities began an investigation last year. The ruling Communist Party’s [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Sunday that militias allied with Iraqi forces are committing abuses that are “possibly war crimes” . HRW reports that in some areas residents have been forced from their homes, kidnapped and extra-judicially executed. In the provinces of Muqdadiyya area of Diyala, more than 3,000 people have been forced from their [...]
The Utah House of Representatives on Friday narrowly approved House Bill 11 , which would allow for executions by firing squad. The goal of the legislation is to provide an alternative execution method to lethal injection, as supplies of the traditional drugs have become scarce. HB 11, which was sponsored by Utah representative Paul Ray [...]
A coalition of 71 human rights groups released a statement on Monday urging the Syrian government to release three prominent human rights defenders on the third anniversary of their imprisonment. The statement identifies the three men, Mazen Darwish, Hani Al-Zitani and Hussein Gharir, as Syrian journalists who were arrested in a raid of the Syrian [...]
The Supreme Court of Canada on Friday struck down part of the nation’s anti-money laundering and terrorist financing law pertaining to lawyers, on the grounds that the legislation infringed on lawyers’ duty to their clients. A unanimous court found that provisions of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act , which forced [...]
