An Egyptian court on Monday acquitted 26 men arrested during a police raid of a bathhouse in search of gay men. The raid and ensuing trial were highly publicized, leading many of the charged men to hide their faces throughout the process. The charges against the men included prostitution, debauchery and indecent acts. Currently, there [...]
A court in Singapore on Monday ordered blogger Roy Ngerng to pay Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong S$29,000 (USD $21,700) in legal fees and related expenses incurred after Lee won a defamation case against Ngerng in November of last year. In May of last year Ngerng penned a blog post allegedly accusing the prime minister [...]
Spain’s Interior Ministry on Monday arrested 16 individuals for alleged connections with Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) , an armed Basque separatist group. Twelve of the individuals arrested were lawyers, while the other four were treasurers for a group that represents ETA prisoners. All 16 will be charged with membership of a terrorist organization, while 12 [...]
Authorities in Urumqi, capital of the far-west Chinese province of Xinjiang, issued a new law Wednesday banning the wearing of burqas in public. Xinjiang, home to China’s minority ethnically Turkic Muslim Uighurs, has been the site of significant ethnic unrest including recent attacks by Uighur separatists labeled “religious extremists” by Chinese officials. This burqa ban [...]
The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) reported Friday that hundreds of civilians were targeted and massacred based on their ethnicity and political beliefs in two separate events last year that may amount to war crimes. In the capitals of Unity State and Jongelei, 353 civilians were murdered and another 250 wounded in attacks last [...]
Cuba has released 53 political prisoners as part of last month’s historic agreement between US and Cuba, US officials said Monday. The release of the prisoners, primarily opposition figures, was a condition of the policy changes that seek to assuage relations between the two countries after decades of tension. Many of those released were imprisoned [...]
A case involving the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) is set to begin in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York this week regarding attacks on Israel more than a decade ago and whether these organizations owe the victims as much as $1 billion in damages. Jury [...]
The US Supreme Court on Monday will hear a new religious rights case about whether an Arizona town violated a church’s rights by requiring it to remove signs regarding its worship services. In the appeal by the Good News Community Church of Gilber, AZ, the church argues that by forcing them to remove the signage [...]
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon , briefing the General Assembly on Thursday, presented his report which proposes a new development agenda and called 2015 a “time for global action.” The Secretary General said this year could see major advances in development, peace and human rights. The new development agenda will focus on completing the [...]
A White House official on Saturday announced that President Barack Obama plans to address cybersecurity as it relates to American consumers and businesses next week. According to the official, the plan will include legislative initiatives and executive actions. The announcement comes in the wake of a cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment for which North Korea [...]
