Sri Lanka’s new government must prioritize human rights , Amnesty International (AI) said Friday. AI issued its press release in the midst of a change in leadership in the Sri Lankan administration. AI is concerned that the outgoing Sri Lankan administration, led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa , left “pressing issues” involving human rights violations for [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Azadeh Shahshahani, of the ACLU of Georgia, discusses a recent controversy surrounding a mosque in Georgia … Muslim-Americans in Kennesaw, Georgia who had hoped to use space in a retail shopping center as a prayer center recently had to confront hateful and ignorant comments from some residents, accusing them of being “enemies” [...]
Tens of thousands of people who lost everything in the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti are still homeless as a result of government policy failures, forced evictions and failed short-term relief solutions, Amnesty International (AI) reported Thursday. According to the report, the influx of international aid after the earthquake failed to lead to long-term solutions, [...]
Federal appeals court judges heard arguments Wednesday on a restrictive Texas abortion law that critics say would close more than half the state’s remaining abortion clinics. A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is reviewing the law , which requires that abortion clinics must have hospital-like settings for surgeries. [...]
The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) on Thursday restarted genocide hearings against the former Khmer Rouge regime’s surviving leaders. Proceedings had been postponed since November, when defense lawyers refused to participate because they were still working to appeal an earlier verdict. Leaders of the 1970s regime Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, who [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Wednesday filed a petition asking the US Supreme Court to review a federal appeals court ruling upholding Wisconsin’s voter identification law. Wisconsin’s Act 23 , which requires residents to present photo ID to vote, was struck down by a federal district court, but reinstated by the US Court [...]
The war crimes division of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina on Thursday confirmed the indictment of Dragomir Vasic on charges of genocide. The charges stem from the executions of Srebrenica Muslims during the Bosnian Civil War . Vasic, who is currently a member of parliament in the Republika Srpska , was commander of police [...]
Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson of the US District Court for the Southern District of Indiana entered a permanent injunction Wednesday barring Indiana law IC 16-18-2 , which would redefine what qualifies as an abortion clinic and shut down Planned Parenthood’s Lafayette facility. The law was barred for imposing rules on facilities that provided only medical abortions [...]
A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Wednesday upheld a New York state rule barring unimmunized children from public schools. On the district court level, Judge William Kuntz II of the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York ruled in favor of the state in [...]
A White House spokesperson said Wednesday that US President Barack Obama would veto proposed legislation that would reinstate the 40-hour work week requirement for employer health care coverage. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) reduced the original 40-hour work week requirement to 30 hours in order to ensure more Americans would be covered [...]
