Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) , on Friday urged the Parliament of Kyrgyzstan to reject proposed legislation institutionalizing discrimination against individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT). The law, similar to a law passed by Russia last year , would criminalize [...]
A former Bangladeshi Islamist party leader, who was imprisoned for war crimes last year, died on Thursday of a heart attack in a prison cell of a government hospital. Ghulam Azam was 91 when his life support was removed at the Bangabandhu Sehikh Mujib Medical University. Azam was sentenced last year to 90 years in [...]
Police in Ferguson, Missouri committed human rights abuses against peaceful protesters between August 14 and 22, Amnesty International USA (AI) reported Friday. The human rights concerns were witnessed first-hand by AI while in Ferguson during the protests. “What Amnesty International witnessed in Missouri on the ground this summer underscored that human rights abuses do not [...]
Amnesty International (AI) on Thursday condemned Netherlands’ attempts to return Somali refugees to areas controlled by Islamist terrorist group Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (al-Shabaab) . The report noted critically that Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the UK have also attempted forced returns to Somalia, but was particularly critical of Netherlands for its willingness to send failed asylum-seekers [...]
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced plans to strengthen Canada’s anti-terrorism laws in a statement to the Canadian Parliament on Thursday. Harper’s plans for increased security measures comes in response to an attack by a lone gunman on Canada’s parliament and the National War Memorial on Wednesday, during which a soldier was shot and killed. [...]
Judge Cuno Tarfusser of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday reviewed the detention status of four suspects motu proprio and ordered their interim release in a case pending before the ICC related to the detention of former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo , whose case is also pending before the ICC. The four [...]
A federal jury in the US District Court for the District of Columbia returned a guilty verdict on Wednesday for four ex-Blackwater security guards, now Academi , who shot and killed 14 Iraqis and wounded 17 in a 2007 shooting in Baghdad. Nicholas Slatten was found guilty of first-degree murder, and three others were found [...]
A UN rights expert said Wednesday that the increase in the use of armed drones in domestic law enforcement may violate human rights . In his report to the UN General Assembly, UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Christof Heyns raised a number of serious concerns with regards to the use of [...]
An Oklahoma District Court judge on Wednesday said that he will allow a law that bans abortion-inducing drugs to take effect as planned on November 1. The lawsuit was filed by the Reproductive Services in Tulsa and the Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice earlier this month, claiming that Oklahoma House Bill 2684 will lead to [...]
The governor of Idaho CL “Butch” Otter filed a petition Tuesday night asking for the entire US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to review an earlier Ninth Circuit ruling against the Idaho constitution’s definition of marriage. The petition is a major positional change for Otter, coming two weeks after he stated in a [...]
