The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday temporarily halted the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples. On the same day, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit challenging the state’s same-sex marriage ban. The stay is set to last until November 6, when oral arguments will be heard on the issue. The court [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Sunday urged the UN and donating countries to press Israel to lift restrictions on the movement of people and goods in and out of the Gaza Strip. HRW claims that the restrictions are “disproportionate to security considerations” and “unnecessarily harm people’s access to food, water, education, and other fundamental rights [...]
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday ordered Russian troops to withdraw from the Ukrainian border in preparation for an upcoming meeting between the presidents of the two countries. The Russian government website released the statement in regards to the order stating, “Putin ordered to launch the return of the troops to their permanent bases. In [...]
The Pakistan Government on Sunday wrote a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pleading for assistance in border protection after at least 14 people were shot and killed near Kashmir. Pakistan has accused India of deliberately violating the established ceasefire by allowing cross border shootings. Pakistan prime minister on national security and foreign affairs Sartaj [...]
An Egyptian court on Saturday jailed eight men, including two Muslim Brotherhood leaders, for 15 years over the torture of a lawyer during 2011 uprisings against former president Hosni Mubarak . The defendants were convicted of torturing, electrocuting and sexually assaulting a lawyer after locking him up for three days near Cairo’s Tahrir Square when [...]
Federal courts on Friday cleared the way for same-sex marriage in North Carolina and Idaho. A judge for the US District Court for the Western District of North Carolina struck down that state’s ban on same-sex marriage on constitutional grounds. US District Judge Max Cogburn stated that the issue before the court was neither political [...]
Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab was charged on Thursday with insulting the ministries of defense and interior over his tweets that alleged Bahrain’s security institutions were the first incubators for extremist ideology. Without naming Rajab, the public prosecution statement ordered his referral in remand before the Third Lower Criminal Court on charges of tort [...]
Alabama death row inmate Christopher Lee Price on Wednesday filed a federal lawsuit against the Alabama Department of Corrections claiming that the new lethal injection mix planned for use in his execution is unconstitutional. According to the complaint, filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Alabama , Alabama plans to change [...]
Members of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances said Friday that Mexico’s investigation of the forty-three missing Guerrero students and the deaths of six other students in the state is a test of the country’s willingness and capacity to respond to allegations of human rights violations. The students disappeared after local police [...]
Saudi Arabia is persecuting rights activists and silencing government critics, according to a report issued Friday by Amnesty International (AI) . According to AI, members of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA) have been persecuted since the Arab Spring in 2011. The Saudi Arabian government has reportedly targeted 11 of the founding members [...]
