UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay expressed concern Wednesday over the widespread lack of transparency in governmental digital surveillance practices. The High Commissioner criticized a lack of accountability in both targeted and broad scope surveillance and condemned the practice of states coercing private telecommunications companies into providing them complete access to their customers’ [...]
The European Parliament approved a resolution to allow Lithuania to adopt the euro as their official currency in a plenary session Wednesday. The resolution, which will make Lithuania the nineteenth nation to join the Eurozone on January 1, 2015, was passed by a vote of 545-116. “This is good news for Lithuania, Baltic states and [...]
An Egyptian court on Wednesday sentenced nine men to prison for participating in mob sexual assaults in Tahrir Square during celebrations for the inauguration of Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi . The ruling comes a month after el-Sisi called for action to combat the rash of sexual assaults that has plagued the country since the 2011 [...]
The District Court of The Hague ruled Wednesday that the Netherlands is liable for the deaths of 300 of the men and boys killed in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre . The lawsuit was brought against the Dutch government in April by Mothers of Srebrenica, a group representing mothers and widows of men killed during the [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Central District of California on Wednesday struck down California’s death penalty, finding that it violates the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution. US District Judge Cormac Carney ruled on a petition by death row inmate Ernest Dewayne Jones, who was sentenced to death in 1995. Carney [...]
A nurse at the Guantanamo detention center has refused to participate in the force feeding of hunger striking inmates, UK human rights group Reprieve reported Tuesday. Word of the unidentified nurse’s refusal came via a phone call from detainee Abu Wael Dhiab to his lawyer at Reprieve and was confirmed to the Miami Herald by [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled Tuesday that the University of Texas at Austin (UT) may continue considering race as part of its admission criteria. The US Supreme Court had remanded the case , Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin , to the appeals court last year after finding that [...]
A Pakistan court on Tuesday sentenced to death a man convicted of insulting the Prophet Mohammed in violation of the nation’s blasphemy laws. Zulfiqar Ali was arrested in 2008 for writing blasphemous statements against Islam on walls. Ali’s lawyer argued that his client was mentally insane, emphasizing that Ali had been brought to the proceedings [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled Monday that Indiana must allow secular humanists to officiate at weddings, despite a state law that bars their participation. The court declared that the law unlawfully discriminates against nonreligious humanists who wish to have their marriage officiated by someone who shares their beliefs. Under the [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Monday reversed a lower court ruling prohibiting the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles from issuing specialty license plates featuring the Confederate battle flag. The Texas Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) , an organization dedicated to preserving the legacy of Confederate soldiers, appealed [...]
