UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navy Pillay on Thursday expressed deep concern over the harsh sentences and detention of peaceful human rights advocates in Saudi Arabia in recent months. In particular, Pillay expressed concern over the sentence imposed upon Saudi human rights activist and lawyer, Waleed Abu al-Khair , who is the founder and [...]
Amnesty International (AI) on Thursday released a report identifying various government, militia and rebel leaders of the Central African Republican (CAR) that the organization believes to be responsible for serious violent offenses that have forced nearly a million people to abandon their homes over the past year. The report, entitled “Central African Republic: Time for [...]
The EU’s highest court, the Court of Justice , on Thursday ruled that Germany cannot require spouses of Turkish nationals living in Germany to show basic knowledge of the German language as a requirement when applying for family reunification visas. The case was brought by Naime Dogan, a Turkish woman whose husband had lived in [...]
Ground combat engagements have surpassed improvised explosive devices (IEDs) as the most common cause of conflict-related civilian deaths and injuries in Afghanistan, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) reported Wednesday. The report states that in the first six months of 2014, 1,901 civilian casualties, including 474 deaths, were attributed to ground engagements, accounting for [...]
The Camara de Diputados , the lower house of Mexico’s Congress, voted on Wednesday to approve strict reforms limiting dominant telecommunications and television companies. After 20 hours of debate, lawmakers passed the measure, which would force companies controlling over 50 percent of the market in affected sectors to sell off assets and parts of their [...]
A judge for Colorado’s Adams County District Court on Wednesday struck down the state’s same-sex marriage ban as unconstitutional but immediately stayed his ruling. Judge C Scott Crabtree ruled that Amendment 43 of Colorado’s state constitution, which was passed by voters in 2006 and defines marriage as being between one man and one woman, “bears [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union, the American Immigration Council and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project , in conjunction with Public Counsel and K&L Gates LLP filed a lawsuit Wednesday in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington on behalf of eight undocumented immigrant children facing deportation proceedings from the US without court-appointed [...]
The Abolitionist Law Center (ALC) filed a lawsuit Tuesday in the US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania against several officials in the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PADOC) , alleging that their sustained use of solitary confinement on State Correctional Institution Cresson (SCI-Cresson) inmate Brandon Palakovic led him to commit suicide. Palakovic’s family [...]
The Alberta Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday in favor of former Guantanamo Bay inmate Omar Khadr , ordering that he be transferred from a federal penitentiary to a provincial correctional facility. Khadr, a Canadian citizen now age 27, was captured by US forces after being found fighting in Afghanistan in 2002 at the age of [...]
The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague issued a ruling Tuesday awarding Bangladesh more than 9,700 square miles in the Bay of Bengal, ending a maritime dispute with India that has spanned more than three decades. Bangladesh initiated the arbitral proceedings against India, pursuant to article 287 of the 1982 UN Convention on the [...]
