Search Results for: counterterrorism

Human Rights Watch (HRW) Monday reported that authorities in Jordan use vague laws to criminalise key civil freedoms like the freedoms of speech, association and assembly in an effort to quash political dissent. HRW investigated a total of 30 cases and found evidence that authorities are use abusive legal frameworks to charge citizens who peacefully [...]

In 2002, when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in Turkey, defeating Kemalist hegemony, there was a glimmer of hope in the West for the overwhelmingly Muslim country. However, the experience of Turkey over the past 20 years is one descending into an authoritarian regime with clampdowns [...]

Nicholas Ochs, founder of the Proud Boys Hawaii chapter, Friday pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding under 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) for his involvement in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. Ochs and fellow defendent Nicholas DeCarlo of Fort Worth, Texas, pleaded guilty to only one of seven charges in their [...]

During the Barack Obama presidency, the Justice Department prepared a 16-page unsigned, undated “White Paper” that outlined the administration’s legal reasoning justifying unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-targeted killings of terrorism suspects if an informed high-level official decided that the target was a high-ranking al-Qaida figure or affiliate who posed an imminent threat of violent attack against [...]

The past decades have seen a growing interest in, and utilisation of, outer space. Ease of access to space has increased alongside the rise of more affordable and small-scale technologies, and as a consequence space has become a congested and competitive environment. This has resulted in an increase in the number of nations with space [...]

Dilkhayot Kasimov, an Uzbekistani citizen residing in Brooklyn, NY, was sentenced to 15 years in prison Friday after being convicted in 2019 of both conspiring to and attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.  In 2015, Kasimov helped pay for Akhror Saidakhmetov to go to Syria, knowing that Saidakhmetov planned to [...]

Amnesty International on Monday called on the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to immediately release a group of dissidents who have been behind bars beyond the end of their prison sentences. The “UAE-94” case concerns a mass trial conducted by UAE authorities against dissidents and members of the al-Islah political movement in 2012–2013, which Amnesty called [...]

A three-judge Irish Special Criminal Court panel Monday found Lisa Smith, a former Irish soldier, guilty of being a member of ISIS. Smith traveled to Syria after Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the former head of the Islamic State Caliphate, asked international Muslims to come to Syria. Smith plead not guilty to ISIS membership, claiming she only traveled [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet Saturday raised concerns that China’s counter-terrorism measures in the province of Xinjiang may violate human rights and publicly called on the country to review these measures, which some have said target the country’s Uyghur minority. Bachelet’s statement follows her visit to Xinjiang amid new accusations of state [...]

Russia state-owned media RIA Novosti Saturday released a report alleging the United Kingdom deployed sabotage experts to western Ukraine, triggering an investigation by Russia’s top state investigative body. According to the report, the UK deployed 20 members of the Special Air Service (SAS), a special forces unit of the British Army which specializes in counterterrorism [...]