The city of Oakland, California, on Saturday agreed to pay $32.7 million to victims of the 2016 Ghost Ship warehouse fire. On December 2, 2016, a party was being held on the second floor of a warehouse in Oakland. The warehouse housed an artist collective known as Ghost Ship, and served as a refuge for [...]
The Turkish parliament approved a controversial new law Saturday that would affect the structure of bar associations. However, the new law is already facing criticism by lawyers, and thousands have protested in Istanbul, Ankara and other cities. The bar associations are a necessary system in the Turkish legal profession. All lawyers in Turkey are obligated [...]
A Turkish court on Friday convicted four human rights activists on terrorism charges. Among those convicted was Taner Kilic, a former chair of Amnesty International, an organization that fights for human rights. The prosecution argued that the four activists were actually members or assistants of the Fethullah Gülen terrorist organization. However, concerns have arisen about [...]
Former White House national security adviser John Bolton on Sunday criticized President Donald Trump’s tweet that he had not been briefed on intelligence that Russia was bribing Taliban fighters to attack US troops in Afghanistan. During an interview with CNN, Bolton said that Trump’s tweet was defensive and avoided accountability for the situation. “The fact [...]
The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear several cases that would have addressed the issue of qualified immunity. Qualified immunity is a controversial doctrine that offers protections for law enforcement and other government officials, “only allowing suits where officials violated a ‘clearly established’ statutory or constitutional right.” Qualified immunity has specifically come under [...]
US President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday meant to address police brutality in the US. Since the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police, protests have spread across the country. As a part of the movement, the public has demanded reform of the country’s police forces and, in some cases, [...]
Sudan’s new government officially criminalized female genital mutilation (FGM) on Wednesday. The change is the result of an amendment to Sudan’s Criminal Law Article 141. The act is defined as removing or mutilating “the female genitalia by cutting, mutilating or modifying any natural part of it leading to the full or partial loss of its [...]
US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito ordered the Pennsylvania government to respond to arguments that Governor Tom Wolf’s stay-at-home order is unconstitutional. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court gave Pennsylvania until May 4 to respond to a petition that accuses the commonwealth of violating the constitutional rights of its citizens. The petition was brought by Friends [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on Wednesday allowed Arkansas to ban most surgical abortions during the COVID-19 pandemic. On April 3—in response to COVID-19—the Arkansas Department of Health (ADH) began to require that all non-medically necessary surgeries be postponed. On April 9 inspectors from the ADH discovered that Little Rock Family [...]
India’s new citizenship law and policies are causing discrimination against Muslims, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report Thursday. The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) allows a fast-track to citizenship in India for undocumented immigrants who entered India before December 31, 2014. The CAA grants citizenship on the basis of religion, and allows persons “belonging [...]
