Bahrain’s highest court on Monday upheld a life sentence for Shiite opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman for spying for neighboring country Qatar. According to Amnesty International, the case is based on conversations that Salman had in 2011 with the former Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, SSheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber [...]

The Israeli Cabinet approved a law Sunday to allow for the export of medical marijuana. The law, which passed the Knesset last month, provides for Israeli companies to export medical marijuana with an appropriate license. The licenses will be issued by the Minister of Health with an appropriate recommendation from the police and a committee [...]

After a third and final review of House Bill 8858, the Philippines House of Representatives passed a bill lowering the minimum age of social responsibility to 12 years old. The original version of the bill, which proposed lowering the age to nine, faced criticism and backlash for detaining children who commit crimes related to government [...]

The Tianjin Municipal No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court of China on Monday found human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang guilty of “subversion of state power” and sentenced him to four-and-a-half years in prison. In addition, Wang was sentenced to five years of deprivation of political rights, meaning that he will be under heightened scrutiny, and he [...]

The US, the EU and the UK each issued statements Saturday voicing concern about the suspension of Nigerian Chief Justice Onnoghen. In their statements the governments questioned the constitutionality of the Nigerian executive suspending the chief justice, noting that this is a separation of powers issue and that the executive branch did not have the [...]

Angola’s parliament approved a new penal code Wednesday that drops provisions widely interpreted to criminalize homosexuality. The new penal code is Angola’s first since it gained its independence from Portugal in 1975. The prior code contained many holdover provisions from the colonial era, including a ban of “vices against nature,” which was understood to criminalize [...]

A federal district judge in Arkansas on Wednesday upheld a state law prohibiting state entities from entering into contracts with companies for goods or services unless those companies certify in writing that they are not currently engaged in, nor will they engage in for the duration of their contract, a “boycott of Israel.” The Arkansas [...]

The Supreme Court of Kenya ruled on Thursday that schools can regulate their dress codes to ensure uniform compliance. This ruling overturns a 2016 court of appeals decision that affirmed Muslim girls could wear hijab and trousers at school “as a manifestation, practice and observance of their religion consistent with Article 32 of the Constitution [...]

A Ukrainian court on Thursday sentenced former president Viktor Yanukovych to 13 years in prison after finding him guilty of treason for a 2014 crackdown on pro-Western demonstrations. In 2014 Yanukovych spiked an association agreement with the EU in favor of retaining close ties with Russia. This sparked massive protests and police crackdown that killed [...]

Activists and victims of war crimes in Nepal have urged the government to not proceed with proposed amendments to a law that governs the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP) and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The twin probes are supposed to “investigate the facts about those involved in gross violations of [...]