An Appeals Court in Turkey on Tuesday upheld the convictions of 14 employees of Cumhuriyet, a Turkish news outlet that has been critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The defendants—including journalists, a cartoonist, executives and accountants—were sentenced in April to prison terms between four and eight years “on charges of acting on behalf of a terrorist group [...]
Human Rights Watch called Monday for a greater response against cow protection vigilante groups in India. Between May 2015 and December 2018, 44 people were killed and 280 injured in attacks by militant Hindu groups against those linked to beef consumption in the country. Most of the victims are Muslim minorities, from indigenous communities or [...]
Facebook “intentionally and knowingly” violated UK data privacy and competition laws, according to a report Monday released Monday by the UK Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee. The UK lawmakers conducted an 18-month investigation focused on online companies like Facebook’s role in spreading disinformation. The report specifically singles out Facebook’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg’s contempt [...]
A group of human rights organizations filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday challenging its policy requiring Central American migrants to return to Mexico to wait for their asylum requests to be processed. The Migrant Protection Protocols sought to reduce the amount of families seeking asylum in the US. The American Civil [...]
The US House of Representatives passed HJRes 37 on Wednesday calling for the withdrawal of US Armed Forces from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen. The resolution states that only Congress has the authority to declare war. Congress has not made any declarations of war against the Houthis in the Republic of Yemen, who are the [...]
Thirteen same-sex couples filed lawsuits across four districts in Japan Thursday alleging that the country’s denial of same-sex marriage is a violation of the Constitution. During a news conference and march to the Tokyo District court, one of the plaintiffs, Kenji Aiba, explained that they are seeking ¥1 million in compensation and damages for emotional distress [...]
A group of experts from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights have condemned the harsh crackdown by France on public protest and demonstrations. According to the report, the government of France has increasingly restricted human rights—particularly those of free demonstration—in response to the rise of the gilets jaunes (“yellow jackets”) protest [...]
India’s Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, passed a bill to protect investors from Ponzi schemes on Wednesday. It will become law once it is passed by the upper house of parliament (Rajya Sabha) and receives presidential assent. The Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Bill aims to establish a statutory mechanism to ban Ponzi [...]
Maria Ressa, Philippine journalist and known critic of the country’s president was arrested Wednesday on charges of cyber libel for her work as CEO and executive editor for Philippines-based news site Rappler, drawing criticism from rights groups. Rappler has been critical in its coverage of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, whose administration has alarmed human rights [...]
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled Wednesday that it has jurisdiction over a case regarding Iran’s attempt to recover assets that had been frozen by the US, allowing the suit to proceed. In preliminary objections, the US had contested the ICJ’s jurisdiction on three counts: (1) that Executive Order 13599, which called for the [...]
