Official probe prompted the attorney general of Cyprus Friday to file the first criminal suit over its cash-for-passports scheme, by which thousands of passports may have been wrongly issued to rich unqualified foreigners. A total of 37 charges have been filed against five individuals and four companies. Additional cases relating to the probe by the ad hoc [...]

Five organizations working for migrant rights Thursday asked Qatar to reveal the location of Malcolm Bidali, a security guard from Kenya who wrote about the issues faced by migrant workers in the country and was arrested by the police on May 4. Prior to his arrest, Bidali had discussions with trade unions and civil society organizations [...]

A special five-judge bench at the High Court of Kenya on Thursday declared the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI)-driven Constitution of Kenya Amendment Bill 2020 unconstitutional. The main case was filed by five activists, namely David Ndii, Jerotich Seii, James Ngondi, Wanjiku Gikonyo, and Ikal Angelei. The judgment deals with 17 issues that had been raised in eight [...]

On Thursday, the UK government imposed new sanctions on Libya’s al-Kaniyat militia and its leaders for violations of international law. The militia is reportedly responsible for 27 mass graves containing hundreds of residents reported missing in the Libyan town of Tarhuna. The group has allegedly committed atrocities such as torture, murder, arbitrary detention, and enforced [...]

The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights urged the Greek state to end its pushback of asylum seekers at the border. Commissioner Dunja Mijatovic expressed her concerns following the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment indicating reception of “consistent and credible allegations” of pushbacks which appeared to [...]

The US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control Wednesday removed Jesús “El Rey” Zambada, who had testified against Sinaloa drug cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, from its Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List. Sanctions had been placed on Zambada for his involvement in the drug cartel. A department official stated that [...]

An Australian think tank released a report on the declining birth rates among the Uyghur population in China’s western Xinjiang province, concluding that China’s birth-control policies imposed on the Uyghurs may constitute genocide. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) analyzed the publicly-available data on birthrates in China from 2011 to 2019, and found that birth rates [...]

The French National Assembly passed Bill 609 Wednesday, “relating to the management of the exit from the health crisis.” The bill provides that, beginning on June 9, France’s Prime Minister may “ake the access of people to certain places, establishments or events involving large gatherings of people for leisure activities or trade fairs or exhibitions subject [...]

A Myanmar journalist has been sentenced to jail for three years after reporting on the anti-junta protests currently engulfing the country. Min Nyo, a journalist for the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), was convicted under the recently revised Penal Code in military court on Wednesday. Section 505 makes it an offence to publish or circulate [...]

In JURIST’s latest explainer, we explore Title 42 § 265, which allows the U.S. President to prohibit the entry of people or property into the United States whenever the Surgeon General determines that there is a serious danger of the introduction of communicable disease. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued an order on March 20, [...]