Environmental and Alaska Native groups on Tuesday requested the blocking of an auction of oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and “a court order barring permits sought for seismic operations.” The plaintiff groups include the National Audubon Society, the Gwich’in Steering Committee and the Native Village of Venetie Tribal Government, among [...]
Pakistan approved a new anti-rape law Tuesday to allow for speedy trials and chemical castration of convicted serial offenders. The law will also create specialized rape courts designed to deal exclusively with rape and sexual assault cases. President Arif Alvi approved the Anti-Rape Ordinance 2020 and said that it will “help expedite cases of sexual abuse [...]
The Abolitionist Law Center published a report Tuesday highlighting racial disparities in Pittsburgh policing. The report shows that in 2019, Black people accounted for 43.6 percent of traffic stops and 71.4 percent of all frisks, though Black people only account for 23.2 percent of the city’s population. The report also shows that Black people also [...]
An Iranian court sentenced British-Iranian anthropologist Kameel Ahmady to nine years in jail on Sunday for “subversive” research work. Iran has arrested dozens of dual nationals in the past few years. Many rights activists and organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, have been critical of and reported on many of the arrests. Ahmady is an [...]
The Hungarian National Assembly, the country’s parliament, passed a bill amending the Hungarian Fundamental Law on Tuesday, which stipulates that a mother is a woman and a father is a man. The bill, which is “intended to strengthen the protection of Hungarian families” and protect children, protects individuals’ rights to self-identify “according to their sex [...]
Despite the recent spate of federal executions, a report released Wednesday by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) reveals record-low state executions and new death sentences in 2020. Seventeen people were executed this year, of whom 10 were executed by the federal government. This is the first time in American history that federal executions exceeded state [...]
The Democratic Republic of Congo has deposited its instrument of ratification of the Protocol to the African Charter of Human and People’s Rights, which established the African Court on Human and People’s Rights. The instrument was deposited at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Friday. It ratifies the establishment of the African Court [...]
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) fined Twitter Tuesday due to Twitter’s failure to timely report a breach of users’ private tweets between September 2017 and January 2019. Approximately 88,000 accounts were identified as having their tweets publicly available, despite the accounts being marked private. The €450,000 fine was calculated in accordance with EU precedent and is [...]
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked enforcement of COVID-19 restrictions for religious gatherings in New Jersey and Colorado until district courts can hear the cases. In both cases, petitioners challenge restrictions imposing stricter limitations on religious gatherings as violations of the First Amendment. The petitioners argue that the restrictions on religious institutions are harsher [...]
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted Monday to issue an order requiring nine major social media and video streaming companies to report on their use of consumer data. The order, issued pursuant to section 6(b) of the FTC Act, requests information pertaining to five subjects: 1) the collection of consumer data, 2) the use [...]
