UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein condemned the government of Bangladesh on Wednesday for the killing of suspected drug offenders by security forces in the country. The High Commissioner responded to reports that 130 individuals had been killed in three weeks and thousands arrested after the government proclaimed a zero-tolerance policy [...]
Judge Michael Baylson, of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruled Wednesday that Philadelphia has the right to maintain its status as a sanctuary city while still receiving federal funding. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the defendant, had said cities would cease to receive federal funding unless the cities adhere to the [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other immigration advocacy groups filed suit against the US Department of Commerce and the Bureau of the Census Wednesday, challenging the inclusion of a citizenship question in the 2020 Census. The complaint alleges that the inclusion of the question amounts to a “door-to-door government inquiry” into the citizenship [...]
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees and the UN Development Programme signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the government of Myanmar on Wednesday that will give the UN agencies access to the Rakhine state. UN officials state that the memorandum will lay the foundation for the safe return of the Rohingya refugees. [...]
San Juan Superior Court judge Lauracelis Roques Arroyo ordered the Puerto Rican government to release Puerto Rico’s death toll since Hurricane Maria last September. Roques Arroyo said that the records are a matter of public information and must be released within a week. The order came in response to a lawsuit initiated by CNN and [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) submitted an amicus brief to the Colombian Constitutional Court on Tuesday calling for changes to the Special Jurisdiction of Peace bill—a peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The Court is reviewing the bill, which was passed on November 30, 2017. HRW has identified three shortcomings in the [...]
UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights Phillip Alston on Monday accused the US of criminalizing being poor . The report accuses the US of criminalizing being homeless through laws that ban sleeping outside, panhandling and public urination. The report states that 1,800 homeless people in Skid Row in Los Angeles have access [...]
A Bahrain court on Tuesday upheld the conviction of prominent human rights activist Nabeel Rajab, who was sentenced to five years in February over Tweets critical of the Bahraini government. Rajab is the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights . He was convicted over Tweets about Bahraini prison torture and civilians casualties from [...]
A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit heard oral arguments on Monday concerning Texas’s attempted defunding of Planned Parenthood . Texas is appealing a lower court injunction that prevents them from denying Medicaid coverage to Planned Parenthood. The appellant’s argument focused on allegations that the Texas branch of Planned [...]
In a press briefing Tuesday, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ravina Shamdasani, called on the US to halt its recently mandated practice of detaining and separating those immigrating illegally, including those with children, known as the “zero tolerance policy” recently put in place along the US southern border. Attorney General Jeff [...]
