The FBI released the 2015 Hate Crime Statistics on Monday, showing the number of hate crimes reported to police increased by about 6.7 percent last year, led largely by a 67 percent rise in crimes against Muslims. This 2015 release is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the FBI’s work to compile data about bias-motivated crimes, which [...]

US President Barack Obama on Monday acknowledged the difficulties he has encountered trying to shut down the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, blaming his failure on congressional restrictions. On his second day in office in 2009, Obama issued Executive Order 13492 , which ordered that prisoners be removed from Guantanamo and the facility be closed [...]

Reports of US war crimes committed during, and in the aftermath of, the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 provide a “reasonable basis” for further investigation, the International Criminal Court (ICC) determined in a report released Monday. The report says that members of the US military appear to have subjected at least 61 people to [...]

The International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) on Tuesday urged the UN and African Union to intervene and stop an impending genocide in Burundi. The plea for intervention is based on a report by the FIDH detailing the rise of violence in Burundi since April 2015 when protests started over President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to [...]

The UK Foreign Commonwealth Office (FCO) said in a report Monday that it can find no clear evidence that Saudi Arabia has violated international humanitarian law (IHL) in Yemen. Conceding that it has been “unable to form a complete understanding of the Coalition’s regard for IHL in its operations in Yemen as they do not [...]

A United Nations (UN) rights group released a statement earlier this month expressing concerns that the US government is ignoring treaty rights, as well as human rights, of Native Americans that are protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline. The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) released the statement after Grand Chief Edward John , an [...]

OnMonday, The Becket Fund announced it had filed suit challenging a new Health and Human Services (HHS) regulation on behalf of North Dakota and several Catholic organizations. The suit, filed in federal district court in North Dakota, alleges the new HHS regulation, which went into force July of this year, requires doctors to perform “controversial [...]

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Monday announced an agreement with the US to resettle refugees currently in detention centers on the South Pacific islands of Nauru and Manus. The agreement will prioritize the resettlement of women, children and families, and will be carried out under the auspices of the UN High Commission on Refugees [...]

The US Supreme Court on Monday denied certiorari in a case brought by Citizens for Objective Public Education (COPE) against science education policies adopted by the Kansas State Board of Education . COPE alleged that the teaching of scientific evolution and other natural explanations communicates a religious preference and would result in anti-religious instruction. In [...]

Delegates from the UN Security Council (UNSC) on Sunday called on officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to take greater responsibility to adopt a consensual and inclusive electoral calendar. A weekend visit by diplomats from UNSC countries aimed to break the deadlock over whether President Joseph Kabila should step down before an [...]