A Venezuelan appeals court in Caracas on Friday upheld the more than 13-year sentence of opposition leader Leopoldo López. The sentencing of the Corte de Apelaciones del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (TSJ) can and will be appealed to the country’s highest court, and the legal team has resorted to appeal to international organizations. Amnesty International [...]

Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic said on Saturday that comments made by a top UN human rights official were unacceptable. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein previously stated that he had no sympathy for the coup plotters, but that Turkey should uphold the rights of detainees and stem its “thirst [...]

The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) , South Korea’s antitrust regulator, confirmed on Friday that the country is investigating whether Google violated the country’s antitrust laws. The KFTC’s statement comes as a surprise as a local news outlet reported that the KFTC had cleared Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, of all antitrust claims against the [...]

A spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reiterated previous calls to Australia Friday to end offshore detention on Nauru. The press release notes various reports of violence, sexual assault, degrading treatment, and self-harm, revealed through more than 1,000 incident reports. The OHCHR also discussed signs of severe mental [...]

Amnesty International said Thursday that a suspected chlorine gas attack in Aleppo could amount to a war crime . The BBC reported Thursday that the Syrian government is suspected of using a chlorine gas attack in Aleppo, killing several and injuring many more. It is believed that the chlorine was dropped in a barrel bomb [...]

The New Jersey Second Amendment Society filed a lawsuit on behalf of a New Jersey man, Mark Cheesman, against the state’s Attorney General in the US District Court for the District of New Jersey on Thursday alleging the state’s stun gun ban is unconstitutional. The complaint relies upon the Supreme Court’s ruling in Caetano v. [...]

Four South Carolina students and a non-profit filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of South Carolina Thursday challenging the state’s “Disturbing Schools Law” . The plaintiffs are challenging the law, which makes it illegal to “disturb in any way or in any place the students or teachers” or “act in [...]

The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) denied requests Thursday to remove marijuana’s classification as a dangerous drug. The DEA denied two separate requests by former state governors to re-classify marijuana as a Schedule II drug or lower, saying “HHS concluded that marijuana has high potential for abuse, has no accepted medical use in the United [...]

Several pastors in Illinois sued the state Thursday claiming its ban on the practice of gay conversion therapy on minors violates free speech and religious rights. Illinois is one of five state in the nation to ban such practices, a legal implementation supported by President Barack Obama . The Illinois law, The Youth Mental Health [...]

In a statement released on Thursday, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein expressed concern over Bulgaria’s criminalization of migrants leaving and entering the country. Zeid stated Bulgaria’s practice of arresting migrants for both entering and leaving Bulgaria irregularly “places many of them in an invidious Catch-22 situation” and calls into [...]