In an open letter released Thursday, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International , along with five other advocacy groups, urged Sierra Leonean President Ernest Bai Koroma to sign a bill that would increase women’s access to safe and legal abortion. The Safe Abortion Act of 2015, passed with broad support in parliament in December would [...]

UN Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel Robert Piper on Tuesday expressed concern over “the continued practice of administrative detention in Israeli jails and detention centers.” Piper specifically mentioned the case of Mohammed Al-Qiq, a detainee whose health is rapidly declining and reaching potentially irreversible damage. Al-Qiq has been on a hunger strike for approximately [...]

Twelve countries across the Pacific-Rim on Thursday

UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan E. Méndez on Thursday called on the Mauritanian authorities to protect suspects and detainees from abuse and torture while being held in the country. The call to implement already existing laws and safeguards comes after Méndez spent ten days on an official visit to the country. He was particularly [...]

French police have discriminated against Muslims residing in France under the state of emergency law imposed in November according to a report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday. The state of emergency expands police power for searches and arrests, and allows authorities to restrict movement of individuals and vehicles within the country’s borders. [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the decision of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia , holding Monday that a Somali torture claim lacked a “sufficient nexus” with the US to allow jurisdiction under the Alien Tort Statute . In 1987, during political turmoil, Farhan Warfaa was [...]

Chinese courts convicted 14 government officials and company executives on Wednesday due to their involvement in a 2014 factory explosion that killed 146 workers because of inappropriately stored chemicals. The sentences , for the crime of causing a major labor safety accident or dereliction of duty, range from three to seven-and-a-half years. The arrests come [...]

The German Cabinet approved new asylum laws on Wednesday in response to the hundreds of thousands of refugees that have entered the country since the beginning of 2015. The bill will speed up asylum procedures and related legal appeals and will bar entry into the country for some asylum seekers’ families for a period of [...]

The Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed the execution of Cary Michael Lambrix amid growing concern about the constitutionality of Florida’s death penalty scheme. The stay comes after the US Supreme Court determined in Hurst v. Florida that the death penalty was being improperly administered in the state and that the state’s capital sentencing statute [...]

The US House of Representatives failed Tuesday to garner enough votes to override the president’s veto of the Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act of 2015 , the most recent legislative effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and defund Planned Parenthood . Congress passed HR 3762 in January to “clear the way for [...]