The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Thursday that a transgender immigrant was protected from being deported to Mexico under the UN Convention Against Torture (CAT) . Edin Avendano-Hernandez petitioned the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) to withhold removal to Mexico based on repeated instances of physical and sexual abuse by Mexican [...]

Five judges on the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit issued an opinion stating that the circuit’s decision to uphold the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was “clearly and gravely wrong.” The federal government argues that if the religious non-profit groups file a document noting their objection to providing contraception, [...]

Syrian civilians are facing war crimes and crimes against humanity with “no end in sight,” a group of UN human rights experts said Thursday. The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic issued its latest report on the civil war in Syria Thursday. Paulo Sergio Pinheiro , chair of the UN investigative [...]

The Israeli Parliament on Thursday passed a new law that will ban journalists from expressing their opinions on the county’s public broadcasting network. The new public broadcast law passed by a vote of 25-18. The law states that journalists should “avoid one-sidedness, prejudice, expressing personal opinions, giving grades and affixing labels.” Many journalists and groups [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Turkish police of “disturbing abuse” Wednesday for their actions towards detainees in the renewed conflict with the Kurdish rebel forces . The abuses include cases in which men were severely beaten, kicked, forced to remain in kneeling positions for hours, and threatened with torture and execution. The three men who [...]

The Association of State Correctional Administrators (ASCA) , in partnership with the Arthur Liman Public Interest Program at Yale Law School released a report Wednesday estimating that between 80,000 to 100,000 prisoners were in what correctional officials call “restrictive housing” in 2014. The survey defined solitary confinement as holding an inmate separate from the general [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein announced Thursday that UN workers were informed on August 30 that a teenage girl in the Central African Republic (CAR) was allegedly sexually abused by a French soldier last year. This allegation comes just two months after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon announced the appointment [...]

Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina sent a letter to both the Guatemalan congress and reporters early Thursday announcing his resignation and his intention to “stand before justice.” The congress has called an emergency session to meet Thursday to accept the letter of resignation. Several hours before resigning, the public prosecutor requested Pérez Molina’s arrest on [...]

A Netherlands court ruled on Wednesday that a Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil joint venture must pay homeowners for property damage caused by gas drilling related earthquakes. The Dutch Safety Board has warned several times in the past few years that natural gas production in Groningen field area increases earthquake risk, and that companies [...]

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals on Wednesday published a ruling holding that a lesbian woman has no visitation or custody rights to a boy given birth by her partner before they were married. Writing for the court, Judge Robert A. Zarnoch said that Maryland law did not specifically address children born to unwed same-sex [...]