US President Barack Obama on Monday signed an executive order barring federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The order also explicitly bans discrimination against transgender employees of the federal government. The order does not include a religious-based exception despite pressure from some religious leaders following the US Supreme [...]

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed legislation Sunday that will allow adults and children suffering from seizures access to medical marijuana . The bill amends the Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Act to allow children, with parental consent, to access medical marijuana for the same range of conditions currently available to adults. The bill also expands [...]

A spokesperson for the Dutch Public Prosecutor said Monday that their office has opened a war crimes investigation into last week’s crash of Malaysia Airlines MH17 in Ukraine. Prosecutors are investigating allegations of murder, war crimes and intentionally downing an airliner, and a representative is reportedly in Ukraine as part of the investigation. Under the [...]

Bahrain’s Ministry of Justice on Sunday filed a lawsuit seeking to suspend all activities of the main Shi’ite opposition group for three months. The move comes after leaders of the Al-Wefaq party were charged recently with holding an illegal meeting with a US diplomat from the State Department . The lawsuit, however, does not mention [...]

An Egyptian court on Sunday reduced the sentence of the prominent activist Mahienour El-Masry from two years to six months, and fined her LE50,000 (USD $7,000), for violating Egypt’s protest law. El-Masry was found guilty of violating Egypt’s protest law after being arrested for protesting during the Khaled Said murder retrial in December. During the [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Saturday postponed an Arizona death row inmate’s execution until prison officials reveal details on the two-drug combination that will be used for the lethal injection. Joseph Wood’s attorneys argued that their client’s First Amendment rights were violated by the prison officials withholding detailed information on [...]

A jury for the First Judicial Circuit of Florida on Friday handed down a verdict against RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co. , awarding the plaintiff $16.8 billion in compensatory damages, and $23.6 billion in punitive damages. The case, Cynthia Robinson v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, was originally part of a larger class-action lawsuit for smoking-related injuries. [...]

An Ethiopian court on Friday charged nine journalists with terrorism and inciting violence under Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism law . The journalists, including six bloggers, were arrested in April and have been prevented from accessing their families or legal counsel since their arrests. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) , since the implementation of the [...]

Italian advocacy group Hands off Cain released a report on Friday revealing that the number of deaths by capital punishment increased despite a general global trend toward capital punishment abolition. The organization reports that there are currently 161 countries and territories that, to different extents, have renounced the death penalty, and 37 countries continue to [...]

There is evidence of serious human rights violations committed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) , associated armed groups, Iraqi security forces (ISF) and associated forces in the last month, including some that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and the [...]