A court in Bahrain sentenced six individuals to a year in prison on Wednesday for insulting King Hamad via Twitter . Since the nation’s pro-democracy protests in Manama that began in February 2011, activists have used the social media site to report perceived violations. The court found the tweets to be an overuse of the [...]

A Guatemalan court on Monday ordered the government to apologize to the Ixil Maya, an indigenous people, for acts of genocide that were committed against them when former dictator Efrain Rios Montt was in power. Montt was found guilty on Friday of the genocide, torture and rape of 1,771 Ixil Mayans during his 1982-83 rule [...]

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) sued the South Carolina Department of Social Services (SCDSS) , social workers and doctors on Tuesday on behalf of a couple whose adopted child underwent sex assignment surgery while in the state’s custody. The child, M.C., was born with “ambiguous genitals,” possessing both testicular and ovarian tissue. When M.C. [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist LaJuana Davis of the Cumberland School of Law evaluates the implications of legislative efforts in Alabama and other states to restrict access to abortions…

California Governor Jerry Brown and various state prison officials on Monday filed a notice of appeal to the US Supreme Court from an April order requiring the governor to reduce California’s prison population. In their April order, a panel of federal judges refused to vacate or modify their 2010 order for reduction of the California [...]

The Vermont House of Representatives on Monday approved a bill that would allow a consulting physician to prescribe a lethal dose of medication to a terminally ill individual who meets certain criteria. For the first three years after its passage, the legislation will model Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act by including safeguards which require, among [...]

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton on Tuesday signed a bill into law making the state the twelfth to legalize same-sex marriage . The bill was given final approval in the Senate Monday after being approved by the House of Representatives last week. At a signing ceremony on the steps of the Capitol, Dayton hailed the legislation [...]

The Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe on Tuesday ordered Google to remove defamatory autocomplete results if notified. The plaintiffs, an unidentified company selling nutritional supplements and its founder, claimed when their names were entered on Google’s German-language website, autocomplete suggested links to Scientology and fraud which resulted in injury to the plaintiffs’ reputations. The [...]

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled Tuesday that Swiss law does not provide sufficient guidelines on the extent of the right to die, in violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights . Article 8 protects an individual’s right to respect for private life, which was interpreted by the court [...]

The Minnesota Senate voted 37-30 Monday in favor of a bill legalizing same-sex marriage . The bill was approved by the House of Representatives last week and will now go to Governor Mark Dayton to be signed into law. Dayton has been a supporter of the legislation and has pledged to sign it during a [...]