Defense lawyers for the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing Abd al-Rahim Nashiri requested on Thursday that Nashiri’s trial at Guantanamo be televised. Richard Kammen, an attorney for Nashiri, declared that televising the trial would increase transparency of the tribunals at Guantanamo and enable the public to see an event of worldwide interest. However, [...]

Beijing’s Chaoyang District Court on Friday rejected the appeal brought by dissident artist Ai Weiwei challenging the government’s imposition of 15 million yuan (USD $2.4 million) tax evasion penalty. The fine was leveled against Fake Cultural Development Ltd., the company that helps Ai, 55, produce and market his works, which was accused and charged with [...]

US lawmakers on Tuesday expressed concern over the use of drone strikes. At a hearing in the US House Committee on Homeland Security lawmakers called on Congress and the Department of Homeland Security to address the issue of domestic drones and their potential security and safety implications. The government already owns and operates drones within [...]

Former Liberian president Charles Taylor on Thursday appealed his conviction and 50-year sentence for war crimes committed during the civil war in Sierra Leone . Taylor’s appeal states that the the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) made “systematic errors” in evaluating evidence and relied on hearsay as the basis for its fact-finding. The [...]

US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday temporarily stayed a Maryland Court of Appeals ruling that police could not collect DNA from individuals arrested for violent crimes and burglaries. The appeals court struck down the DNA collection law in April, finding a violation of the arrestee’s Fourth Amendment right to privacy. Roberts’ one-sentence [...]

The Bundestag , the lower house of the German parliament, is expected to vote on a bill that would protect religious circumcision in Germany. The session came a week after the German government announced its plan to act swiftly to lift criminal sanctions imposed on circumcision. Spokesperson for Chancellor Angela Merkel , Steffen Seibert, said [...]

The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) released its annual mid-year report summarizing some of the trends observed in 2012 in the ongoing US reproductive rights controversy and highlighting some of what the CRR considers the most damaging proposals that became law this year. The 2012 Mid-Year Legislative Wrap-Up includes details on the most significant abortion [...]

Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court ruled Thursday that it does not have jurisdiction over two cases related to the decree issued by the newly elected President Mohammed Morsi to reconvene parliament and the constitutional declaration by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) that gave the military broad authority including legislative power. Earlier this month, [...]

The Brennan Center for Justice released a report on Tuesday describing the burden on Americans who must obtain government-issued photo ID to comply with restrictive state voter ID laws. The Challenge of Obtaining Voter Identification is the first comprehensive assessment of the difficulties that eligible voters face in obtaining free photo ID in order to [...]

A Tunisian military court on Thursday sentenced the country’s former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in absentia to life in prison for his involvement in the killing of 43 protesters during last year’s Tunisian revolution which resulted in the death of more than 200 protesters. The court found Ben Ali guilty of complicity to [...]