The United Arab Emirates (UAE) detained a prominent human rights lawyer on Tuesday after also arresting his son and brother-in-law, bringing to 25 the total number of Islamist dissidents detained since late March. Mohammed al-Roken, 50, who last year co-defended five Islamists stripped of citizenship by the UAE, was arrested some time around 2:00 AM [...]

A judge for Wisconsin’s Dane County Circuit Court ruled Tuesday that the state’s voter identification law is unconstitutional, issuing a permanent injunction against the law’s enforcement. Judge David Flanagan is the second Dane County judge to strike down the law, following a similar ruling by Judge Richard Neiss in March. Flanagan had issued a temporary [...]

A coalition of civil rights groups on Tuesday asked a federal judge to block a portion of Arizona’s controversial immigration law that requires police to check the immigration status of people they stop. The US Supreme Court struck down several portions of the law in June on preemption grounds but upheld section 2(B), finding that [...]

A Kuwaiti lawyer announced Tuesday that he has filed a lawsuit against Kuwait’s prime minister and other government officials in order to pressure authorities to facilitate the release of two Kuwaiti detainees at Guantanamo Bay . Lawyer Adel Abdulhadi is seeking the release of Faiz Mohammed Ahmed al Kandari and Fawzi Khalid Abdullah Fahad al [...]

UN Special Rapporteur on arbitrary executions Christof Heyns on Tuesday urged the US not to execute two individuals with “psychosocial disabilities” who are set to be put to death in Georgia and Texas. Warren Hill was set to be executed Wednesday in Georgia, but after the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles denied his [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday dismissed petitions by the American Petroleum Institute that challenged recently enacted Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations restricting the peak amount of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from tailpipes and smokestacks that can remain in the air for a one-hour period. The three-judge panel ruled [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the District of Nebraska on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by seven state attorneys general challenging new health care mandates in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that require contraception to be covered under all employer health care plans, including those of religious institutions. Nebraska Attorney General Jon [...]

The Canadian Federal Court ruled Tuesday that the Canadian government’s decision to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol was legal. Canadian Minister of the Environment Peter Kent announced that Canada would withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change in December. Canada was the first country to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. The court held that [...]

Russian investigators on Monday announced that they have formally charged ex-police officer Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov with the 2006 murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya . Pavlyuchenkov, who was a lieutenant colonel at the time of the murder, was arrested in August and is suspected of arranging Politkovskaya’s murder, tracking her movements and hiring three Chechen men who [...]

The European Commission (EC) stated on Wednesday that urgent action is necessary to ensure that Romania respects the rule of law and judicial independence. The EC stated that Romania has made progress in the past few years, but that recent events have called into question the country’s ability to maintain a democratic form of government. [...]