The Iowa House of Representatives on Wednesday voted 54 – 37 in favor of a bill that would effectively ban abortions after 18 weeks of pregnancy, making it the most restrictive abortion law in the country. The Iowa House passed a late-term abortion ban in April , but the Senate decided not to vote on [...]

A French Muslim couple living in the UK filed a challenge Thursday in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) over a French ban on full face coverings, while a Spanish court upheld a city ban on veils in municipal buildings for identification and security purposes. A French husband and wife, who have chosen to [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah (ACLU) on Wednesday asked a federal judge to permanently block a Utah law that restricts Internet speech. Utah Code §§ 76-10-1206 and 76-10-1233 regulate Internet material, including artwork, photography and graphic novels that might be “harmful to minors.” In its memorandum supporting the motion for summary judgment , [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), in conjunction with the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) and other rights groups, filed a motion for preliminary injunction on Wednesday to block a Georgia immigration law from going into effect. The motion comes one week after the groups filed a class action lawsuit in the US District Court [...]

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled unaimously Tuesday that a blogger does not have the same privilege to protect her sources as other journalists in traditional media. The court found that a New Jersey “shield law” allowing reporters to protect the confidentiality of their sources could not be invoked by a blogger who posted comments [...]

A federal judge on Tuesday permitted two environmental groups to sue a Texas refinery owned by ExxonMobil Corp. for failing to enforce federal environmental standards. The Sierra Club and Environment Texas filed the lawsuit in December in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas against ExxonMobil’s Baytown, Texas, refinery and the adjacent [...]

The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances called Wednesday for China to address its practice of “enforced disappearances” and reveal the location of 355 detained Tibetan monks . In April, Chinese authorities took the monks from the Kirti monastery in buses to an unknown location. In the process, they are accused of “violently” [...]

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a statement Wednesday that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has continued to commit crimes against humanity in Darfur . According to Ocampo’s statement, al-Bashir continues to commit genocide, halt dissemination of information about displaced victims, and threaten the international community with retaliation. Ocampo called [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit heard oral arguments Wednesday over the constitutionality of the new health care reform law and its individual mandate requiring citizens to purchase health insurance. The Department of Justice (DOJ) appealed the decision of the US District Court for the Northern District of Florida that the individual [...]

The Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) on Wednesday indicted five men for contempt over allegations of witness tampering. Two indictees include former leaders of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), Ibrahim Bazzy Kamara and Santigie Borbor Kanu, who were both convicted by the SCSL in June 2007, and sentenced to at least 45 years [...]