Ester : “Recently Amnesty International repeated its call to the British government to stop its “regime” of control orders. These orders, which allow the Home Secretary to restrict a person’s freedom of movement, were introduced by the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005. Control orders are supervised by the courts, but they allow admitting secret evidence [...]

A proposed amendment to China’s criminal law that would reduce the number of crimes punishable by death was presented Monday to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) . The current criminal code in China outlines 68 criminal offenses that carry the death penalty. If adopted, the proposed legislation would eliminate death sentences [...]

A military court in Iran has ordered the suspension of three top judiciary officials in connection with last year’s torture deaths of three detained protesters, the Mehr News Agency reported Monday. The three victims, Mohammad Kamrani, Amir Javadi-far and Mohsen Ruholamini, were tortured and beaten to death at the Kahrizak detention center after being arrested [...]

The Bangladeshi Supreme Court ruled Sunday that workplaces and schools cannot force individuals to wear religious clothing such as veils and skull caps. The court found that wearing religious clothing is an individual choice and cannot be made mandatory , and requiring individuals to wear religious clothing is a human rights violation in contravention of [...]

Iraqi Deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim disclosed Sunday that Ali Lutfi Jassar al-Rawi, convicted last year of the 2004 kidnapping and murder of British aid worker Margaret Hassan , escaped custody last September. An investigation confirmed earlier this month that al-Rawi fled almost one year ago from Abu Ghraib , where he was serving a [...]

US military judge Army Colonel Patrick Parrish rejected claims by Canadian Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr that his confession was a byproduct of torture, in a ruling released Friday. Khadr’s lawyers had argued that his statements were illegally obtained through threats of rape and death by interrogators. Parrish rejected the suppression motion, finding: There is [...]

The Obama administration on Friday urged Libyan authorities to return convicted Pan Am Flight 103 bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi to a Scottish prison to serve the remainder of his sentence. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton released a statement explaining the US position on al Megrahi’s situation: The United States continues to categorically [...]

The EU General Court has issued a temporary injunction exempting Inuit hunters from Canada and Greenland from an EU ban on seal hunting that went into effect on Friday. Regulation (EC) No 1007/2009 recognizes seals as “sentient beings that can experience pain, distress, fear and other forms of suffering,” and bans all imports containing seal [...]

The Dutch National Prosecution Office announced Friday that it will open an investigation into whether Dutch peacekeeping soldiers should face criminal charges for their actions during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia. The inquiry was commenced after relatives of victims began proceedings against three soldiers for failing to protect their family members by forcing the [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Mark Brown, holder of the Newton D. Baker/Baker and Hostetler Chair at Capital University School of Law, says that more states should follow Utah’s lead in allowing electronic signatures to be used when petitioning to include candidates on election ballots… The Utah Supreme Court ruled earlier this summer (Anderson v. Bell , [...]