Syrian Minister of Education Ghiath Barakat issued a directive Sunday forbidding students and teachers at universities from wearing the niqab . The ban applies to both public and private universities, but only affects full-face veils and not hijab headscarves that are more commonly worn in the region. Students and parents reportedly requested the ban to [...]

The lack of a concrete legal mandate for the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) , constant infighting within the intelligence community and an unprecedented expansion of resources and intelligence-gathering capacities following the 9/11 attacks have created an unfocused and chaotic environment where intelligence efforts are duplicated and effectiveness is impossible to assess, according to a [...]

The National Security Services in Sudan (NISS) are brutally suppressing internal dissent and targeting rights workers in the process, according to an Amnesty International (AI) report issued Monday. AI documented cases of arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearances and death at the hands of the NISS. The suppression of dissent also includes heavy censorship of the [...]

An Oklahoma district judge issued an injunction Monday morning extending a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of a new law that requires women seeking abortions to have an ultrasound and hear a description of the fetus. The Center for Reproductive Rights in New York sued to have the law declared unconstitutional in May. “Today’s ruling [...]

The Swiss Federal Administrative Court announced Monday that an agreement with the US, allowing Swiss bank UBS to disclose account information of clients suspected by the US government of tax evasion, is binding. The agreement, approved last month by the Swiss parliament, allows UBS to turn over information of 4,450 US clients to the US [...]

The former defense lawyer for Australian ex-Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks said Sunday that his former client should be cleared of all links to terrorism because he never committed a crime. The lawyer, Steve Kenny, said he has been unable to find a law that Hicks had broken, either under Australian, Afghan or international law, [...]

Backlogs at US immigration courts are up by more than 30 percent in the past 18 months, according to a Syracuse University research center study . The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse study found that the 4,145 cases referred to federal prosecutors in March and April were the most in any two-month period since the Immigration [...]

The Russian Federation Council on Monday approved legislation that will allow the country’s secret police, the Federal Security Service (FSB) , to question citizens about their actions related to crimes that have not yet occurred. The KGB , predecessor to the FSB, had the authority to conduct similar preemptive questioning, which was often used to [...]

The American Bar Association (ABA) has filed an amicus curiae brief urging the US District Court for the District of Arizona to block enforcement of the state’s controversial new immigration law before it takes effect July 29. The brief, filed in support of the US government, follows the submission of another amicus curiae brief by [...]

The Israeli Supreme Court on Sunday issued a 90-day injunction against the enforcement of a law preventing the prosecution of 400 protesters arrested during the 2005 Gaza disengagement . The law, passed in January , prevents the prosecution or suspends the sentences of those who were arrested for protesting Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza [...]