The arrests of protesters in Iran may not conform with the law, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay said Friday, expressing concern over the increasing number of reported arrests . Classifying freedom of expression and assembly as "fundamental human rights," Pillay commended the peaceful and dignified nature of the protests that followed the [...]

Christopher Boucek "On Friday June 12 it was announced that three more Saudi detainees held at Guantanamo Bay had been repatriated back to the kingdom. With their arrival, 120 Saudi nationals have now been sent back to Saudi Arabia. (The bodies of three Saudi detainees who died at Guantanamo have also been returned for burial). [...]

A federal jury in the US District Court for the District of Minnesota found Thursday that a Minnesota woman had violated music copyrights and assessed damages at $80,000 per song for 24 songs, totaling $1.92 million. In a retrial, Jammie Thomas-Rasset was found to have willfully violated copyright law in sharing songs on the file-sharing [...]

The Peruvian Congress voted Thursday to repeal controversial land laws that had led to indigenous protests and violent clashes last week when police attempted to disperse groups blocking access routes. Last week, the congress temporarily suspended legislative decree 1090, the Forest and Wild Fauna Law and legislative decree 1064, establishing the legal framework for agricultural [...]

Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki created a special committee Thursday to investigate alleged abuse and torture in the country's prisons. Comprised of eight members, the committee reportedly includes representatives from human rights and judicial government agencies and security ministries. The panel will report its findings to al-Maliki within two weeks. The decision to create the [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit Thursday against the US government, challenging the establishment of isolated cells within federal prisons that were allegedly created in violation of federal law. Filed against US Attorney General Eric Holder and two Bureau of Prisons (BOP) officials, the complaint alleges that the so-called Communication Management Units (CMU) [...]

The US House of Representatives passed a spending bill Thursday that denied the Obama administration's request for $60 million to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center and placed limits on the government's ability to transfer detainees to the US and release detainees to foreign countries. The first 2010 spending bill, which was approved by a [...]

The US Senate unanimously passed a resolution Thursday apologizing to African-Americans for slavery and racial segregation. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) introduced and sponsored the concurrent resolution, which will next be voted on by the US House of Representatives . The resolution reads in part: The Congress—(A) acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of [...]

Former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy was found liable to the company's shareholders for fraud Thursday by Judge Allwin Horn of Alabama's 10th Judicial District and ordered to pay $2.88 billion. The plaintiffs claimed that Scrushy encouraged others to purposefully inflate company profits in order to qualify himself and other executives for bonuses, directed company contracts [...]

The War Crimes Chamber of the Belgrade District Court on Thursday convicted four former members of a Serbian paramilitary group for the killings of 14 Kosovo Albanians in 1999, handing down sentences ranging from 15 to 20 years. The court concluded that Zeljko Djukic, Dragan Medic, Dragan Borojevic, and Miodrag Solaj, members of a paramilitary [...]