The retrial of two British National Party (BNP) officials on charges of inciting racial hatred began Wednesday in the UK, with hundreds of supporters protesting outside the Leeds Crown Court. BNP leader Nick Griffin and senior aide Mark Collett face two race hate charges based on speeches in West Yorkshire in 2004, taped by the [...]

Thai interim Prime Minister Chulanont Surayud Thursday promised to investigate allegations of human rights violations by the government of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra . Speaking to Muslim leaders in the southern Pattani province, Surayud apologized for the former government's crackdown on an Islamic insurgency in the country's southern region and said the government will [...]

The United States is violating its universal human rights obligations by its failure to protect millions of illegal immigrant workers from exploitation and discrimination in the workplace, according to a petition filed with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) Wednesday. The petition was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Employment Law [...]

Germany's Federal Constitutional Court has refused to rule on whether the European Constitution conforms with the German Constitution until a final decision on its ratification has been made. The German parliament ratified the document last year, but German President Horst Koehler refused to approve the ratification until the court issued its decision in the case, [...]

Lawyers representing detainees held in the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay Wednesday petitioned the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to declare a portion of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) unconstitutional. A key provision in the act, which was signed into law by US President George Bush last [...]

US Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez retired from the military Wednesday saying he was "forced" to leave because of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal which occurred during his tenure as the commander of all US forces in Iraq. In an interview with the McAllen, Texas Monitor, Sanchez, who served in the Army for 33 years, [...]

Lozano v. City of Hazelton, US District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, October 31, 2006 . Read the full text of the order . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Petition Under Section 115, US Clean Air Act, Sierra Legal Defence Fund, November 1, 2006 . Read the full text of the petition. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) for its alleged harassment of five US citizens of Mexican descent during an illegal immigration shakedown in Georgia over Labor Day weekend. The civil rights group claims ICE violated the citizens' Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights [...]

In the first US case of its kind, a Georgia state court Wednesday found Ethiopian immigrant Khalid Adem guilty of sexually mutilating his then-two-year-old daughter and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. Adem was tried on charges of cruelty to children and aggravated battery after a doctor discovered Adem's daughter had her clitoris removed, [...]