The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) defended their voter registration practices Tuesday after a report surfaced Monday alleging that ACORN engages in fraudulent voter registration practices . The AP report noted that 3,000 ACORN-submitted voter cards in Philadelphia were invalid due to missing or inaccurate information, and that ACORN was blamed for [...]

Petition for writ of habeas corpus, Center for Constitutional Rights, October 3, 2006 . Read the full text of the petition . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on Tuesday began the long process of documenting personal statements on crimes and abuses committed during the country's 14-year civil war . Jerome Verdier , head of the commission which was established under the 2003 peace accords , has dispatched 192 people to all 15 counties in Liberia to [...]

The International Committee of the Red Cross has completed its first meeting with prisoners now held by US forces at the expanded Camp Cropper prison in Iraq, according to a press release posted on the organization’s website Tuesday. The 16-member delegation included one medical doctor, and was able to meet privately with detainees of their [...]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a bill officially ratifying the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism , the Kremlin announced Tuesday. A Kremlin statement described the convention as "the first universal treaty designed to prevent acts of terrorism with weapons of mass destruction" and said it provided for "a mechanism [...]

Dick Marty , the Swiss parliamentarian who has been leading the Council of Europe probe into CIA terror secret prisons and renditions in Europe , announced Tuesday that he intends to accompany UN Special rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak in a visit to the US prison at Guantanamo Bay. In a joint statement , COE [...]

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday heard oral arguments in the consolidated case of Lopez v. Gonzales and Toledo-Flores v. US , in which the Court will decide whether immigrants convicted of state drug felonies can remain in the US if their crimes were misdemeanors under federal law. Jose Lopez pleaded guilty to aiding and [...]

Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand (Interim Edition) of B.E. 2549, October 1, 2006, unofficial English translation . Read the full text of the interim constitution via The Nation, Bangkok. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

A coalition of Thai democracy activists and academics Tuesday called for newly appointed Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont to lift the martial law imposed on the country by the military leaders who seized power from Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a bloodless coup on September 19. The so-called Confederation for Democracy argued in a letter to [...]

A group of four UN human rights envoys reported Tuesday that Israel and Hezbollah both broke international humanitarian law during the 34-day Middle East conflict . Secretary-General Kofi Annan's representative on displaced people Walter Kaelin, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment [...]