Thousands of Turks marched in Ankara on Thursday to denounce the shooting of five judges Wednesday in the Council of State , Turkey's highest administrative court. The judges were shot by an attacker, reported to be a lawyer, who disagreed with a recent ruling made by the court denying a promotion to a teacher because [...]

US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld confirmed Wednesday that military officials are conflicted about the specific guidelines on interrogation techniques to be included in a new Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation during a hearing with the Defense Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee . Defense officials are struggling over whether to include different standards [...]

Human Rights Watch lauded Mexican President Vicente Fox Wednesday for advances made in increasing the transparency of the Mexican government, but warned in a new report on human rights in the country that more progress was needed. HRW pointed to continuing difficulties Mexico has had tackling the "dirty war" of the 1960s and 1970s, and [...]

Syrian authorities have arrested leading human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni just days after Sunday's arrest of prominent writer Michel Kilo , prompting speculation that a large government crackdown on dissidents is underway. Amnesty International said in a statement Wednesday that at least eight civil society activists have been arrested in the past week, mostly in [...]

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Wednesday lifted its stay of execution for Derrick S. O'Brien , citing insufficient factual or scientific evidence proving that lethal injection causes suffering and leads to a painful death. Death penalty opponents have criticized the lethal injection process, claiming that the painkiller sodium pentothal does not last long enough [...]

O'Kelley v. Perdue, Superior Court of Georgia, Judge Constance Russell, May 16, 2006 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Watts v. Bedford Primary Care Trust, May 16, 2006 Read the full text of the ruling. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Lawyers for telecommunications giant AT&T made what turned out to be an unsuccessful bid in federal court in San Francisco Wednesday for the return of documents collected by a former AT&T technician that supposedly detail co-operation between the company and the US National Security Agency in the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program , but suggested [...]

The US Senate Wednesday approved key amendments to an immigration reform bill that would create an additional 370 miles of fencing along the US-Mexico border and would deny the possibility of acquiring citizenship to illegal immigrants convicted of certain criminal offences. The border fencing amendment introduced by Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) that passed 83-16 would [...]

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue said Wednesday that the state will appeal a judge's ruling that a voter-approved amendment banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. Georgia Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker said he would seek an expedited review. Baker noted that even though the constitutional amendment was struck down, a statute banning same-sex marriage is not affected [...]