Over 9 million people are now in prison worldwide and the number is growing, according to a new report by the London-based International Centre for Prison Studies . The statistical survey included convicts and persons held in pre-trial detention. The US, China, and Russia account for about half of the total, with the US holding [...]

Witness to Abuse Human Rights Abuses under the Material Witness Law since September 11, joint report by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union , June 26, 2005 . Excerpt: Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, at least seventy men living in the United States—all Muslim but one—have been thrust into a [...]

The US military is planning to expand the current Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca detention facilities in Iraq and build a third major facility in the north of the country to accommodate a growing number of Iraqi prisoners. Military officials say the existing prisons – now holding over 10,000 detainees – are nearing their maximum [...]

Pakistan's Supreme Court on Monday began hearing an appeal by Mukhtar Mai against the acqittal of five men who allegedly brutalized her in a gang-rape that attracted national and international attention and condemnation. Mai was raped in 2002, allegedly on the orders of a traditional village council after her younger brother offended the honor of [...]

The Iraqi Special Tribunal released silent footage Sunday from a judicial interrogation last week of six of Saddam Hussein's former lieutenants concerning the killing and deportation of Shiite Kurds and the repression of a Shiite revolt in 1991 after the first Gulf War. Saddam's half-brothers Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti and Watban Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti , [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Human Rights Watch released a joint report Sunday claiming that the Bush administration has violated the material witness law by detaining nearly 70 terrorism suspects since September 11 without enough criminal evidence to keep them. All but one of the detainees were Muslims. The law permits witnesses who [...]

Hammam Hammoudi, head of the drafting committee for the permanent Iraqi constitution , has said that 80% of the draft is completed and he anticipates the August 15 target date will be met with a national ratification referendum to follow as scheduled in October. An arbitration committee has been created to deal with conflicting issues [...]

Legislation to criminalize sexual harassment was presented Sunday to the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress . The draft amendment to the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Women , designed to protect women's rights, mandates that no one shall be allowed to subject women [...]

The Jerusalem District Court Sunday approved the city's annual gay pride parade, clearing the way for an international gay pride event later this summer. The parade, planned for this Thursday, had caused a divide in the deeply religious capital city. Opponents, including Jews for Morality, had sent an open letter to city officials voicing objection, [...]

Leading Syrian human rights activist Aktham Naisse , was acquitted of all charges by a Syrian State Security Court Sunday. Naisse, chairman of the Committees for the Defense of Democratic Liberties and Human Rights in Syria, was arrested in 2004 and charged with spreading false information and forming an underground association after publishing a report [...]