Hundreds of demonstrators marched Friday in Peru’s capital Lima to call for the repeal of recent legislation that classifies transgender individuals as having a mental illness to provide them access to health benefits. The law includes transgender identities as mental health conditions in the country’s Essential Health Insurance Plan, which outlines the health conditions covered [...]
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US DOJ says Nebraska's excessive institutionalization violates civil rights of mentally ill
The US Department of Justice determined that Nebraska is violating the civil rights of residents with serious mental illnesses by unnecessarily segregating them into institutional settings. The case emerged from complaints by Nebraskans that the state was improperly subjecting mental health patients to segregation from general society, in violation of Title II of the Americans [...]
Lawsuit alleges New York prisons flout state law by isolating inmates with disabilities
A class action complaint filed this week accuses New York prison officials of holding disabled inmates in solitary confinement in violation of state law. Solitary confinement has been a core feature of the US penal system since the 18th century — dating back to the earliest state prisons, where the inmates seen as most depraved [...]
Uganda made international headlines this week as its Constitutional Court upheld the bulk of a draconian law that would impose the death sentence for “aggravated homosexuality.” But for LGBTQ+ activists within the country, the death penalty isn’t the only specter that looms in the judgment’s aftermath. Over the past 15 years, Ugandan authorities have endeavored [...]
Explainer: US Mass Incarceration and Its Disparate Racial Impacts
The US prides itself on being a nation built on freedom, justice, and individual rights. And yet the evolution of its system of mass incarceration — a system that cannot be defined without reference to shocking racial disparities — seems to directly contradict these founding principles. The US prison population dwarfs those of nearly every other [...]
Explainer: Assange Launches Final Bid to Avoid Extradition to US
Publisher and activist Julian Assange appealed to London’s High Court this week in a last-ditch effort to avoid extradition to the US to face espionage charges. Following the hearing which spanned Tuesday and Wednesday, judges will consider whether Assange can appeal an earlier ruling ordering his extradition from the UK to the US, where he [...]
Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik, found guilty of killing 77 people, mainly teenagers, in July 2011, lost his claim Thursday against the state to end his solitary confinement in prison. The trial for Breivik’s suit was held in January against the Norwegian Ministry of Justice over the conditions of his detention. The trial was [...]
The UK High Court ruled Tuesday that the Secretary of State for the Home Office unlawfully operated a “secret policy” that saw more than 1,500 people who were the victims of modern slavery denied leave to remain. The Claimant, known as XY, was kidnapped and enslaved by a gang in Albania, his home country. The [...]
Alabama's Nitrogen Gas Execution Will Be Cruel and Unusual Punishment
On Jan. 25, the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) plans to execute Kenneth Smith by forcing him to breathe pure nitrogen gas, an untested execution method with profound legal and ethical consequences. Death penalty abolitionists worldwide have railed against this form of capital punishment, but these efforts have thus far failed to alter the state’s [...]
A Norwegian court on Monday began hearing a lawsuit brought by Fjotolf Hansen, previously known as Anders Behring Breivik, over his prison conditions, according to local media. Breivik sought to sue the Norwegian Ministry of Justice, alleging that the prison conditions imposed on him violated his human rights. Hansen set off a car bomb in [...]