An Egyptian court on Thursday cleared 40 NGO workers, including at least 15 Americans, from charges in a retrial of a case that caused some tension between Egypt and the US. In 2013 43 workers had been sentenced to jail terms from one to five years, accused of operating NGOs without proper approval. Egypt’s top [...]
Migrants and refugees in Libya are facing severe human rights violations, according to a UN report released Thursday. The UN Support Mission in Libya and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights collaborated to generate this report, which is based on some 1,300 first-hand accounts. The report describes human rights violations by state [...]
The UN General Assembly voted on Wednesday to endorse the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. The General Assembly’s vote tally included 152 votes in favor, 12 abstentions, and five votes against, which included the US. The US withdrew its participation from the compact last year due to inconsistencies with its own migration [...]
The US Senate unanimously passed a bill on Wednesday to make lynching a federal hate crime. The “Justice for the Victims of Lynching” bill is a bipartisan effort sponsored by three senators: Democrats Kamala Harris and Cory Booker and Republican Tim Scott. The bill defines lynching as “2 or more persons willfully caus bodily injury to [...]
Ohio Governor John Kasich vetoed a bill on Wednesday that would have shifted the burden of proof from the defendant to the prosecutor in self-defense cases. Ohio is the only state that requires defendants to prove that their use of force was justified in self-defense. The proposed bill would shift this burden to the prosecution: [...]
Johnson & Johnson lost its motion Wednesday to reverse a $4.69 billion jury verdict against them. Johnson & Johnson had asked “that the jury verdict be thrown out on jurisdictional grounds and asked for separate trials for the plaintiffs, according to the order issued Wednesday.” However, the judge denied this motion. In response, “Johnson & [...]
A federal judge on Wednesday blocked Trump administration asylum restriction policies that prevented immigrants who were victims of gang or domestic violence in their home countries from seeking asylum. The ruling came as a result of a lawsuit that the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies filed on behalf [...]
Acting US Attorney General Matthew Whitaker announced Tuesday that a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) regulation has been amended to ban bump stocks, drawing a legal challenge the same day. Whitaker said the final rule states that bump stocks fall within the federal definition of “machine gun,” so the rule clarifies existing [...]
A federal judge on Tuesday postponed the sentencing of former national security advisor to Donald Trump, Michael Flynn, allowing him more time to cooperate with ongoing investigations. Judge Emmet Sullivan of the US District Court for the District of Columbia called Flynn’s crimes “very serious” and asked him numerous pointed questions. Flynn had pleaded guilty [...]
The High Court of the Indian capital of New Delhi on Monday convicted Sajjan Kumar, a former member of the federal parliament, for conspiracy and murder during the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom and awarded him imprisonment for “the remainder of his natural life.” It is the first time that a powerful politician has been held guilty [...]
