US federal judge Robert Pratt temporarily blocked the state of Iowa on Monday from enforcing a state law that prohibits public schools from requiring masks. Consequently, school districts may continue to enforce their mask mandates. Earlier this month, the ACLU of Iowa and several parents filed suit in federal court to challenge Iowa’s public school [...]

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, on Monday condemned India’s restrictions placed on public assembly in Jammu and Kashmir, pursuant to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967 (UAPA). In her statement at the 48th Session of the UN Human Rights Council, Bachelet pointed out that the Indian government’s actions of frequently [...]

Texas judge Karin Crump of the Travis County District Court issued a temporary injunction on Monday that preventing Texas Right to Life from enforcing the new six-week abortion ban against Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas. The injunction prevents any action from being taken against Planned Parenthood pursuant to Senate Bill 8 (SB8) until a final judgment [...]

An increasing number of children are being killed and recruited by armed groups in Sahel’s tri-border area in Niger, Amnesty International said in a report on Sunday. The report, titled “I Have Nothing Left Except Myself,” states that children are being killed and targeted for recruitment by armed groups near Niger’s borders with Mali and [...]

The US Department of Justice filed an appeal on Friday with the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit challenging a lower court ruling in July blocking new applications to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. DACA was started by the Obama administration in 2012 and allows individuals brought to the US [...]

A Florida appeals court has upheld Governor Ron DeSantis’ ban on school mask mandates. The move Friday came after a Florida circuit judge ruled last month to temporarily suspend the ban until the legal challenges against it were complete. As a result, the ban will remain in place until further appellate review. The order states [...]

With this post, JURIST launches a new series of dispatches from major US states written by JURIST staff “on the ground” in those jurisdictions. JURIST Operations Director Ram Eachambadi files this report from Los Angeles. Election day in California is here, thanks to the approximately 1.5 million signatures on a petition—a mere 12% of the [...]

Italy’s administrative authority on personal data protection, Garante Privacy, on Friday asked its Irish counterpart, the Irish Data Protection Commission (Irish DPC), to solicit answers from Facebook to a series of questions on the privacy implications of its new smart glasses before the company markets them on the Italian market. Facebook’s smart glasses, called Ray-Ban [...]

Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Magistrates’ Court denied the bail request of a pro-democracy group’s vice-chairwoman on Friday, after her arrest early last week. Chow Hang Tung, the vice-chairwoman of Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China (Alliance), had been instrumental in the organization of Hong Kong’s annual Tiananmen Square vigil, commemorating [...]

In late August, women law students reporting for JURIST in Myanmar wrote an open letter to women law students in Afghanistan, including those also reporting for JURIST, facing an uncertain and potentially grim future under the new Taliban regime. The letter received such a favorable international response that we are republishing it in the original [...]