The Indian Supreme Court Thursday offered to set up a committee to mediate the impasse between the central government and farmers protesting against the new agricultural reform laws that were passed earlier this year in September. The court made the suggestion while hearing a batch of public interest litigation petitions (PILs) from citizens seeking an [...]

More than 1,000 pro-democracy protestors in Thailand rallied Thursday for revocation of the kingdom’s lèse majesté law, which proscribes acts of defaming, insulting or threatening the king, the queen, the regent or the heir apparent. The protestors gathered at the 14 October 1973 Memorial which commemorates civilian protestors who lost their lives in the 1973 [...]

The Lebanese judge investigating the Beirut shipping port explosion Thursday charged caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab and three former ministers with criminal negligence for the incident in August which killed more than 200 people, injured thousands more and destroyed large parts of the country’s capital. Fadi Sawan has charged former public works ministers Ghazi Zaeiter [...]

Five UN human rights experts released a statement Thursday calling for the comprehensive revision of France’s new global security bill that seeks to strengthen and reinforce “security continuum” in the country. The experts called the bill “incompatible with international human rights law” and said that the French Parliament needs to revaluate the purpose of the [...]

A nine-judge bench of Thailand’s Constitutional Court Wednesday unanimously acquitted  Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha in a conflict of interest case lodged by 56 opposition leaders of the Pheu Thai Party. Pratyut was accused of violating the ethics clauses in the Constitution by overstaying in army accommodation years after his retirement as the Chief of [...]

Uttar Pradesh police Saturday registered their first case under the Indian state’s newly promulgated anti-conversion ordinance. The case is based on a complaint by a Bareilly resident against Uvaish Ahmad, a Muslim man, who alleged that Ahmad had been stalking his daughter for more than a year, attempting to “coerce, coax, and allure” her into [...]

Human rights group Vesna-96 said Sunday that more than 200 people have been arrested by the Belarus police during crackdowns on protests following the re-election of President Aleksander Lukashenko in August. Elections in Belarus have been condemned by both citizens of the country and international human rights groups since 2004, with opposition leaders often being [...]

Mississippi voters Tuesday adopted Ballot Measure 2, which would remove the electoral vote requirement for elections to statewide offices, including the offices of the governor, lieutenant governor and secretary of state. Prior to the amendment, the state constitution of 1890 required statewide office candidates to secure both popular and electoral majorites under Sections 140 and [...]