Myanmar President Win Myint granted amnesty on Monday to 6,520 prisoners, including journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo. The journalists, reporters for Reuters, were arrested in September for alleged violations of Myanmar’s Official Secrets Act and sentenced to seven years in prison for their Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative report into the military’s violence against the [...]
The International Criminal Court (ICC) ruled Monday that Jordan, as a party to the Rome Statute, was obligated to arrest Sudan’s former leader Omar al-Bashir during his 2017 visit to Amman for an Arab League Summit. The ICC declined, however, to refer Jordan to the Assembly of States Parties or the UN Security Council, reversing [...]
Uganda’s Supreme Court ruled 4-3 Thursday to uphold a constitutional amendment to remove an age limit that had previously barred anyone over 75 from seeking the nation’s highest office. Uganda’s Parliament voted to strike down the age limit in 2017, and President Yoweri Museveni, now 74, signed the amendment into law in January 2018. The petitioners, including [...]
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) settled claims on Tuesday against a Texas city that refused to approve plans for an Islamic cemetery. The US filed its complaint against the City of Farmersville earlier on Tuesday under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA). The complaint alleged that the city unduly burdened the [...]
US Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) and Representative Judy Chu (D-CA) introduced a Senate bill and a House bill to repeal President Trump’s travel ban on Wednesday. The bicameral legislation, known as the National Origin-Based Antidiscrimination for Nonimmigrants Act (NO BAN Act), imposes limits on executive power to curtail immigration and repeals Trump’s three executive orders limiting immigration based [...]
The European Court of Human Rights ruled Tuesday that Russia violated the rights of opposition leader Alexei Navalny by placing him under house arrest in 2014. Navalny, a prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin, spent 10 months under house arrest in 2014 while Russian authorities investigated him for embezzlement charges. The court found that Navalny’s confinement violated [...]
A federal judge on Thursday ordered the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Elon Musk to resolve their dispute over the Tesla CEO’s use of twitter within two weeks. Judge Alison Nathan of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York issued the order at the conclusion of a hearing on [...]
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice announced Wednesday that it will no longer allow prison chaplains of any faith to accompany inmates into execution chambers. The policy change closely follows the Supreme Court’s stay of execution for Patrick Murphy, a Texas inmate whose request that a Buddhist spiritual adviser be present in his execution chamber was denied by the [...]
The European Commission criticized Romania on Friday for “backsliding on the rule of law.” Margaritis Schinas, Chief Spokesperson of the European Commission, expressed the Commission’s concern over Romania’s treatment of Laura Codruța Kövesi. Kövesi served as Romania’s chief prosecutor from 2013 to 2018 and is currently in the running to head the new European Public Prosecutor’s [...]
The EU announced on Thursday that it would grant the UK an extension to finalize Brexit negotiations. Prime Minister Theresa May requested an extension on Wednesday in a letter to Donald Tusk, President of the European Council. In her letter, May expressed optimism that parliament will approve her revised Brexit deal, which has so far [...]
