The Turkish Parliament Friday began debate on a controversial new law that would grant the government more power to regulate non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The title of the proposed law is “Preventing the Financing of the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction,” and it purports to help the government crack down on the financing of terrorist [...]

Groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have issued calls for an investigation into the death in Toronto last Sunday of a prominent Pakistani activist who had sought asylum in Canada. Karima Baloch was a 37-year-old human rights activist from the Balochistan region of Pakistan. She had applied for asylum in Canada in 2015 [...]

The State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, approved a law Wednesday that imposes severe penalties for slanderous speech on the internet. The legislation provides for punishment of up to two years in prison for those found guilty of spreading slander through the internet. It defines slander as “the dissemination of knowingly false information discrediting [...]

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law Tuesday that will grant presidents expanded immunity from prosecution after leaving office. Currently, Article 91 of the Russian Constitution provides immunity to a president only while they are in office. The new law will provide broad immunity after they step down, immunizing them not just from criminal charges but also [...]

Switzerland’s parliament approved a bill Friday that would allow same-sex couples to marry. The National Council, the lower house of Parliament, voted by 136 in favor to 48 against, with 16 members abstaining or otherwise voting present. The Council of States, the upper house, voted 24 to 11 in favor of the bill, with 11 [...]

The US Supreme Court Thursday denied a request to allow in-person classes to continue in the face of an order by Kentucky’s governor shuttering schools because of a surge in Covid-19 cases. Kentucky Democratic governor Andy Beshear issued two executive orders on November 18, the first requiring limitations on persons in restaurants, bars, gyms, and [...]

The US Supreme Court granted certiorari in three new cases Wednesday, including two cases about compensation for student-athletes. The court consolidated the cases National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston and American Athletic Conference v. Alston. In the 1984 case National Collegiate Athletic Ass’n v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, the court held that the [...]

A US federal court judge Friday denied a motion for a preliminary injunction against Governor Tom Wolf’s ongoing mask mandate and Covid-19 contact tracing program. The motion was part of a lawsuit filed in the Middle District of the US District Court of Pennsylvania in September. The suit was brought by the American Freedom Law [...]

An international  tribunal on Friday issued five life sentences to Salim Jamil Ayyash, a Hezbollah member who was convicted in absentia in August for the assassination of former Lebanon prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in 2005. Hariri was killed in a massive suicide bomb explosion in Beirut which also killed twenty-one other people and injured 226. [...]

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a complaint with the US Supreme Court Tuesday against the states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, seeking to overturn their 2020 presidential election results. Paxton, who has been under indictment for the past five years on felony securities fraud charges, and about whom seven top aides recently wrote a [...]