A Belgian ethnic Lebanese couple is preparing a legal complaint against Israel for alleged war crimes during the ongoing Mideast conflict after Ali Abdul-Sater and his wife had to flee Lebanon via Syria with their three children when Israel launched airstrikes against Hezbollah earlier this month. An apartment where they were staying on holiday was [...]
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US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales pressed Republican lawmakers last week for a bill that would "shield" US soldiers from potential prosecution in US federal courts over violations of the 1996 War Crimes Act , according to a report in Friday's Washington Post. The War Crimes Act authorizes life sentences for US soldiers who breach the [...]
A judge in Ontario Thursday upheld a publication ban on the bail hearings for 17 men accused of a terror plot in Canada . The Associated Press, the New York Times, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Toronto Star, and one defense lawyer appealed an earlier ruling barring the media from the courtroom in a bid [...]
The UN Human Rights Committee slammed current US rights practices in a report released Friday, saying among other things that the US needs to close all alleged secret detention facilities and allow the International Committee of the Red Cross access to all detainees held at the alleged prisons. The committee noted that it has information [...]
Legal experts inside and outside government are criticizing provisions of a draft bill circulated by the White House Wednesday that, among other things, would allow US military commissions to proceed against an accused "enemy combatant" without the defendant being present, if necessary to protect national security. In absentia proceedings would only be allowed, however, if [...]
The UN Security Council adopted a Presidential Statement Thursday saying it was "deeply shocked and distressed" at an Israeli attack on a UNIFIL military observer post in Lebanon Tuesday that killed four observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, and stressed that "Israel and all concerned parties must comply fully with their obligations under the [...]
Haitian authorities freed former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune from prison Thursday on a provisional release, though Neptune still faces charges that he calls "imaginary." Neptune has been detained for two years since former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in 2004 on accusations that he orchestrated a February 2004 massacre in La Scierie, though UN investigators [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has released a list of secret government surveillance operations focusing on war protestors and other political activists in northern and central California from September 2001 through July 2006 . The ACLU described the surveillance operations as "disturbing trend" fueled by "greater funding of federal, state and local intelligence agencies [...]
The Washington Supreme Court official website] ruled 7-2 Thursday that the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) must release files documenting sexual abuse allegations compiled over decades for use in an upcoming lawsuit brought by three Washington men claiming abuse by their scoutmaster in the 1970s and 1980s. The files include court records, news reports, documentation [...]
A new US federal regulation announced by the Department of Homeland Security Thursday and published in the Federal Register would for the first time require biometric fingerprinting and photographing of lawful permanent US residents – so called "green card" holders whose numbers are estimated at between 8 and 12 million – reentering the United States [...]
