The UK Home Office Friday presented oral arguments before the UK High Court in its appeal of the Court’s December decision to require the British government to register Guantanamo detainee David Hicks as a British citizen. A decision is expected in early April. Hicks, an Australian detained in US custody at Guantanamo Bay since 2002 [...]

A group of 27 Danish Muslim organizations plan to sue Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in a Danish court and file a complaint against Denmark with the UN Commission on Human Rights over the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in Jyllands-Posten and other European newspapers. Group lawyer Michael Christiani Havemann told AP Friday the group [...]

The Democratic Republic of Congo Friday sent Thomas Lubanga , leader of the ethnic militia-turned-political party Union of Congolese Patriots , to the International Criminal Court (ICC) , making him the first prisoner delivered to new international criminal tribunal in The Hague. Lubanga is accused of widespread human rights abuses in eastern Congo’s Ituri district [...]

The number of asylum applications submitted to industrialized countries has decreased for the fourth year in a row and the number of asylum seekers arriving in Western nations has plummeted by half in the last five years , according to statistics released Friday by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) . UN High Commissioner [...]

German engineer Gotthard Lerch went on trial in Mannheim, Germany, Friday on charges that he aided Libya’s abortive efforts to build a nuclear bomb. Lerch is widely known as a member of a clandestine network led by A.Q. Kahn , which investigators believe supplied Iran and North Korea with nuclear capabilities. Khan, the father of [...]

Narrowing a controversial Tuesday order , US District Judge Leonie Brinkema has ruled that the US government will remain precluded from introducing aviation evidence tainted by TSA attorney Carla Martin in its case against would-be hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui but will be allowed to introduce new untainted aviation evidence along the lines of an alternate remedy [...]

The French government on Friday condemned violent protests against the recently passed First Employment Contract (CPE) labor law. A group of student and union demonstrators clashed with French authorities around the Sorbonne University in Paris Thursday, where 187 protesters were detained for setting minor fires, overturning cars in the street, and throwing objects at police, [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on Friday ruled 2-1 in a three-judge panel decision that Tennessee can offer a pro-life specialty license plate even though it does not offer a pro-choice license plate to state drivers. The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee on behalf of Planned [...]

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is making slow progress in its efforts to set up a regional human rights watchdog, officials from the organization announced Friday. Representatives from the four member countries suggesting the establishment of the institution, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, met and discussed potential cooperation on issues including migrant [...]

China's practice of "internet management" continued Friday with a 10-year sentence for Ren Ziyaun, a teacher found guilty of "subversion of state power" after posting "The Road to Democracy" and other essays on the Internet. According to Human Rights in China , the article asserted the right of the people to violently overthrow tyranny . [...]