A man was shot Thursday in Espanola, New Mexico during a protest over the reinstallation of a statute of the conquistador Juan de Onate, who massacred and enslaved the Acoma Indigenous people in 1599. Juan de Onate was eventually charged with using “excessive force” against the Acoma people. According to the New Mexico State Police [...]
Search Results for: 2015-09-03
Alabama's Plan to Execute Prisoners With Nitrogen Gas Is Immoral
In November of 1985, legendary liberal Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. declared, “the fatal constitutional infirmity of capital punishment is that it treats members of the human race as non-humans, as objects to be toyed with and discarded.” With Alabama primed to gas condemned prisoners to death with nitrogen — and with other [...]
New York court rules state ethics commission unconstitutional
New York Supreme Court Justice Thomas Marcelle ruled Monday in the case Cuomo v. New York State Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government (NYSCOELIG) that NYSCOELIG violates the New York State Constitution due to its statutorily prescribed independence. NYSCOELIG was created under New York Executive Law §94 as an independent ethics watchdog. Marcelle stated [...]
Armenian state news agency Armenpress reported Friday that the country’s parliament will consider ratifying the Rome Statute. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is the treaty that established the ICC. Armenia signed the Rome Statute in October 1999 but has not ratified it. In 2004, Armenia’s Constitutional Court found that the Rome [...]
Explainer: A Closer Look at the Multiple Indictments Facing Former US President Donald Trump
Prior to Donald Trump, no US president — current or former — had ever been indicted. That all changed on April 4 when Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced that a New York grand jury had indicted Trump on 34 criminal counts. Since then, he has been the subject of three additional criminal indictments. He [...]
Social Media Empowers Sudanese in Documenting Violations by RSF Militia
The war that broke out in Sudan on April 15 between the Sudanese National Army and the Rapid Support Forces militia has left hitherto thousands dead and injured, in addition to the destruction of buildings and infrastructure, with many fearing the whole country might be heading into a civil war. As the violations of the [...]
Netherlands and Canada seek ICJ ruling on Syria torture allegations
The Netherlands and Canada jointly submitted a case against Syria to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing the Syrian government of committing numerous violations of international law, including torture, since the beginning of the country’s civil war in 2011. The primary objective of the application, filed with the registry on June 8, is to [...]
Rights group estimates Iran executed at least 140 people in May
Iran Human Rights released data on Thursday which shows Iran executed 142 people in May, making it the highest number of Iranian executions in one month since 2015. Some of the charges used to justify executions this year include blasphemy and adultery. Iran executed Yousef Mehrad and Sadrollah Fazeli Zare after finding them guilty of [...]
The Elizabeth Holmes Sentencing: A Message on Investor Protection or a Lesson in Hubris?
Are the recent tech founder scandals going to change Silicon Valley or future appetite for investments in tech firms? It seems that investors are unphased by losing millions through the failures of Elizabeth Holmes or the sudden collapse of crypto exchange FTX. Investors seem to love tech visionaries whose brash rhetoric fueled the recent tech [...]
Turkey’s New Disinformation Bill: Disturbing Trend Toward Digital Authoritarianism
In 2002, when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in Turkey, defeating Kemalist hegemony, there was a glimmer of hope in the West for the overwhelmingly Muslim country. However, the experience of Turkey over the past 20 years is one descending into an authoritarian regime with clampdowns [...]