A 27-year-old mother of five was bludgeoned to death with an iron chain by her father last week in Gaza in what human rights groups report was an honor killing. According to police in Gaza, the father, Jawdat al-Najar, heard his daughter Fadia, who had divorced in 2005, speaking on the phone with a man. He believed she was having a relationship with him. Police say al-Najar became enraged and beat her to death; her body was brought to a ...

Nigeria's military has claimed it raided the compound of a fundamentalist Islamic sect and killed one of its top leaders, as the battle intensified between government troops and Islamist forces in the country's north Thursday. At least 400 rebels, civilians and troops have died since the fighting began Sunday, triggered by the arrest of some members of the sect, known as Boko Haram. The group retaliated by attacking police, military and government institutions in Bauchi state. The violence quickly spread ...

The lawyer for the woman who faces 40 lashes for wearing clothes that Sudan deemed indecent called the law "degrading." "They ought to stop it," Nabil Adib said on Thursday. "It is quite unnecessary and degrading. It is harassment." Lubna Al Hussein -- who writes for a newspaper and, until recently, worked for the media department of the U.N. mission in Sudan -- was arrested, along with 18 other women on July 3. At the time of her arrest, she ...

The Sri Lankan government should immediately release more than 280,000 displaced Tamil civilians living in detention camps, a leading human rights group said Wednesday. Human Rights Watch said the displaced Sri Lankans were already victims of a protracted and bloody civil war. Now they are victims again, confined against their will, like criminals, the global watchdog group said. "Keeping several hundred thousand civilians who had been caught in the middle of a war penned in these camps is outrageous," said ...

At least 40 people were killed as Islamic militants battled Nigerian government police and troops Sunday and Monday in the north-central part of the nation, officials said. Police and troops were dispatched to the militants' hideouts after militants began attacks on government establishments early Sunday, said Mohamed Maigari, spokesman for Nigeria's Bauchi state. As authorities exchanged fire with the militants, 40 people, including one soldier, were killed, Maigari said. In addition, some 215 people were arrested in Bauchi, he said. ...

Government agents used tear gas to disperse demonstrators, and beat and kidnapped a human rights lawyer, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said Saturday, citing witnesses. The advocacy group said human rights lawyer Shadi Sadr, who was walking with friends to Friday prayers, was confronted by people dressed in civilian clothes. They pushed her into a car and drove off, the group said, citing witnesses. In a subsequent telephone call to her husband, Sadr said she had been ...

The head of a leading Russian human rights group accused the presidents of Russia and Chechnya of complicity in murdering their top activist in Chechnya. "I am confident about who killed Natalya Estemirova. We all know this person. His name is Ramzan Kadyrov, President of the Chechen republic," Oleg Orlov, the chairman of the Russian human rights group Memorial said on the group's Web site Thursday. "Ramzan was intimidating and insulting Natalya, and considered her his personal enemy. We don't ...

President Obama has ordered national security officials to look into allegations that the Bush administration resisted efforts to investigate a CIA-backed Afghan warlord over the killings of hundreds of Taliban prisoners in 2001. "The indications that this had not been properly investigated just recently was brought to my attention," Obama told CNN's Anderson Cooper in an exclusive interview during the president's visit to Ghana. The full interview will air 10 p.m. Monday. "So what I've asked my national security team ...

A suburban Philadelphia swim club has invited children from a largely minority day-care center to come back after a June reversal that fueled allegations of racism against the club, a spokeswoman said Sunday. The development came during a hastily called Sunday afternoon meeting of the Valley Club in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania. Club members voted overwhelmingly to try to work things out with the day-care center, which accused some swim club members of making racist comments to black and Hispanic children ...

Wajeha al-Huwaider picked up her passport, got in a taxi, and headed from her home in eastern Saudi Arabia to the nearby island kingdom of Bahrain -- a 45-minute drive that many Saudis take to get away for the weekend. Despite having a valid passport, Saudi authorities at the border sent al-Huwaider home. That's because in Saudi Arabia, a woman needs permission from her male guardian before she can leave the country. Al-Huwaider -- a vocal women's rights activist in ...