All posts tagged: upholds

Appeals court upholds block on HUD homelessness overhaul : NPR

Appeals court upholds block on HUD homelessness overhaul : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

Tents are lined up on Skid Row Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Los Angeles. Jae C. Hong/AP hide caption toggle caption Jae C. Hong/AP A federal appeals court late Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s push to impose new conditions on homelessness funding, saying implementing them “would be immediately destabilizing and disastrous.” The ruling upheld a lower court’s preliminary injunction, the latest rebuke to a major shift that advocates warn would push 170,000 people in federally subsidized housing back into homelessness. That would include many who are disabled, elderly and veterans. The Department of Housing and Urban Development wants to slash money for permanent housing and shift it to transitional programs that require sobriety, mental health treatment and other conditions. HUD Secretary Scott Turner has said this would nudge people toward self-sufficiency. The agency did not say whether it would appeal the ruling, but said in a statement that it “remains committed to reforming the misguided ‘Housing First’ approach that for years funded the self-serving homeless industrial complex, rewarded activists, and ignored solutions.” The change in …

Judge upholds GOP-friendly Missouri congressional map

Judge upholds GOP-friendly Missouri congressional map

Published by Sam Flores

A Jackson County circuit judge in Missouri ruled on Thursday that a new, GOP-friendly congressional map can stay in place ahead of the midterms.  The Campaign Legal Center (CLC), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and ACLU of Missouri filed suit on behalf of voters in the state, arguing the mid-decade redistricting effort was unlawful. The… Source link

French court upholds ‘far left’ label for Mélenchon’s LFI

French court upholds ‘far left’ label for Mélenchon’s LFI

Published by Sam Flores

During the rally held by Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Anaïs Belouassa-Cherifi, La France Insoumise candidate in the Lyon municipal election, on February 26, 2026. BRUNO AMSELLEM/DIVERGENCE FOR LE MONDE The decision was expected and came quickly, as demanded by of the municipal elections. As the public rapporteur suggested on Wednesday, February 25, the Council of State, France’s highest administrative court, rejected on Friday, February 27, the appeal from La France Insoumise (LFI) against the Interior Ministry’s decision to classify the populist party as “far left” for the March elections. Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party had called Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez’s February 2 decision a political maneuver to remove LFI from the broader “left bloc,” where it had previously been grouped alongside the Socialists, Greens and Communists. LFI is not “justified” in “maintaining” that its classification as far left “is tainted by a manifest error of assessment, nor that it could, in the specific circumstances, be considered likely to undermine the integrity of the vote,” the judges ruled. The highest administrative court had adopted a similar position regarding political …

High Court upholds acquittal for Quran burning – Humanists UK

High Court upholds acquittal for Quran burning – Humanists UK

Published by Sam Flores

Hamit Coskun, who burned a Quran outside the Turkish Embassy in London, has had his acquittal for religiously motivated harassment, alarm or distress upheld by the High Court. Humanists UK welcomes the outcome, but remains concerned that public order laws can be used to criminalise acts that cause religious offence without having sufficient safeguards to protect the right to freedom of expression.  The story so far In February 2025, Hamit Coskun, a half-Kurdish and half-Armenian man from Turkey, burned a Quran outside the Turkish Embassy in London. He said he did it in protest against the President of Turkey for failing to uphold Turkey’s secular constitution. Notably, Coskun was attacked with a knife during his protest, for which he was taken to hospital before being arrested. Humanists UK regularly cautions that blasphemy-motivated extremism and violence are growing problems, and that such violence is inevitably encouraged when prohibitions on ‘blasphemy’ are legitimised by authorities. Nonetheless, in June he was convicted of a public disorder offence, likely to cause harassment, alarm, or distress, that was motivated at …

Success: High Court upholds acquittal in Quran-burning case

Success: High Court upholds acquittal in Quran-burning case

Published by Sam Flores

The National Secular Society has welcomed the High Court’s refusal to overturn the quashing of the conviction of Hamit Coskun for burning a Quran. The High Court today rejected an appeal from the Crown Prosecution Service to reinstate Coskun’s conviction of a religiously aggravated public order offence for burning a Quran in a protest. It said: “We are satisfied that the conclusions arrived at were rationally open to the court”. In February Coskun, who is an asylum seeker from Turkey, burned a Quran outside the Turkish Consulate in London while shouting “Islam is religion of terrorism”. He said his demonstration was a protest against policies which are turning Turkey into a “base for radical Islamists”. He was then attacked by two men, one armed with a knife. The National Secular Society has co-funded Coskun’s defence throughout the case. Coskun was originally found guilty of an offence under Section 5 of the Public Order Act which criminalises using words or behaving in a disorderly manner, or displaying material that is likely to harass, intimidate or distress …

US Appeals Court Upholds Trump’s Immigration Detention Policy

US Appeals Court Upholds Trump’s Immigration Detention Policy

Published by Sam Flores

Feb 6 (Reuters) – A divided federal appeals court ‌upheld ​on Friday the Trump administration’s policy ‌of placing people arrested in its immigration crackdown in mandatory detention without an ​opportunity to be released on bond. The decision by a conservative 2-1 panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. ‍Circuit Court of Appeals marked the ​first time an appeals court had upheld the policy and came despite hundreds of lower-court judges nationally ​declaring it unlawful. U.S. ⁠Attorney General Pam Bondi hailed the ruling on social media as dealing “a significant blow against activist judges who have been undermining our efforts to make America safe again at every turn.” The ruling is expected to impact thousands of people as the court’s jurisdiction covers Texas and Louisiana, which are dotted with ‌detention centers and house the most immigration detainees.  Other appeals courts are slated in coming weeks to ​take ‌up the issue, which the ‍U.S. Supreme Court ⁠may ultimately need to resolve.   Under federal immigration law, “applicants for admission” to the United States are subject to mandatory detention …

Success! Court upholds right to free speech in Quran burning appeal

Success! Court upholds right to free speech in Quran burning appeal

Published by Sam Flores

A National Secular Society-backed appeal has seen a man’s conviction for burning a copy of the Quran overturned. Hamit Coskun was convicted of a religiously aggravated public order offence by Westminster Magistrates’ Court in June after setting fire to a copy of the Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London. But Southwark Crown Court today overturned that decision, finding that Coskun’s actions could not “properly be found to be disorderly”, or to be “within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress”. In its remarks, the Court noted that “the right to freedom of expression, if it is a right worth having, must include the right to express views that offend, shock or disturb”. Highlighting that there is “no offence of blasphemy in our law”, the Court added that whilst burning a Quran may be an act that many Muslims find “desperately upsetting and offensive”, the criminal law is “not a mechanism that seeks to avoid people being upset, even grievously upset”. Coskun says his “symbolic, non-violent expression …