Homosexual inmates in Costa Rica do not have the right to conjugal visits, the nation`s highest court has ruled in a case that could be revisited if Congress passes a bill legalizing gay marriage, ...

Chronic overcrowding, open toilets, abysmal food, rampant corruption and sexual abuse: inmates and ...

BEIJING, August 7, 2008 (AFP) - A jailed Chinese dissident has sent a letter to International Olympic Committee head Jacques Rogge, telling him prisons have worsened and urging him to go see for himself, a rights group said Thursday.

VERSAILLES, August 5, 2008 (AFP) - A French court on Tuesday granted bail to a convicted Red Brigade member facing extradition to Italy, after her family and doctors voiced serious concerns about her health.

YANGON, August 5, 2008 (AFP) - The new UN human rights envoy for Myanmar met Tuesday with some of the nation's most prominent political prisoners inside the feared Insein Prison, a spokesman said.

BEIRUT, August 5, 2008 (AFP) - Several hundred suspected members of an Islamist group involved in a deadly 15-week standoff with the Lebanese army last year have launched a prison hunger strike, a security official said on Tuesday.

'Detainees in Rumieh prison went on hunger strike on Monday to protest at the delay in their trials,' the official said on condition of anonymity.

BAGHDAD, August 2, 2008 (AFP) - The US military said on Saturday it has freed more than 10,000 people from its two detention centres in Iraq so far this year -- more than the 8,900 released the during the whole of 2007.

MADRID, August 1, 2008 (AFP) - Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero voiced 'contempt' Friday for a convicted member of the Basque separatist group ETA who is to be released from prison, but said the 'law must be respected.'

MADRID, August 1, 2008 (AFP) - Spanish victims' associations and newspapers voiced outrage Friday over the planned release from jail of a former member of the Basque separatist organisation ETA who has served 20 years for the killings of 25 people.

JAKARTA, July 31, 2008 (AFP) - Indonesia has tightened security at an island prison where the three Bali bombers are being held ahead of their immiment execution, fearing a reprisal attack, a senior official said Thursday.

'We don't want a bomb to explode in any corner of this very big prison complex,' Nusakambangan island prison chief Bambang Winahyo told AFP.