The government of Iran has toughened up its already harsh penalties for some crimes. Anyone convicted of lending money for profit will now get 74 lashes and up to three years in jail. Human rights activists have long accused Turkey of torturing criminal suspects. Now, they say, police are also threatening doctors to keep them from reporting torture. One doctor reportedly had his arm broken by police after he filed a report alleging a patient he examined had been tortured.
Slavery is alive and well in Sudan.
A human rights activist from that country told a congressional committee that nearly 10,000 people, many children, have been enslaved there. That's the judgment of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Brack, an immigrant from Scotland, got a letter from the INS demanding a new photo for his green card. The INS said his ears weren't visible in the picture he had sent. So Brack sent another photo, taken at a better angle.