Between 2009 and 2014, the federal Bureau of Prisons accidentally kept 152 prisoners behind bars past their scheduled release dates due to staff errors, including three inmates who served an additional year or more of prison time, according to a new report by the Justice Department watchdog.

Despite international calls for reprieve, Iran has hanged a woman for the murder of a man human rights groups say sexually assaulted her. According to Reuters, 26-year-old Reyhaneh Jabbari was executed Saturday morning for the the 2007 killing of a Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, concluding what Amnesty International called "a deeply flawed investigation and trial."

The man was perhaps in his early twenties, laboring with yellow-vested relief workers in the rubble of Shujaiyeh to cart out survivors on gurneys and find his family and friends. He was shot, and he fell. The shots kept coming. In a conflict marked by horrific images, this may be the worst yet.

The state of Texas has strict rules about how to handle dangerous heat on pig farms; not so in their non-air-conditioned prisons, where 14 inmates have reportedly died of heat exposure since 2007. A new report says the state is doing nothing to address the issue.

A refugee from the Democratic Republic of North Korea who spent six years in one of that nation's harshest gulags has shared his chilling illustrations of its conditions with the UN High Commission on Human Rights.

It's Snowden day at Sheremetyevo! The NSA leaker will meet with human rights groups in the Moscow airport today at 5:00 p.m. (Moscow time). Snowden claims that the U.S. government is attempting to deny his right to seek asylum and violating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Jenny from "the block" will perform tonight at the birthday celebration of Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, leader of Turkmenistan, which Human Rights Watch has called "one of the world's most repressive countries."

The bloody and endless Mexican Drug War, which exists largely due to America's unwinnable "War on Drugs," is having a predictable salutary effect: increased mass torture, by police. From the LAT:

President Obama announced from Bali on Friday that he's sending Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the human rights disaster zone known as Myanmar, aka Burma, saying, "After years of darkness we've seen flickers of progress." It will be the first such visit to the country, which has long isolated itself from diplomacy, in over 50 years.

After outlawing special last-meal requests for prisoners on death row, the Texas prison system has now gone one better: They're outlawing meals, period, for everyone.

"A verdict has been issued for Marzieh Vafamehr," the declaration went. "Sentence is a year in jail and 90 lashes."

It was an old-fashioned gay lynching in Iran on Sunday morning, as the state executed six inmates by hanging at the Karound prison in Ahvaz, in the country's southwest region. According to Iran Human Rights, three of the six were sentenced to death for "'unlawful' acts and acts against Sharia," based on "the articles 108 and 110 of the Iranian Islamic penal code." Articles 108 and 110 of the Iranian Islamic penal code are the ones dealing with gay sex.

Kyle Richards thinks that the ban on pornography and erotica enforced by the Macomb County Jail—and, to a lesser extent, the absence of video games in individual cells—amounts to "cruel and unusual punishment," and is therefore unconstitutional. Is he right?

The U.S. has released its annual report on human rights! And guess who gets called out by name? Yes, duh, it's China, which has been cracking down on dissidents and activists extra-hard lately. Of course, China doesn't take kindly to being told it sucks at human rights, especially by the U.S., so the Chinese government released its own "I Know You Are But What Am I" report telling the U.S. to butt out and maybe stop locking up black kids. "Stop the domineering behavior of exploiting human rights to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries," it reads, in part. Guys, guys! You're both massive, cruel prison-industrial complexes with no meaningful avenues for dissent. The U.S. has better TV, though. [Reuters; image via AP]

The head of Iran's High Council for Human Rights told state-run Press TV that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, could avoid execution: "There is a good chance that her life could be saved."

A charity network released a study of gay rights around the world and the results are terrifying: 76 countries prosecute people for their sexual orientation, and seven of those use the death penalty to punish same sex acts. [Independent]

Iran is reviewing a now-reversed sentence of death by stoning for an adulterous woman. "Sentences such as stoning will be closely reviewed and probably changed," said Iran's top human rights official. Um, yay? [CNN]

Under pressure from the international community, Malawi's president Bingu wa Mutharika ordered a gay couple, jailed for 14 years for "unnatural acts and gross indecency" to be pardoned and released. But kind of grudgingly.

In order to "protect" the public, a judge in Malawi has sentenced a gay couple to 14 years in prison with hard labor for "gross indecency" and committing "unnatural acts." Somewhere, Rev. Rick Warren is smiling. [BBC, pic]

The reports of a possible death penalty for gays in Uganda are horrific. But since I don't know anything about Ugandan politics, I asked Andrew Rice, a friend who wrote a book about Uganda, if he could add some context.