Watchdog

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that sentencing convicted criminals to life in prison without possibility of release is a violation of their human rights.

Sixteen out of a panel of 17 judges at the Strasbourg-based court ruled that prisoners must be given a possibility of release and an opportunity to have their sentences reviewed.

The panel was considering a case filed by three British men serving life sentences for murder, including Jeremy Bamber, who was convicted of killing five members of his own family in 1985.

The ruling must now be considered by the U.K. government, which in 2003 abolished a provision allowing prisoners' life sentences to be reviewed after 25 years.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said he "profoundly disagrees" with the Strasbourg ruling.

Based on reporting by AFP, dpa, and BBC

An independent Kazakh editor says she is unable to find a publishing house willing to print her magazine focusing on official corruption.

Gulzhan Ergalieva, chief editor of the weekly "Adam Reader's," told journalists on July 2 she received refusals from 24 publishing houses in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty.

Ergalieva says the refusals are politically motivated.

She started her magazine after a decision in December 2012 by a Kazakh court to suspend her online news portal for three months.

That followed her reporting on the deadly clashes between police and protesting oil workers in the western town of Zhanaozen.

In 2001, a group of masked men broke into Ergalieva's Almaty apartment and tied her up before torturing her husband in front of her for several hours, leaving him handicapped.

The attackers were never found.

Based on reporting by KazTAG and Interfax