US Attorney General Eric Holder announced Monday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) will "open a preliminary review" into allegations of prisoner abuse by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) interrogators during the Bush administration. Holder's decision follows a recommendation by the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) . Holder appointed Assistant US Attorney John Durham to lead [...]
Scottish Justice Minister Kennny MacAskill defended his order to release to Libya convicted Pan Am Flight 103 bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi in front of an emergency session of the Scottish Parliament Monday. MacAskill faced criticism from several members of parliament, including the leaders of the Labour Party and the Conservative Party , for [...]
The Chinese government on Sunday released prominent human rights lawyer Xu Zhiyong on bail without any explanation. Xu was taken into custody last month and was formally charged last week with tax evasion. He was accused of failing to pay taxes on a $100,000 grant from Yale University earmarked for the legal research center of [...]
The US military will now be notifying the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) of the identities of suspected terrorist militants held in special operations camps in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a New York Times report . In a reversal of past Pentagon policy, the ICRC will now have the ability to obtain [...]
More than 200 people detained during last month's violent demonstrations in China's Xinjiang province will go on trial this week, Chinese state media reported Monday. The trials will take place in the Intermediate People's Court in Urumqi, the capital of the primarily Muslim region. The defendants will face charges ranging from vandalism to murder. Reports [...]
Afghan opposition candidate Abdullah Abdullah on Sunday alleged widespread voter fraud in last Thursday's presidential election. Abdullah said his campaign has filed more than 100 complaints with the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) alleging ballot stuffing, inflated vote counts, and intimidation at the polls by supporters of incumbent President Hamid Karzai . Meanwhile, election observers have [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Terry Turnipseed of Syracuse University College of Law says that the increasing frequency of adult adoption within same-sex partnerships as a means of ensuring the receipt of inheritances may have set in motion an irreversible legal freight train that won't stop until same-sex marriage is legalized in every state…. There is a [...]
More than 50,000 people gathered in the Mali capital of Bamako on Sunday to protest a law passed recently by the National Assembly to extend the rights of women. The new law gives women greater inheritance rights and increases the minimum age in marriage to 18 years old, among other things. Muslim leaders have been [...]
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) rapporteur Dick Marty on Friday called on European countries to show accountability for their role in assisting the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in using secret prisons . The statement follows reports that the CIA held high value terrorists in a secret prison in Lithuania. Marty called for [...]
A judge in the US District Court for the District of Columbia has granted lawyers for another Guantanamo Bay detainee permission to question Khalid Sheikh Mohammed , the self-proclaimed architect of the 9/11 attacks , in a ruling made public Thursday. Attorneys for Abdul Raheem Ghulam Rabbani will be allowed to submit narrow, written questions [...]
