The newly appointed UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Thursday urged the military-led government of Myanmar to release its remaining political prisoners as she called attention to "unjust or inappropriate" detentions worldwide. Navanethem (Navi) Pillay , who took office last month, said during a news conference that Myanmar continues to incarcerate an estimated 2,000 [...]
Lawyers for private US military contractor CACI International filed a motion Thursday to dismiss a torture lawsuit against the company based on a claim of immunity. In July, four former detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison filed lawsuits against CACI and L-3 Communications , which performed interrogation and interpretation work for the US military, alleging [...]
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is preparing to implement a new regulation that relaxes restrictions on issuing US visas to HIV-positive visitors. The regulation allows HIV-positive foreigners seeking to visit the US to receive temporary, non-immigrant visas without undergoing an individualized waiver process. In announcing the change , Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff [...]
Canadian government accountability group Democracy Watch brought a lawsuit on Thursday, seeking to postpone the country's parliamentary elections scheduled for October 14. The group argues that the elections, proposed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper , would violate a 2007 amendment to the Canada Elections Act. Under the amendment, the next election would be held in [...]
A court of appeals in The Hague on Thursday extended prison terms for four Dutch terror suspects convicted in 2006 for planning attacks against Dutch politicians and government facilities after finding them guilty of an additional charge of membership in a terrorist organization. The court agreed with evidence that they shared a single belief system [...]
A US Army soldier pleaded guilty Thursday to accessory to murder in connection with the killings of four unarmed Iraqi prisoners west of Baghdad last year. Specialist Steven Ribordy, formerly a member of the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry , testified at his court-martial that he stood at his post and watched as other members of [...]
The trial of former Yugoslav army chief of staff and general Momcilo Perisic began Thursday at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague. The trial was scheduled to commence Wednesday but was postponed due to a procedural glitch in the naming of judges; it was restarted after the court received [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) Wednesday called on the Ethiopian government to release rendition victims in custody or prosecute them in an open court that meets basic fair trial standards. The renditions were the result of a US-backed Ethiopian military intervention in neighboring Somalia in late 2006 in support of efforts by Somalia's Transitional Federal Government [...]
Former Polish leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski testified Thursday at the resumption of his trial that he had no choice but to impose martial law on Poland in 1981. Jaruzelski, who is charged with "organizing crimes of a military nature," among other offenses, read from a 200-page statement : I constantly state that martial law saved [...]
The US Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear 10 cases , including two implicating the land rights of Native peoples, during its term that begins next week. In Hawaii, et al. v. Office of Hawaiian Affairs, et al. (07-1372) , the court will consider whether a congressional resolution acknowledging the 100th anniversary of the [...]
