The Afghan journalism student who was sentenced to death in January for distributing papers questioning gender roles under Islamic practice will be provided the right to appeal his death sentence in open court, an Afghanistan Supreme Court justice told London's Independent on Monday. Sayad Parwez Kambaksh was convicted of blasphemy for distributing papers questioning why [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Peter Erlinder of William Mitchell College of Law, lead defense counsel for former Major Aloys Ntabakuze in the Military 1 Trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and president of the UN-ICTR Defense Lawyers Association, says that recently issued French and Spanish international war crimes warrants and new evidence at [...]
Former Guatemalan Police Director German Chupina, one of eight high ranking government and military officers charged in Spain with genocide, torture, and other crimes against humanity, died Sunday at the age of 86. In December, a Guatemalan court ruled that the eight men, including former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, could not be extradited to Spain, [...]
Pakistan held rescheduled parliamentary elections Monday, after a month-long postponement following the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto . Final tallies are expected in the next few days, although initial results suggest some gains by opposition parties, which have voiced concerns over potential large-scale fraud. BBC News Monday reported several incidents of voting irregularities [...]
Incarcerated former Yukos executive and lawyer Vasily Aleksanian has been kept chained to his bed since his transfer to a Moscow hospital for medical treatment earlier this month, his lawyer said Monday. Aleksanian was initially denied medical transfer by Russian authorities, despite three calls from the European Court of Human Rights to move Aleksanian to [...]
Control orders imposing restrictions on uncharged suspects under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 should not exceed two years in duration except under extraordinary circumstances, the UK's counter-terrorism law ombudsman said in his third annual report Monday. Lord Carlile of Berriew found that the current system of control orders is "a justifiable and proportional safety [...]
The United States and several key European Union powers formally recognized Kosovo as a sovereign state Monday, one day after the Assembly of Kosovo unilaterally declared Kosovo's independence from Serbia. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice issued a statement on behalf of the United States which "formally recognized Kosovo as a sovereign and independent state," [...]
Morten Messerschmidt : "Since the terrorist attack against the United States in 2001 all Western countries have reinforced their legal armoury in the fight against Islamic terror. In Denmark this amongst other measures led to a strengthening of our immigration laws in 2002, especially regarding the administrative possibilities of expulsion. In accordance with international law [...]
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour on Sunday criticized Nepal for failing to hold military and government officials accountable for human rights abuses. Arbour spoke on the anniversary of the 2004 death of a 15-year-old-girl who died during an interrogation by the Nepalese Army, characterizing the government's failure to effectively prosecute military officers [...]
A tentative agreement between the Israeli government and Hamas for the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit has been hindered by disagreements over the identity of the Palestinian prisoners to be released in exchange for Shalit, Israeli Army Radio reported Monday. Hamas is demanding the release of 350 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Israel [...]
