JURIST Guest Columnist Haider Ala Hamoudi of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law says that a recent proposal to turn the contentious northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk into an independent federal regionate could be a starting point for further discussions that could meet the needs of Turkomen, Kurds and Arabs alike… Last week, in [...]
The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) Wednesday filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia against private security contractor Blackwater USA on behalf of an Iraqi man killed during a September 9 shooting in Baghdad. The lawsuit alleges that Blackwater guards fired indiscriminately into a crowd of civilians, [...]
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Wednesday rejected California's request for a waiver that would have allowed it and 16 other states following its lead to impose stricter greenhouse gas emissions standards on cars and light trucks. EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson told reporters that the White House prefers a single unified national standard to [...]
Fair elections in Pakistan are impossible as long as the judiciary remains beholden to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and scores of lawyers, activists and government critics remain in detention, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released Wednesday. The 84-page report details how the November 3 declaration of emergency has been used to cripple [...]
Three UK residents released Wednesday from Guantanamo Bay were detained by UK authorities when they arrived in the UK later in the day. Libyan Omar Deghayes and Algerian Abdennour Sameur were arrested and Jordanian Jamil el Banna was detained under the UK Terrorism Act . Deghayes and el-Banna may face extradition to Spain, although the [...]
A French court Wednesday sentenced five Frenchmen released from the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay to one year in prison for "criminal association with a terrorist enterprise" after a retrial. A sixth defendant was acquitted. The men were charged with allegedly attending combat training at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan. They were repatriated [...]
A Spanish anti-terrorism court Wednesday convicted 47 Basque separatists of either leading, being a member of, or collaborating with a "terrorist organization," and sentenced each to between 2 and 20 years in prison. The 47 were members of various groups pushing for Basque independence, but prosecutors argued that all had ties to terror group ETA [...]
A judge on the US District Court for the Western District of Kentucky ruled Tuesday that former Pfc. Steven D. Green will stand trial on April 13, 2009, for his role in the March 2006 rape and murder of a 14-year old Iraqi girl and the murder of her family in Mahmudiya. The 2009 trial [...]
The Indonesian Supreme Court has rejected the final appeal of three men sentenced to death for their roles in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings , an Indonesian prosecutor said Wednesday. The court's decision has not yet been formally released, but prosecutor Made Sudarmaja said Wednesday that his office has been notified of the court's decision. [...]
A court in Argentina on Tuesday convicted eight formal officials for human rights abuses committed during the 1976-83 Dirty War . The seven former army officers and a former police official were tried in connection with the kidnapping, torture and disappearances of a group of leftist guerrillas. Three defendants, including former Army chief Cristino Nicolaides, [...]
