[JURIST] German lawmakers this weekend proposed that EU justice ministers consider at their next meeting a Europe-wide ban on display of Nazi insignia. The call came in response to outrage [AP report; Anti-Defamation League press release] after Britain's Prince Harry [official website] wore a Nazi swastika [Wikipedia article] armband to a costume party [Sun photo] last week. Silvana Koch-Merin [official website in German], head of Germany's Free Democrats in the European Parliament, stated, "All of Europe has suffered in the past because of the crimes of the Nazis, therefore it would be logical for Nazi symbols to be banned all over Europe...." Similar sentiments were expressed by other German politicians. While Germany abides by a 1945 law banning Nazi symbols nation-wide, an all-EU ban might prove difficult to pass, as many countries allow such displays under the protection of free speech principles. Harry has apologized for his action. From Germany, Deutsche Welle has more.

[JURIST] Iraqis reacting Sunday to Saturday's sentencing of US Army Spc. Charles Graner [JURIST report] for abusing Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad were mostly critical of his ten year sentence, five years short of the legal maximum. But while a number suggested that death or even similarly-torturous treatment would have been a more fitting punishment, more were unfamiliar with the trial, little-covered in the Iraqi press, and were distracted by more pressing local concerns, such as security, shortages, and the upcoming Iraqi elections. Reuters has more. Even as Iraqi officials announced new security measures [AP report] for the January 30 vote, including possible curfews and driving bans, the already-troubled electoral situation in the northern city of Mosul [Wikipedia article] took a turn for the worse when the head of the local election commission there fled after being accused of embezzlement. From Baghdad, Azzaman [newspaper website in Arabic] has local coverage of the story in English.

[JURIST] The first Kuwaiti to be freed from the US terror suspect detention camp at Guantanamo Bay [Joint Task Force Guantanamo official website] arrived home in Kuwait Sunday, where he was taken into custody for questioning. Nasser al-Mutairi [Cageprisoners.com profile], a 28-year old former employee of the Kuwait Ministry of Education, was met by family and then held for debriefing. He was captured by US in the wake of operations in Afghanistan in 2001. No charges against him are expected to be laid. Read the US Defense Department press statement on al-Mutairi's release. There are eleven other Kuwaitis among the approximately 550 detainees still held by the US at Guantanamo. Reuters has more. For more information on Kuwaiti prisoners at Guantanamo, visit Project Kuwaiti Freedom [advocacy website], sponsored by the Kuwaiti Family Committee.

[JURIST] The US Sunday released approximately 80 Afghan detainees from custody at Bagram airbase [GlobalSecurity.org backgrounder] north of Kabul and delivered them to the Afghan Supreme Court, where officials put them on buses home. The detainees were taken in after the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001. The US is currently holding about 500 Afghans at Bagram and at another US base in Kandahar; human rights groups have repeatly complained about US treatment of Afghan detainees [Human Rights Watch open letter to US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, December 2004] at those facilities. Pentagon officials have said that eight Afghan prisoners have died in US custody since 2002. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] Thousands of Russians, many of them pensioners, marched in several major cities Saturday continuing four days week of protests against the Putin government's repeal of a Soviet-era social benefits law and its replacement by a program of minimal monthly payments. Under the old law, formally repealed January 1, some 32 million Russian pensioners, veterans and people with disabilities had received free public transportation and subsidies for housing, prescriptions, telephones and other basic services. The new law, passed by the Russian State Duma in August [Russia Journal report], has abolished these and replaced them with small monthly cash payments starting as low as $7/month. The demonstrations are the largest since Putin became Russian president in 2000 and cloud the prospects of other legislative reforms involving banking, housing and electricity. State legislators speculate that Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov [official profile in Russian] and his cabinet could be dismissed [MosNews report] in the wake of the protests. The New York Times has more. From Moscow, MosNews provides local coverage.