[JURIST] The Constitutional Court of the German state of Bavaria [official website, in German] Monday upheld [press release, in German] a 2004 state law [BBC report] which bans teachers from wearing religious headscarves [JURIST news archive]. An Islamic religious group had sued the state claiming the law was unconstitutional under the Bavarian state constitution [text] because it eliminated Muslim symbols from the classroom yet still allowed Christian and Jewish images to be displayed. Officials speaking for the state argued the ban was valid because as opposed to the cross and other religious markings, the headscarf is worn only by women and thus its wearing mitigated against gender equality as guaranteed under the constitution.

Headscarves have been the topic of fierce debate in Germany since teacher Fereshta Ludin [Pluralism Project backgrounder] filed suit after being denied a job in Stuttgart in 1998. Ludin argued that the German constitution guaranteed her right to wear the headscarf. A federal German court ruled in September 2003 [BBC report] that under then-current laws, she was correct, but it also noted that individual states could pass laws banning the headwear. Since then, eight German states have implemented such bans, including most recently the state of North-Rhine Westphalia [DW report]. Deutsche Welle has more.

In related news Monday, Egyptian minister of religious endowments minister Hamdy Zaqzuq has said that he has forbidden women working as religious counselors from wearing face veils, because it was custom, not religion-based, to do so. His statements came the same day he had a woman removed from a training session [Demaz report] for wearing the face veil. Zaqzuq said that those who continued to wear the full veil would no longer act as religious counselors and would instead assume administrative positions within the ministry. AFP has more.

[JURIST] Former Burundi President Domitien Ndayizeye [BBC profile] and four others were acquitted by the Supreme Court of Burundi [official website] Monday on charges of attempting a coup [JURIST report] and planning to assassinate current President Pierre Nkurunziza [Wikipedia profile]. Two other accused, Alain Mugabarabona and Tharcisse Ndayishimiye, were convicted and sentenced to jail on similar charges. Mugabarabona, the leader of the small National Liberation Forces (FNL) Hutu political party, allegedly masterminded the plot [IOL report]. After his arrest in August [JURIST report], he told radio stations [JURIST report] that he was tortured by the Burundi police and intelligence bureau Documentation Nationale and threatened with death if he did not admit that a coup plot existed. He claimed he was coerced into making false statements incriminating other alleged conspirators, including Ndayizeye and former Vice-President Alphonse-Marie Kadege. AFP has more. BBC has additional coverage

Nkurunziza, elected in August 2005 after a series of peace talks [BBC report] between the majority Hutus and the minority Tutsis, was the first president of Burundi to be democratically elected since the beginning of an ethnic civil war 12 years ago [Global Security backgrounder]. The war was sparked by the assassination of the country's first democratically elected Hutu president in 1993 and has since wracked Burundi, one of the world's poorest countries.

[JURIST] The United States observed a federal holiday [official website] Monday in honor of slain civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. [King Center profile], remembered for his leadership of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Courts, government offices, and many public universities were closed as tributes to King were held throughout the country.

Monday's commemoration [backgrounder] marked the first Martin Luther King Jr. Day since the death [JURIST report] of King's widow Coretta Scott King [King Center profile] last January. CBS News has more.

[JURIST] The House of Representatives in Nepal [JURIST news archive] adopted the country's draft interim constitution [eKantipur highlights; JURIST news archive] Monday following its approval by the Nepalese cabinet [JURIST report] on Sunday. The interim constitution simultaneously provides for the dissolution of the current House of Representatives and the creation of an interim parliament which will include twenty-five percent of seats held by former Maoist insurgents. The new representative body faces the tasks of drafting a permanent constitution and resolving the status of King Gyanendra [official profile] and the Nepalese monarchy.

Nepalese government negotiators and Maoist rebels reached an agreement [JURIST report] on the 168 articles of the interim constitution to replace Nepal's current constitution [text] in December following the end of the Maoist guerilla insurgency against the Nepalese government that began in 1996 and left over 13,000 people dead. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] New rules intended to combat illegal immigration [JURIST news archive] went into force in Russia [JURIST news archive] Monday. The rules set harsher penalties for businesses that employ illegal migrants, restrict border crossings, amend the Criminal Code, limit the duration of visas distributed to certain nationalities, and increase reporting requirements [Voice of Russia press release] to the Russian Federal Migration Service [official website, in Russian] for employers. Meanwhile, officials have simplified protocols for citizens of most former Soviet republics seeking the rights to live and work in Russia.

In October Russian President Vladimir Putin [official profile] called for [speech text, JURIST report] tougher measures to crack down on illegal immigrants, prompting Russian immigration officials to propose the stricter migrant provisions. Some experts claim Russia's immigration crackdown is a reaction [BBC report] to ongoing difficulties [RIA Novosti report] with the neighboring Georgian Republic [official backgrounder]. AP has more.

[JURIST] A Moroccan editor and journalist were both convicted Monday of insulting the Islamic religion in a 10-page article about religious jokes [BBC backgrounder] published in a Moroccan newspaper in early December. Journalist Sanaa al-Aji and Driss Ksikes, editor of Nichane [media website, in Arabic] weekly, were given suspended sentences of three years, fined $9,280 each, and are prohibited from engaging in any journalistic activity for two months. Prosecutors had asked the court to impose much harsher 3-5 year prison terms, but the pair said they still plan to appeal the sentences they did receive.

Moroccan Prime Minister Driss Jettou [Wikipedia profile] banned Nichane on December 21 after complaints began to surface on an Islamist website, and the trial against the two accused began a short time later. The National Press Union of Morocco and media rights group Reporters Without Borders [advocacy group] voiced their opposition to the trial [press release], insisting that Morocco was backtracking on efforts to lift media restrictions over the past few years. AP has more.

[JURIST] Former Saddam-era Revolutionary Court judge Awad Hamed al-Bandar [Wikipedia profile] and former Iraqi intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti [GlobalSecurity profile; BBC profile], sentenced to death [JURIST report] with Saddam Hussein in November in connection with crimes against humanity committed in the town of Dujail in 1982, were executed before dawn Monday at an Iraqi military facility in Baghdad. As shown by official video shown to reporters afterwards by the Iraqi government [Reuters report], Tikriti suffered decapitation in the hanging, a result generally caused by allowing too long a drop for the victim [Reuters backgrounder]. Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh nonetheless said afterwards that the execution had proceeded properly, explaining [Reuters report] in reference to the prior unruly hanging of Hussein captured on a cell phone camera that "the convicts were not subjected to any mistreatment. Their rights were not violated. There was no chanting."

The executions came despite intense last-minute efforts by defense lawyers [JURIST report; additional report] and international leaders and activists opposed to the death penalty - including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [JURIST report] - to have them stopped. Defense lawyer Giovanni di Stefano, who met several times with the defendants while they were still in detention at US Camp Cropper earlier this month, told [statement] JURIST by e-mail after the hangings Monday that as late as Sunday afternoon "it was more than clear that no executions would occur until at least 25th January 2007." Before leaving Baghdad for his office in Rome and after having filed a petition of commutation [DOC] with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani he said he also "spoke with the US military and made [it] clear that if there was to be any execution I wanted to exercise my rights - as requested by my clients - to be present. It was unlikely there would be any executions until the 30 days had passed, was the information given to me" [IHT application to attend execution, DOC]. Di Stefano insisted that in the circumstances, the execution of his clients was criminal:

Since the executions were carried during a period that (a) was pending a decision from President Talabani whether to commute or not and (b) during the 30 days period in accordance with para. 266 [of the Iraqi Law on Criminal Proceedings] and (c) not in my presence the said executions are deemed an act of murder. It is for these reasons that I have requested the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court to open an investigation into the events against Maliki personally and members of the Iraqi Government that authorised the said executions during the said period.

Saddam Hussein and his aides should certainly have been held to account for the horrific human rights crimes committed by his government but this should have been through a fair trial process and without recourse to the death penalty. Reports that Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti had his head severed during the hanging only emphasis the brutality of this already cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment

The United States and Iraqi government carried out the summary, arbitrary and extra-judicial executions of Mr. Barzan al-Tikriti and Judge Awad Hamad al-Bandar. The executions were carried out in violations of international law and constitute a violation of the right to life and a war crime under international law because they were carried out after a trial that every independent expert that examined it called an unfair trial. On 1 September 2006, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, who had examined the trial for two years gave a final opinion calling the trial unfair and a violation of international law.

If the international community is to restore confidence in the rule of law in Iraq it must prosecute the individual responsible for the international crime of aggression against the Iraqi people and those who participated in providing the defendants in the Dujail trial an intentionally unfair trial. Only by calling for such prosecutions and ensuring they take place can the international community begin to restore trust in the rule of law. Failure to do so will send a clear message to vulnerable people everywhere who have been subjected to United States' aggression that they cannot depend on the rule of law to stop the United States and its collaborators from violating their most basic human rights and require these people to take the law into their own hands and take all necessary measures to end these illegal actions.

I am opposed to capital punishment under all circumstances. In this particular case, not only is the penalty irremediable, it may also make it more difficult to have a complete judicial accounting of other, equally horrendous, crimes committed in Iraq.

Those responsible for serious human rights violations must be brought to justice, and this is crucial for effective national reconciliation. But, to be credible and durable, the fight against impunity must be based on respect for international human rights standards and the rule of law, and must not come at their expense.

[JURIST] Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev [BBC profile] approved several new amendments to the country's new constitution [constitutional materials, in Kyrgyz] Monday, returning key powers to the presidency, including the right to appoint cabinet officials. The new constitutional amendments pushed through parliament at his urging contradict the aims of a compromise [JURIST report] reached in November which led to the adoption of a new constitution [JURIST report] restricting presidential authority. The parliament of Kyrgyzstan [JURIST news archive; BBC backgrounder] first rejected and then approved the latest constitutional amendments December 30 after Bakiyev threatened to dissolve the parliament if its members rejected the constitutional changes a second time.

Bakiyev ascended to power [JURIST report] in 2005 during the so-called Tulip Revolution [Wikipedia backgrounder] during which former president Askar Akayev [BBC profile] resigned [JURIST report] amid charges of corruption and abuse of office. AP has more.

[JURIST] US Vice President Dick Cheney [official website] Sunday defended the Pentagon and CIA's review of banking and credit records [JURIST report] of hundreds of American citizens suspected of ties to terror groups, calling it a "perfectly legitimate activity" in an interview [transcript] with Fox News Sunday. Cheney said the authority of the US Department of Defense [official website] to review such records "goes back three or four decades" and was reaffirmed by the USA Patriot Act [JURIST news archive]. He also noted that institutions which receive national security letters ordering the release of personal records with no accompanying judicial approval are "free to go to court to try to stop [their] execution."

Meanwhile, US Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) [official website] released a statement Sunday promising a thorough investigation into the government's use of individuals' banking and credit records. As the new chairman of the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee [official website], Reyes said a panel will determine whether the current practices are in full compliance with the US Constitution and the law. AP has more.

[JURIST] An Italian judge has thrown out some tax fraud and false accounting charges against former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] because the statute of limitations has expired. Berlusconi and co-defendant David Mills [Guardian profile] will no longer have to face tax fraud and accounting charges related to events before the end of 1998 and fraud charges prior to July 1999. The charges stemmed from allegations [JURIST report] that, in deals struck between 1994 to 1999, Berlusconi's media empire Mediaset [corporate website] falsely reported broadcast royalties paid for US films, thus avoiding taxes totaling 125 billion old lire.

Charges against Berlusconi from 1999 still stand and prosecutors only have until November 2007 to complete the current trial against the former prime minister. Berlusconi has faced numerous criminal trials, but has never been found guilty. In September 2005 he was cleared of false accounting charges and in June 2005 he was acquitted on bribery charges [JURIST reports]. AFP has more.