[JURIST] The organizers of a Moscow Gay Pride parade that was denied a permit [JURIST report] in May by Moscow's mayor, and then when held anyway in protest was marred by anti-gay violence, are considering filing a lawsuit against the Moscow city government [official website, in Russian] in the European Court of Human Rights [official website]. Before any move to the international court, however, the organizers plan to file with the Russian Supreme Court [officail website], hoping that a move away from Moscow city courts, which have repeatedly upheld bans on the parade, would remove any bias in favor of Mayor Yuri Luzhkov [MosNews profile], who has vowed to never allow the parades as long as he is in power.

Although a Moscow city court had upheld the ban [JURIST report] on the parade beforehand, the parade was held as scheduled, but ended in violence when approximately 100 religious and nationalist extremists began to attack [Washington Post report] the gay rights activists. Additionally, approximately 200 gay rights supporters were arrested for defying the ban. Another Moscow court ruled in August that bans on such parades are legal [JURIST report], citing safety concerns. MosNews has more. Gay.com has additional coverage. GayRussia.ru has local advocacy coverage.

[JURIST] Former US Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) [Wikipedia profile] was sentenced Friday to 30 months imprisonment for receiving gifts and campaign contributions in exchange for political favors. Ney pleaded guilty [plea agreement, PDF; JURIST report] last October to conspiracy and making false statements in relation to his dealings with lobbyist Jack Abramoff [JURIST news archive]. In response to the political corruption scandal, the Republican congressman resigned from the US House of Representatives in November [Reuters report].

Ney's prison sentence will include two years of probation and a $6,000 fine. If he completes a prison alcohol rehabilitation program to address his recently-acknowledged alcohol abuse problem, his sentence could be reduced by up to a year. During sentencing proceedings, Ney's defense team provided evidence that he was a "functioning alcoholic" whose decision-making ability was clouded by his dependency on alcohol. US District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle [official profile] rejected the claim, asserting that it didn't fully explain his corrupt behavior or excuse violating laws he was "sworn to enforce and uphold." AP has more.

[JURIST] Members of a German parliamentary committee investigating the detention of German-born Turk Murat Kurnaz [Wikipedia profile] at Guantanamo Bay alleged Thursday that the government of German ex-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder [BBC profile] allowed him to remain a prisoner for years, even after US officials offered to release him into German custody. Kurnaz, arrested by US officials in Pakistan shortly after 9/11, was held at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] from 2002 to 2006; he was released this past August in response to repeated appeals to US authorities by current German Chancellor Angela Merkel [official website, in German; BBC profile].

Kurnaz has alleged he suffered abuse and torture [Deutsche Welle report] as a detainee at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. Various German party political leaders are calling for Schroeder to face the legal consequences of his alleged complicity in allowing Kurnaz to languish in the detention facility for so long. Schroeder's Social Democrat party rejects the allegations. Kurnaz's lawyer acknowledges that a Greens party official responded to the release offer in 2001, but Kurnaz's Turkish citizenship made it difficult for the government to arrange for his release. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The trial of 22-year-old Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil [advocacy website], who has been in detention since November on charges of insulting Islam and causing sectarian strife in his blog [website, in Arabic], has begun in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria. Nabil’s writings are often critical of Islamic authorities and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak [official profile], who he has described as a dictator. The charges read at the beginning of the trial on Thursday include inciting sedition, insulting Islam, harming national unity and insulting the president. If convicted, Nabil faces up to 9 years in prison.

While blogging has become common in Egypt over the past few years, Nabil’s supporters say that government repression and censorship has only become prevalent recently, as the US has begun to back away from political pressure for reforms. The first arrests of bloggers occurred in 2005, however all previous detentions have resulted in the bloggers being released without charges. Reporters Without Borders [advocacy website] has named Egypt an “Internet enemy” [report]. AP has more.

[JURIST] A jury in California could not reach a decision on the third of a series of questions on a verdict form in the consolidated cases of two men who blamed their heart attacks on the painkiller Vioxx [JURIST news archive], leading Judge Victoria Chaney [FindLaw profile] of the Superior Court of California for Los Angeles County [official website] to declare a mistrial Thursday. The jury could not determine whether the plaintiffs' physicians would have recognized possible risks and side-effects of the drug. The lawsuits, brought by Arizona resident Lawrence Appell of Arizona and California resident Rudolph Arrigale, claimed that Vioxx was a significant cause of the men's heart problems.

Vioxx manufacturer Merck Pharmaceuticals [corporate website], which withdrew the drug from the market [Merck announcement] in 2004 after research showed it doubled the risk of heart attacks and strokes, claimed that the men's heart problems were caused by pre-existing coronary heart disease, and not the drug. After the mistrial was declared, Merck announced that the plaintiffs did not prove their cases [press release], and that they were ready to defend against the allegations if they were brought fourth again. As of the end of last November, Merck faced 27,200 lawsuits over Vioxx and another 265 potential state-based class-action lawsuits. A federal judge rejected national class-action lawsuits in federal court [JURIST report] early in November. AP has more.

[JURIST] US District Judge Reggie B. Walton [official profile] has placed 10 more potential jurors on standby in the CIA leak trial [JURIST news archive] of former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby [defense website; JURIST news archive]. On Thursday the court still did not have a full jury pool and lacked six of the required 36 impartial jurors for final jury selection. Jury selection [JURIST report] began Tuesday and Walton had previously hoped to have a final 12-person jury selected by Thursday and commence opening statements on Monday, but too many of the original 60 jurors have been dismissed on the grounds that they could not set aside their views on the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. Opening statements have been postponed until Tuesday.

Libby is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice [indictment, PDF; JURIST report] in connection with the investigation into the leak of former CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. Libby's defense team has indicated that they plan to call [JURIST report] Libby's former boss, Vice President Dick Cheney [official website], to testify and that Libby also plans to take the witness stand himself. Walton has denied a request [JURIST report] from several news organizations seeking the daily release of audio recordings of arguments and testimony. AP has more.

[JURIST] Turkish-Armenian author Hrant Dink, journalist and editor of the newspaper Agos [media website, English version], was shot and killed Friday in Istanbul. Dink was one of several writers to have been charged recently with "insulting the Turkish identity" in violation of Article 301 [JURIST news archive; Amnesty International backgrounder] of Turkey's penal code. The controversial author had previously received death threats from Turkish nationalists for his writings concerning the killings of an estimated one million Ottoman Armenians [ANI backgrounder; Turkish DC Embassy backgrounder] in the early 20th century.

In October 2005, Dink was given a six-months suspended sentence [JURIST report], but his conviction was subsequently overturned by the chief prosecutor of the Appeals Court in February 2006, who ruled that Dink's remarks were in no way offensive. Dink was awaiting a retrial [JURIST report]. Other writers such as Turkish novelist Elif Shafak [personal website] and Orhan Pamuk [JURIST news archive] have all been charged under Article 301 for discussing the alleged Armenian genocide. Turkey, which hopes to join the EU, faces pressure from the EU that Article 301 be abolished [JURIST report] because it infringes upon the freedom of expression. BBC News has more. NTV-MSNBC has local coverage.

[JURIST] Speaker of the US House Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) [official website] committed House Democrats to joining the Senate Democrats Thursday in supporting nonbinding legislation declaring that "it is not in the national interest of the United States to deepen its military involvement in Iraq, particularly by escalating the United States military force presence in Iraq." Pelosi's statement matches a proposed bipartisan Senate resolution [text] to the same effect introduced by Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-DE) and co-sponsored by Senators Carl Levin (D-MI), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), and Olympia J. Snowe (R-ME) [official profiles]. AP has more.

On Wednesday, a blue-ribbon coalition of US constitutional law scholars sent a letter [PDF text] to the congressional leadership arguing that the constitutional authority vested in Congress "is more than ample for Congress to give legal effect to its will with respect to the troop increase." The letter states that Congress may "limit the scope of the present Iraq War" by directly defining limits such as "geographic restrictions" or "a ceiling on the number of troops" deployed for the conflict. Congress may also "[enact] appropriations restrictions that limit the use of appropriated funds." Republicans in Congress are expected to propose alternative legislation, although votes on either will not be expected until after President Bush's State of the Union address on January 23.

[JURIST] The Venezuelan National Assembly [official website, in Spanish] gave preliminary approval Thursday to a measure that would allow Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez [official website, in Spanish; BBC profile] to rule by decree for 18 months. The initial vote was unanimous and the measure is expected to pass easily next week when it comes up again in the Chavez-dominated legislature.

Since winning his third re-election late last year, Chavez has called for "revolutionary laws" to transform Venezuela [JURIST news archive] into a socialist state. He has announced plans to nationalize important sectors of the economy, including mining, telecommunications, natural gas and electricity. Chavez hopes to re-write the constitution [text] to abolish presidential term limits, allowing him to run for a fourth term in 2012. Another measure would eliminate the autonomy of the Central Bank [official website, in Spanish] authority and end foreign ownership of Venezuela's crude oil refineries, a major source of oil for the United States. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Rwandan cabinet has agreed to abolish capital punishment, the country's justice minister said Friday, clearing the way for the extradition of defendants facing trial for the 1994 Rwandan genocide [BBC report], during which over 800,000 people were killed. The ban must still be approved by parliament, but since the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) [Wikipedia backgrounder], the party of Rwandan President Paul Kagame [official website; BBC profile], controls both houses, the measure is expected to pass easily [JURIST report]. Rwandan Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama said Friday that the majority of Rwandans support scrapping the death penalty. If the ban is passed, the sentences of some 600 inmates already on death row would be commuted.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) [official website; JURIST news archive] and many Western countries have refused to extradite genocide suspects to Rwanda because of the country's use of the death penalty [JURIST news archive]. ICTR spokesman Everard O'Donnell said Thursday that the tribunal would extradite 17 genocide suspects to Rwanda [JURIST news archive] if the measure was approved. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The US Senate passed the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007 [PDF text; CRS summary] by a 96-2 vote [roll call] Thursday, but declined [roll call] to create a Senate Office of Public Integrity to investigate ethics breaches. The bill was the first major initiative taken by the Senate in the new Democrat-dominated session of Congress. The measure regulates lobbying activities [JURIST news archive] by preventing lawmakers from accepting gifts and travel from lobbyists, requiring stricter reporting of lobbying activity, preventing spouses of lawmakers from lobbying the Senate and extending the period a former senator must wait before undertaking lobbying activities to two years. The final text passed by the Senate, however, did not include a provision which would have required disclosure of grass-roots lobbying. Senators voted 55-43 not to include that provision in the bill.

The bill also requires clearer reporting of home state projects, denies pension benefits to those convicted of serious crimes and requires lawmakers to pay the full price fare when traveling on chartered planes. Opponents of the bill complained the measure discouraged free speech by deterring petition drives, but majority leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) [official website] called the measure "the most significant legislation in ethics and lobbying reform we've had in the history of this country." AP has more.

[JURIST] A second US soldier has reached a plea deal with prosecutors, and is expected to plead guilty to charges stemming from the rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl [JURIST news archive] and the murder of her family in the Mahmudiya (also "Mahmoudiya") area last March, his attorney announced Thursday. According to William Cassara, Sgt. Paul E. Cortez will plead guilty to rape and premeditated murder at a hearing at Fort Campbell next month. Cassara said Cortez will accept responsibility for what happened, claiming that he knew what was going to happen in the attack, and participated as an observer.

As a result of the plea deal, Cortez will no longer face the death penalty. While other details of the deal are as yet unknown, the US soldier who already reached a deal with prosecutors [JURIST report], Army Spc. James P. Barker, was sentenced to 90 years in prison [JURIST report], an effective life sentence, but with the possibility of parole. Barker himself agreed to testify against the other soldiers implicated [JURIST report] in the attack. Former US soldier Pfc. Steven D. Green [JURIST news archive], discharged from the military because of a personality disorder before the allegations arose, is said to have been the key player in the rape and murders, and has pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] in his civilian trial in federal court in Kentucky. It was recently revealed that 3 months before the attack, Green was diagnosed by military mental health workers as a homicidal threat [JURIST report]. AP has more.