[JURIST] US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in testimony on US Middle East policy Wednesday that House members should discontinue an effort to pass a resolution condemning the World War-I era mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide [HR 106 materials]. The committee approved the resolution [JURIST report] earlier this month and it is waiting to be brought to House floor, but support for the measure among House members seems to be waning [JURIST report]. Rice urged Congress not to pass the resolution, bearing in mind shared US strategic interests with Turkey, a key ally of the United States in the war in Iraq. She said passage would "severely harm" US-Turkish relations. President Bush has similarly urged lawmakers not to endorse the measure.

Turkey has long objected [JURIST comment] to any attempts to classify the Armenian killings as genocide. Several other countries - including France, Canada and Argentina - have nonetheless passed laws or resolutions [BBC backgrounder] to that effect. AFP has more.

[JURIST] US State Department security chief Richard Griffin [official profile] submitted his resignation Wednesday under pressure following September's Blackwater USA [corporate website; JURIST archive] shooting of 17 Iraqis, according to AP citing unnamed officials. Griffin is assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the branch that oversees private security firms; his resignation will be effective November 1. Before becoming State Department security chief in mid-2005, Griffin served as deputy director of the US Secret Service and inspector general for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Griffin's resignation falls just a day after the State Department implemented additional rules and procedures [press statement] governing the operation of private US security contractors that work with its personnel in Iraq. Private security guards must now train in cultural awareness and Arabic, and their use of force will be more strictly monitored. Also Wednesday the Iraqi cabinet endorsed the findings of Iraqi official investigators [AP report] that the Blackwater USA guards deliberately shot the Iraqi civilians who were killed [JURIST report]. The cabinet is now pushing for the security firm to be expelled from the country. AP has more.

[JURIST] Argentinean federal judge Claudio Bonadio Tuesday charged former president Fernando de la Rua [BBC profile] with five counts of manslaughter for failing to prevent the deaths of five demonstrators during 2001 confrontations with police in Buenos Aires. The deaths came during riots sparked by a national economic crisis [BBC report] that caused De la Rua to flee the presidential residence and eventually resign his office just two years into his term. The court has frozen $6.2 million of De la Rua's assets in response to the charges. De la Rua could face up to ten years in prison, although that may be reduced to house arrest due to his advanced age.

De la Rua's former security chief and seven former police officers have already been charged in connection with the riots. While De la Rua would be the first democratically elected Argentinean leader to face charges based on conduct while in office, military dictator and former president Reynaldo Bignone [Wikipedia profile] will soon stand trial [JURIST report] for the kidnapping of children of dissidents killed during Argentina's 1976-83 "Dirty War" [GlobalSecurity backgrounder; JURIST news archive]. Bignone was the last of a series of military dictators to hold ofice in Argentina after 1976 before democracy was re-established in 1983. BBC News has more. Mercopress has additional coverage.

[JURIST] US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testified [recorded video] Wednesday in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee [official website] that the rendition [JURIST news archive] of Canadian citizen Maher Arar [advocacy website; JURIST news archive] was not "handled as it should have been," but stopped short of apologizing to the 37 year-old Syrian-born engineer. Arar was detained in the US in 2002 after flying to New York from Tunisia on his way home to Ottawa after a holiday and later deported to Syria, where he was tortured. Rice added that the US government has told the Canadian government that it will "try to do better in the future." This is the first time that the US government has admitted any mistakes in its handling of Arar's case.

Last week Arar appeared before the same committee via video, accepting apologies from members of the committee [JURIST report] and expressing his hope that he would one day receive an official apology from the US government. The official Canadian investigation [official website] into Arar's rendition concluded that Canadian officials did not play a role [JURIST report] in the actual US decision to detain and deport Arar, but said that the US decision was "very likely" based on inaccurate, unfair and overstated information about Arar passed on by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Although Arar was cleared of any wrongdoing and received $10 million dollars and an official apology from the Canadian government as a settlement [JURIST report], the US has refused to remove Arar from its no-fly list, effectively barring him entering the US. CBC News has more.

[JURIST] The US District Court for the District of Alaska [official website] Tuesday ordered ConocoPhillips [corporate website] subsidiary Polar Tankers, Inc. to pay $2.5 million in fines after it pleaded guilty to covering up a 2004 oil spill. In January 2004, crew members of the Polar Discovery failed to report that that tanker had leaked oil sludge into the ocean off the Alaska coast, and maneuvered the vessel to hide evidence of the spill. On Tuesday, Polar Tankers entered a guilty plea for improper maintenance of the oil record book. Judge H. Russel Holland issued a criminal fine of $500,000, half of which was awarded to a whistleblowing crewmember. A community service fine of $2 million was assessed, to be paid to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation [advocacy website] for future cleanup efforts in the region.

The Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance [official website] said the sentence showed that violators of oil spill and marine protection laws [materials] will be held accountable. Polar Tankers was also placed on probation for three years. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Senate Wednesday confirmed embattled Mississippi Court of Appeals Justice Leslie H. Southwick [official profile; nomination information] to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit by a vote of 59-38 [roll call], despite broad criticism of the nominee from Democrats and civil rights groups. Southwick, who was unanimously given the highest possible rating of "well qualified" [ratings, PDF] by the American Bar Association, has in the past been accused of being insensitive to racism and homophobia. Republicans had promised earlier this year that delays in Southwick's confirmation would result in their moving to shut down Senate business [JURIST report].

Of the nine Democrats who joined Republicans in supporting Southwick, several were members of the so called "Gang of 14" [JURIST report], who in 2005 avoided a filibuster showdown over several controversial confirmation hearings when Republicans controlled the Senate. Independent Joseph Lieberman (ID-CT) [official website], a member of the Democratic side of the "Gang" in 2005, defended his vote to confirm Southwick, noting that Southwick did not write the court opinions in decisions that were criticized, and that Southwick consistently applied the proper appellate standards of review [press release] in his tenure on the Mississippi court. Bloomberg has more. Reuters has additional coverage.

[JURIST] Protesters in 12 cities around the world demonstrated against the Myanmar junta Wednesday to commemorate 12 years of detention [press release] for Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi [BBC profile; JURIST news archive]. The protests coincided with an increase in international attention on Myanmar following the junta's violent September crackdown against anti-junta demonstrators, and came a day after the United Nations announced that Myanmar will allow UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari to revisit the country several weeks earlier than previously planned [UN report]. On Monday, Myanmar said it will also allow UN Human Rights Investigator Paulo Sergio Pinheiro to visit, lifting a ban against him that had been in place since 2003 [JURIST report].

The Myanmar military junta said earlier this month that Suu Kyi [personal website] would likely not be released from house arrest [JURIST report] until a new constitution for the country is approved. Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy, has spent 11 of the past 17 years in prison or under house arrest for alleged violations of an anti-subversion law [text]. AP has more.

[JURIST] Microsoft [corporate website; JURIST news archive] announced Wednesday that it has withdrawn its last two appeals [press release] of a European Union antitrust ruling [text; EU materials] requiring the software giant to share technical information with competitors. The software giant dropped an appeal of the €280.5 million fine imposed on it in July 2006 for antitrust violations and a second appeal of a European Commission order that the company license its programs to open source systems like Linux. On Monday, the European Commission [official website] said that Microsoft had agreed to take the necessary steps [JURIST report] to comply with its ruling by allowing open source software developers to access and use interoperability information and by reducing the royalties for a worldwide license.

Last month the European Court of First Instance upheld [text] the European Commission's 2004 landmark ruling [JURIST report] against Microsoft's appeal [JURIST report] of the $613 million fine and order for Microsoft to share its communications code with competitors. The court agreed with the Commission that Microsoft had abused its monopoly power [JURIST report] in the computer market by trying to force consumers into buying Microsoft software, noting that selling media software with its Windows operating system damaged European competitors. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Canadian government introduced a bill [S-3 text] Tuesday that would revive two controversial anti-terrorism provisions of the Anti-terrorism Act [materials] that expired earlier this year. The bill, brought forward in the Senate, would force anyone with relevant information on terrorist actions to go before a judge and would allow police to detain any person thought to be planning an attack. Several safeguards have been added to the provisions, including the requirement that police demonstrate to a judge that they have exhausted all other means before asking for an investigative hearing.

On Monday, the Canadian government also introduced [JURIST report] a new bill on security certificates [PSC backgrounder] in response to a February Supreme Court decision [text] that gave it one year to re-write existing law or have it voided as unconstitutional. Security certificates allow the Canadian government to detain and deport foreign terrorist suspects in private hearings without the presence of the suspects or their lawyers. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled [opinion text] in February that the government's use of security certificates violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms [text; CDCH materials]. The Globe and Mail has more.

[JURIST] Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] Wednesday slammed Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf [official website] for threatening and intimidating the Supreme Court of Pakistan [official website] in the days leading up to the court's decision on petitions challenging Musharraf's bid for re-election as improper due to his dual role as president and army chief. In a statement [press release], HRW said:

The Pakistani government should end attempts to intimidate the country's Supreme Court as it hears legal challenges to General Pervez Musharraf's controversial October 6 re-election...

Musharraf should publicly state that he will accept the decision of the Supreme Court and withdraw the threat of martial law...The government is attempting to frighten the judiciary into submission and is holding Pakistan, its constitution and its people hostage to Musharraf's desire to cling to power.

[JURIST] The US House Committee on Foreign Affairs [official website] voted Tuesday in favor of the Global Online Freedom Act of 2007 [HR 275 materials], a bill aimed at preventing US Internet companies from turning over users' personal information to governments that would use the data to quash dissent. The bill would create a right for individuals to sue companies that disclose information to foreign regimes and also mandate that Internet service providers report restrictions imposed on them by foreign nations. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), the bill's sponsor, said Tuesday that the legislation will strengthen US efforts to ensure online freedom [press release]. The bill must still be approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee [official website] before it can go before the full House.

The bill was introduced as a reaction to allegations that Yahoo! Inc. [corporate website] had handed over information to China that led to the arrest and sentencing of writer Li Zhi. The House Foreign Affairs committee last week summoned [JURIST report] Yahoo! chief executive Jerry Yang to testify before a hearing next month regarding allegations that the Internet giant gave false information to Congress about its role in human rights violations committed by the Chinese government. In April, the World Organization for Human Rights USA [advocacy website] filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] against Yahoo! on behalf of an incarcerated Chinese activist, alleging that the company aided and abetted human rights violations by providing Chinese officials with information, including e-mail records and user ID numbers, that helped them to identify pro-democracy activists. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Spanish anti-terror judge Baltasar Garzon [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] issued indictments for 22 people on charges of participating in or collaborating with a terrorist organization that recruits fighters to aid al Qaeda in Iraq, the Spanish National Court said Tuesday. According to prosecutors, those recruited are sent to Egypt to learn Arabic and religion before being sent to Iraq to take part in terror attacks by way of a network of cells in Saudi Arabia and Syria. France is currently detaining six men for participating in a similar scheme.

Among those indicted in Spain is Omar Nackhcha, the suspected head of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat [Council on Foreign Relations backgrounder], who is also accused of helping those involved in the 2004 Madrid train bombings [JURIST news archive] avoid prosecution. AP has more.

[JURIST] The highest court in New York state Tuesday narrowly ruled [opinion, PDF] against overturning state precedent holding the state's death penalty law unconstitutional. Urged to create an exception for a man who murdered five people at a Queens Wendy's in May 2000, the New York Court of Appeals upheld by 4-3 its 2004 decision in People v. LaValle [PDF text] that had rejected New York's death penalty "jury deadlock" instructions as unconstitutional, holding that a trial court's instruction that the jury must unanimously vote in favor of the death penalty or risk allowing a sentence where the defendant could eventually be released on parole contained a coercive element. The court wrote that:

the death penalty sentencing statute is unconstitutional on its face and it is not within our power to save the statute. LaValle is thus entitled to full precedential value. The Legislature, mindful of our State's due process protections, may reenact a sentencing statute that is free of coercion and cognizant of a jury's need to know the consequences of its choice.

[JURIST] Amnesty International [advocacy website] released a 58-page report [text] Wednesday criticizing the two main Palestinian political factions, Hamas [BBC backgrounder] and Fatah [BBC backgrounder], for political violence in the Gaza Strip [BBC backgrounder] and West Bank that has destroyed the lives of hundreds of civilians and led to human rights abuses, including illegal detention and torture. The report recognized the weakness of Palestinian institutions to stop the internecine violence, but insisted that the circumstances of the Israeli occupation and repeated attacks by Israel on Palestinian targets had also been used as excuses for inaction:

The lawlessness which has increasingly gripped the West Bank and Gaza Strip in recent years, culminating in the unprecedented inter-factional violence which occurred in the first half of 2007, is to a large extent the result of the prolonged and systematic failure of the PA [Palestinian Authority] to uphold and enforce the law, to curb the proliferation of unlicensed weapons in the hands of private individuals and groups, and to hold both armed groups and members of the PA security forces who commit human rights abuses accountable for their crimes. Lawlessness has been stimulated by an increasingly entrenched climate of impunity, which has served only to fuel abuses and to bring the PA’s law enforcement and judicial institutions and mechanisms into disrepute within the wider Palestinian community they are supposed to serve.

Amnesty International recognizes that the PA’s ability to fulfill its law-enforcement and administration of justice duties has been severely constrained by outside factors resulting from the ongoing Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including repeated attacks by the Israeli army against PA security installations and other institutions and restrictions imposed by Israel on the movement and operational capability of the PA security forces in the areas under the PA jurisdiction. Notwithstanding this reality, the organization believes that the PA has too often used these constraints as a pretext to justify its lack of political will and its failure to act against Palestinian armed groups and powerful interest groups responsible for serious crimes – whether against other Palestinians or against Israeli civilians and foreigners.

[JURIST] The number of names on the US terror watch list [FBI FAQ] has increased to over 755,000, according to a new report [PDF text; highlights, PDF] by the US Government Accountability Office [official website] slated to be the focus of a Wednesday hearing [notice] in the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. The GAO report noted that "within the federal community, there is general agreement that the watch list has helped to combat terrorism," but said that:

some subjects of watch list records have passed undetected through agency screening processes and were not identified, for example, until after they had boarded and flew on an aircraft or were processed at a port of entry and admitted into the United States. TSC and other federal agencies have ongoing initiatives to help reduce these potential vulnerabilities, including efforts to improve computerized name-matching programs and the quality of watch list data.

[JURIST] The UN Security Council [official website] expressed deep concern Tuesday about violence against women which has "remained pervasive despite [the Security Council's] repeated condemnation of all acts of violence, including killing, maiming, sexual violence, exploitation and abuse in situations of armed conflict." During a day-long debate on women, peace, and security [press release], the Council called for nations to end impunity for rape [JURIST report] and other forms of sexual violence and to fully and effectively implement Resolution 1325 [text, PDF], which aims to increase the participation of women in peace processes. More than 50 speakers participated in the debate, including Assistant Secretary-General Rachel Mayanja [UN profile], who called impunity for perpetrators "morally reprehensible and unacceptable." Mayanja said: "Sexual violence in conflict, particularly rape, should be named for what it is: not a private act or the unfortunate misbehavior of a renegade soldier, but aggression, torture, war crime and genocide."

In September 2006, UN humanitarian coordinator Jan Egeland [official profile] told the Security Council that sexual abuse of women and girls by soldiers in the strife-torn Democratic Republic of Congo [JURIST news archive] had "become a cancer in Congolese society that seems to be out of control." A July 2005 report prepared at the instance of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights [official website] criticized the Sudanese government [JURIST report] for its inaction in allowing sexual violence in the turbulent Darfur region [JURIST news archive] to continue and for the lack of prosecutions against government supported forces accused in the attacks. UN officials continue to document violations [JURIST report] in those regions and many others. AP has more. The UN News Centre has additional coverage.

[JURIST] Thousands of Venezuelan students on Tuesday protested the proposed constitutional reforms [JURIST report] advanced by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] which are currently under consideration in the Venezuelan National Assembly [official website, in Spanish]. On Saturday, the National Assembly approved a proposal to eliminate presidential term limits [AFP report, in Spanish], and a provision that would allow the president to suspend civil liberties during a state of emergency is still under debate. Police clashed with the students and blocked them from approaching the National Assembly, although a group of protesters was permitted to enter and present a list of concerns to the parliament.

The university students have joined a growing group of critics [JURIST report] who claim that the constitutional reforms will undermine democracy and violate international human rights law [HRW press release]. Members of the opposition have accused Chavez [JURIST report] of using the constitutional reforms to consolidate his power, and even the pro-government party Podemos [party website] has characterized some of the amendments as unconstitutional. The reforms must pass a national referendum, expected to be held on December 2, before they become law. AP has more. IPS has local coverage, in Spanish.