Former Bangladesh minister sentenced to 7 years for corruption News
Former Bangladesh minister sentenced to 7 years for corruption

[JURIST] A court in Bangladesh Thursday sentenced former state minister for communications Salahuddin Ahmed to seven years in prison on corruption charges. Ahbed was arrested in February 2007 and found guilty of accepting a bribe for a business contract. The arrest comes one day after Tarique Rahman [party profile, in Bengali], the elder son of former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia [UN profile] who also faces corruption charges [JURIST report], said that he was tortured during questioning in police custody.

The current interim government in Bangladesh has arrested over 150 high-profile citizens since the military-backed government declared a state of emergency [JURIST report; AHRC backgrounder] in January 2007 over concerns that fraud would mar scheduled national elections. Zia has been charged with corruption [JURIST report], and her rival, former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed [party profile] has been charged by Bangladesh's anti-corruption commission [governing statute, PDF] with six counts of murder, corruption, and most recently, bribery [JURIST reports]. Hasina went on trial [JURIST report] in December 2007 on one of two charges [Reuters report] that she extorted around $1.16 million from two businessmen. BBC News has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

US suffragists formed Equal Rights Party, named Presidential candidate

On September 20, 1884, a group of American suffragists formed the Equal Rights Party in San Francisco, dedicated to "equal and exact justice to every class of our citizens, without distinction of color, sex, or nationality" and in support of the proposition that "the laws of the several states be so amended that women will be recognized as voters, and their property-rights made equal with that of the male population, to the end that they may become self-supporting - rather than a dependent class." Read the full text of the first platform of the Equal Rights Party. The party immediately nominated Mrs. Belva Lockwood for US President and Marietta Snow for Vice-President. Grover Cleveland won that election, but Lockwood was included in a number of presidential primaries and is recorded to have won some 4149 votes from the male voters of the time.

Catholic Church tries Galileo for heresy

On September 20, 1633, the Roman Catholic Church tried Galileo Galilei on charges of heresy. Galileo was brought before the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith for his assertion that the Earth orbits the Sun. He was sentenced to spend the rest of his life under house arrest. Read documents from the trial of Galileo.

Suffragists formed Equal Rights Party, named Presidential candidate

On September 20, 1884, a group of suffragists formed the Equal Rights Party in San Francisco, dedicated to "equal and exact justice to every class of our citizens, without distinction of color, sex, or nationality" and in support of the proposition that "the laws of the several states be so amended that women will be recognized as voters, and their property-rights made equal with that of the male population, to the end that they may become self-supporting - rather than a dependent class."
Read the full text of the first platform of the Equal Rights Party.

The party immediately nominated Mrs. Belva Lockwood for US President and Marietta Snow for Vice-President. Grover Cleveland won that election, but Lockwood was included in a number of presidential primaries, and is recorded to have won some 4149 votes from the male voters of the time.