[JURIST] A Turkish court has reordered telecom providers in the country to block access to popular video-sharing website YouTube [corporate website]. Reports surfacing in the Turkish media on Sunday suggest that the ban, originally reimposed Thursday, was a response to video clips insulting the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk [Turkish News profile]. Users trying to access YouTube from Turkey in recent days have encountered the following notice: “Access to this web site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2008/55 of T.R. Ankara 12th Criminal Court of Peace.” A Turkish court issued a similar order [JURIST report] in March 2007 in response to a “virtual war” on YouTube between Turkey and Greece, in which citizens of both countries have been creating videos to mock the other. AP has more.

In Turkey, insulting Ataturk is an imprisonable offense. Similarly, "insulting the Turkish identity" is also a serious crime under the controversial Article 301 [Amnesty backgrounder; JURIST news archive] of Turkey's penal code [text, in Turkish]. Critics say Turkey has used Article 301 to silence government critics [OSCE review of the Draft Turkish Penal Code], which has presented a stumbling block [JURIST report] to the country’s proposed accession to the European Union.

[JURIST] Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe [BBC profile] has approved changes to the country's restrictive Public Order and Security Act [PDF text] ahead of upcoming presidential elections, Zimbabwean state media reported Saturday. The law formerly prohibited public political gatherings without prior police approval and if police turned down a party's application to hold a rally, the party could only appeal its case to the Minister of Home Affairs, a member of the ruling party. Under the new amendments, political parties can appeal to a neutral magistrate and police are required to explain their reasons for denying rally permits. Mugabe signed the amendments into law [press release, PDF] on January 11. In addition to amendments to the Public Order and Security Act, changes to the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Broadcasting Services Act were also approved

Mugabe is seeking a sixth term as president of Zimbabwe, and he is expected to prevail over splintered opposition. In the past, Zimbabwe has used the Public Order and Security Act to crack down on anti-government protests. In May, police in Harare arrested [JURIST report] members of the National Constitutional Assembly [official website] who protested against proposed amendments to the Zimbabwean Constitution [PDF text], later passed and signed into law [JURIST report], which essentially allow Mugabe to pick his successor. That same month, Zimbabwean police broke up a rally of about 50 lawyers who had gathered to protest the the arrest and imprisonment of two human rights advocates; the lawyers argued that the Public Order and Security Act exempted them from a general ban against demonstrations [JURIST reports]. AP has more.

[JURIST] Pakistani police have arrested two suspects in connection with the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto [BBC obituary; JURIST news archive], officials said on Saturday. Aitzaz Shah and Sher Zaman were detained in the town of Dera Ismail Khan on the Afghan border, and were found in possession of explosives according to local reports. Shah, a teenager, told Pakistani investigators that he had been a member of a back-up squad given the task of killing Bhutto if the December 27 attack had failed, and that he was part of a five-person team dispatched there by Baitullah Mehsud [BBC profile] to plan a suicide bombing during the Muslim festival of Ashura [BBC backgrounder]. Mehsud, a militant leader with strong ties to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, had already been named by sources inside both the CIA and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's government as being responsible for the attack, but a purported spokesman for the fugitive told reporters that he had played no part in the killing. AP has more. Dawn has local coverage.

Bhutto was assassinated [JURIST report] in a suicide attack on December 27 at a political rally in Rawalpindi. She was campaigning in the lead-up to January 8 parliamentary elections, where her party, Pakistan People's Party (PPP) [party website] was challenging Musharraf's Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) [party website]. The elections have been postponed until February 18.

[JURIST] The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) [official website] on Friday cited executive privilege in denying congressional requests for certain documents relating to the agency's decision to deny California a waiver [JURIST report] from new auto-emissions standards. The waiver would have allowed California and 16 other states following its lead to impose stricter greenhouse emissions standards on cars and light trucks than those provided for by the EPA. As previously agreed [JURIST report], the agency provided US Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) [official profile] and the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works with a number of the requested documents, but "page after page of the relevant documents are whited out, and much of the key information is missing from [the] EPA's response," Boxer said [press release] on Friday.

In a letter [PDF text] accompanying the documents, the EPA explained:

Please note that EPA has identified an important Executive Branch confidentiality interest in a number of these documents because they reflect internal deliberations and/or attorney-client communications regarding California's waiver request. We recognize the importance of the Committee's need to inform itself in order to perform its oversight functions,but we remain concerned about any further disclosure of this information for a number of reasons. First, because the documents reveal deliberative process information internal to the Agency, EPA is concerned about the chilling effect that would occur if Agency employees believed their frank and honest opinions and analysis expressed as part of assessing California's waiver request were to be disclosed in a broad setting. The Supreme Court has recognized this "chilling effect" concern in particular.... Second, further disclosure could result in needless public confusion about the Administrator's decision that EPA will be denying California's request. That is, many of the documents are pre-decisional and thus do not reflect the Agency's full and complete thinking on the matter. Indeed, final decision documents have not yet been completed and made available to the public through publication in the Federal Register, so the public, if given access to the pre-decisional documents, would effectively be denied access to the full, complete rationale by the Agency. Finally, the Agency is currently engaged in ongoing litigation regarding this matter, and future litigation is expected. The documents contain privileged and confidential attorney-client communications and attorney work product. Further disclosure of this type of confidential information could jeopardize the Agency's ability to effectively litigate claims related to California's waiver request.