[JURIST] Guards at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] have confiscated several unapproved items, including news articles printed off the Internet and a "Lord of the Rings" movie script, from Canadian detainee Omar Khadr [DOD materials; JURIST news archive], officials said Thursday. Khadr's appointed US military lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Bill Kuebler, said that he gave Khadr the unapproved materials to help establish a rapport with his client. Guantanamo officials said that lawyers are not permitted to give their clients anything other than materials directly related to their defense. Kuebler was also barred from playing chess or dominoes with Khadr, an activity he defended as necessary to build a relationship with the Canadian youth.

Khadr faces life imprisonment after allegedly throwing a grenade that killed one US soldier and wounded another while fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2002, when he was 15. He was charged [charge sheet, PDF; JURIST report] in April 2007 with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism, as well as spying. Khadr is one of four [JURIST report] Guantanamo detainees prosecuted under the Military Commissions Act of 2006 [PDF text]. In an affidavit released last month, Khadr said that US interrogators in Afghanistan threatened him with rape, physically abused him, and forced him to swear to false statements [JURIST report]. AP has more.

[JURIST] Egyptian prosecutors Thursday charged the co-founder of pro-reform opposition movement Kifaya [party website, in Arabic] with inciting unrest and violence in association with a nationwide labor strike last Sunday. George Ishaq and 60 other members of the Kifaya movement were arrested in a Wednesday night police sweep. Kifaya leadership has said the arrests are retaliation for Sunday's strike, which drew thousands participants to protest nationwide inflation. AP has more.

Last week, five members of another opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood [party website; FAS backgrounder], were arrested [JURIST report] as they tried to hang campaign posters, joining the over 800 party members already in custody, including 148 council election candidates. Prosecutors also announced that an additional 147 members are under investigation [JURIST report] for causing riots during unauthorized protests against the government. The Brotherhood, which has accused the government of blocking its efforts to field candidates in the election, responded by calling for a boycott of Tuesday's municipal elections [MP statement; press release].

[JURIST] The National Council of the Slovak Republic [official website] voted 103-5 Thursday to ratify the EU reform treaty [JURIST news archive], formally known as the Treaty of Lisbon [official website; PDF text]. Previous attempts to vote on the treaty had ended in walkouts by opposition MPs in protest over a domestic media reform law endorsed by Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, but one of the opposition parties ended its boycott Thursday allowing for ratification of the EU treaty. Slovakia's ratification of the EU treaty follows that of Poland [JURIST report], which approved the treaty early last week.

Leaders from the 27 countries that make up the European Union signed the reform treaty [JURIST report] in December, but all member countries must ratify the document before it can take effect. Nine countries, including Bulgaria, France, Hungary, and Slovenia [JURIST reports] have ratified the reform treaty so far. BBC News has more. EUbusiness.com has additional coverage.

[JURIST] The White House's interpretation of executive privilege to shield former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and current White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten [official profiles] from Congressional subpoenas represents the broadest construction of the doctrine since Watergate, lawyers for the US House Judiciary Committee [official website] told the US District Court for the District of Columbia in court papers [motion, PDF] Thursday. Lawyers for the Executive branch argued that Miers and Bolten were immune from prosecution as their refusal to cooperate with subpoenas was directed by the White House, and therefore protected by executive privilege [press briefing transcript].

In February, members of the House voted 223-32 [roll call; JURIST report] to issue contempt citations for Miers for failing to testify and citations for both Miers and Bolten for refusing to produce documents related to the 2006-2007 firings of nine US attorneys [JURIST news archive]. The same month, Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) sent a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey urging him to begin a grand jury investigation [JURIST report] into the conduct of the two White House aides and saying that the House would initiate a civil lawsuit if she did not receive a response within one week. Mukasey refused to present the contempt citations to a grand jury [JURIST report] in a response the following day, and the committee filed a civil lawsuit [complaint, PDF; JURIST report] seeking enforcement of the subpoenas. AP has more and offers additional coverage.

[JURIST] Twenty-one families who said that they intended to sue the state of Virginia for negligence in connection with the April 16, 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech [JURIST news archive] have agreed to a tentative settlement worth $11 million, lawyers representing the families said Thursday. Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine [official website] said that the details of the settlement would remain confidential [press release] until it is finalized over the next few days. It is currently unclear how the $11 million will be distributed amongst the families.

The Virginia Tech massacre left 33 people dead and 25 wounded in the largest shooting spree in US history [MSNBC backgrounder]. Last year, Kaine issued an executive order [text; JURIST report] closing the loophole [JURIST report] that allowed ]gunman Seung-Hui Cho to purchase a firearm despite having been ordered to receive psychiatric treatment by a Virginia court in 2005. AP has more.

[JURIST] Representatives from the 47 members of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) [official website] Thursday criticized the human rights record of the United Kingdom [UNHRC materials; recorded video], including the government's treatment of terror suspects and prisoners, as the body continued its new Universal Periodic Review [official website; UNHRC backgrounder] of rights practices around the world. During debate, several countries expressed concern about the UK's counter-terrorism measures, especially laws authorizing control orders [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive], which allow the British government to impose house arrest and electronic surveillance on terrorism suspects and to forbid them from using mobile phones and the Internet when there is not enough evidence to prosecute. The head of the UK delegation denied that those powers are used to target any particular racial or religious group.

Under the Universal Periodic Review, UNHRC will systematically investigate the human rights situations of all 192 UN member nations over a four-year period. The Council will consider 16 countries during this inaugural two-week session, which began on Monday with a review of Bahrain [JURIST report]. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) [party website, in Turkish] may attempt to amend the country's constitution if necessary to block a legal challenge [JURIST report] brought by Turkish prosecutors seeking to disband the party, Turkish Prime Minister and AKP leader Tayyip Erdogan [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] said Thursday. Prosecutors petitioned the Constitutional Court of Turkey to disband AKP [JURIST report] in March, accusing the party of being a "focal point of anti-secular activities." The Constitutional Court has banned several Islamist parties in the past for violating constitutional obligations to respect Turkey's strict secular principles. AKP has until the end of the month to prepare a defense or seek an extension before oral arguments begin.

In March, EU Enlargement Commissioner Ollie Rehn said the AKP court case could further impede Turkey's bid for EU membership [JURIST news archive], as such a political issue would normally be debated in parliament and decided by a ballot in a typical European democracy. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Eight Zimbabwean election officials accused of under-counting votes [JURIST report] for Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] and his ruling Zanu-PF party during the March 29 presidential election [JURIST report] appeared before magistrates in provincial courts Wednesday. Independent observers say that the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) [party website] candidate Morgan Tsvangirai [BBC profile] won more votes than Mugabe, but Mugabe and his Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front [party website] are demanding a recount [JURIST report]. The Zimbabwean Electoral Commission (ZEC) has not yet released the official results because of "errors and miscalculations" in their compilation.

On Monday, a High Court judge in Harare ruled that that court has the jurisdiction to hear a lawsuit seeking a court order to compel the ZEC to immediately release the results [JURIST reports] of the elections, but refused to issue an immediate ruling in the case. On Saturday, the court postponed hearing the case [JURIST report] when lawyers for the MDC were barred by government security forces from entering the courts. From Zimbabwe, the Herald has more.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of India [official website] Thursday upheld [judgment] a governmental program reserving seats at India's top state schools for members of lower castes [BBC backgrounder], but ruled that wealthy lower caste families should not be permitted to take advantage of the program. The program holds 27 percent of enrollment at state-run professional schools for lower caste persons. Announced last year, the program was temporarily placed on hold until the court ruled on its legality.

The caste system in India was outlawed almost 60 years ago, but program supporters argue that such initiatives are necessary to correct socio-economic injustices. Critics say that better basic education should be the focus, as reserved seats at universities remain unfilled because of poor primary education. AP has more.

[JURIST] Ohio resident David Tuason was indicted [PDF text; press release] Wednesday for allegedly threatening to blow up the US Supreme Court building and attack black men, including Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas [OYEZ profile]. Tuason was charged with six counts of mailing threatening communications and two counts of transmitting threatening interstate communications. AP has more.

Threats of violence against judges are an increasing problem in the United States; last month, the US Marshals Service [official website] reported that threats against federal judges had risen for the fifth straight year in a row [statistics, PDF]. In 2006, retired US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor [OYEZ profile] warned against growing efforts at "judicial intimidation" in a Wall St. Journal op-ed [text; JURIST report]. Earlier that year, both O'Connor and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg [OYEZ profile] said they had received death threats [JURIST report] after Republican politicians criticized judges for citing foreign law or being "activist" in their rulings. Then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales later acknowledged that the security of judges was becoming a national concern [JURIST report].

[JURIST] The investigating officer for the Multi-National Force-Iraq Wednesday granted a postponement of the Article 32 hearing [press release] for civilian contractor Alaa "Alex" Mohammad Ali. Ali, who holds dual Iraqi-Canadian citizenship, is charged [JURIST report] with aggravated assault for stabbing another contractor in February, and is the first civilian contractor charged by the military since it was granted jurisdiction over civilians accompanying US troops in a combat zone by a 2006 amendment to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) [text]. A new date for the hearing has not yet been set. AP has more.

Prior to the 2006 UCMJ amendment, contractors working in Iraq were exempted [PDF text] from prosecution in that country. The amendment, found in Section 522 of the 2007 defense authorization bill [2 2766 materials; LawReader backgrounder], significantly changed the military's jurisdiction to bring civilian contractors within the military's jurisdiction during a "contingency operation" rather than its previous requirement that Congress actually declare war. Last fall, Congress took further steps [JURIST report] to bring US contractors within the jurisdiction of the military with the 2008 defense authorization bill [HR 1585 materials]. The issue of criminal jurisdiction over US military contractors working in Iraq gained notoriety last fall when several Blackwater USA [corporate website; JURIST news archive] employees allegedly killed at least eight Iraqi civilians [JURIST report]. The US Department of Justice has run into legal hurdles [JURIST report] trying to bring criminal charges against the Blackwater employees.

[JURIST] Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf [official website] appealed to anti-government lawyers on Thursday to not "spread anarchy," a day after a clash between opposing groups of lawyers in Karachi [JURIST report] prompted widespread rioting and led to at least 11 deaths. Lawyers supporting Musharraf who gathered to protest other lawyers' beating [JURIST report] of former Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Sher Afgan Niazi in Lahore on Tuesday were confronted after their meeting by anti-Musharraf lawyers; fighting broke out near the city's main court complex which then spread to other areas.

New Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani [BBC profile] immediately denounced the violence [press release], which Musharraf supporters blamed on the lawyers movement pressing for reinstatement of superior court judges ousted by Musharraf after he proclaimed emergency rule [proclamation, PDF] in the country last November. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A criminal court in Afghanistan is trying detainees previously held by the US detainees at Bagram Air Base and Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archives] and is relying primarily on allegations and evidence provided by the US military, the New York Times reported Thursday. Other countries have so far refused to use evidence provided by the US military over concerns that it would not stand up in their courts, but US-provided information is being used to convict and sentence defendants to up to 20 years in prison. The trials reportedly often last less than an hour and take place without the aid of witnesses. Defense lawyers typically meet their clients only days before the trial and lack the resources to investigate the allegations of the case.

The Afghan court is located in the high-security Pul-e-Charki prison [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive] on the outskirts of Kabul. According to a report [PDF text; executive summary] released Thursday by Human Rights First, the court has tried 82 prisoners and convicted 65. Prosecutions have also been based on a 1987 Soviet-era Afghan security law, and Human Rights First expressed concern that defendants are not receiving fair trials [press release], saying that "so-called "evidence" being used to prosecute the repatriated detainees violates international fair trial standards and, in many cases, Afghan law." Though the court is not completely secret, Afghan officials have only allowed three outside observers, including two human rights investigators and a representative from a local United Nations office. The New York Times has more.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit [official website] Wednesday dismissed [PDF text] a lawsuit brought by Kentucky high school student Timothy Morrison against the Boyd County Board of Education [official website] over a 2004 policy that banned Morrison and other students from expressing their opposition to homosexuality. Judge Deborah L. Cook [official profile], in a 2-1 ruling, said that Morrison failed to show he had been harmed by the policy prior to the school district repealing the policy and also that winning the lawsuit, which sought $1 in damages, would not rectify the issue. Morrison sued [ACLU press release] the school district over a now-repealed policy that required students to undergo anti-harassment training. The school district changed the policy to exempt speech that would ordinarily be protected under the First Amendment. Wednesday's ruling reverses an earlier decision [PDF text] by the same Sixth Circuit panel allowing the case to proceed. AP has more.

In another student free speech case, the US Supreme Court held last year in Morse v. Frederick [Duke Law case backgrounder; JURIST report] that public schools do not violate the First Amendment rights of students by sanctioning them for speech during a school-sanctioned activity that may be reasonably interpreted to promote the use of illegal substances. A high school student was suspended after he displayed a banner with the message "Bong hits 4 Jesus" during a televised parade on a school day. The student subsequently sued his principal, arguing that the principal unreasonably restricted his right to free speech.

[JURIST] Khaled El-Masri [JURIST news archive], the German citizen allegedly kidnapped by the CIA in 2003, petitioned [PDF complaint; press release] the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) [official website] Wednesday alleging he was tortured by the CIA. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) petitioned the IACHR, an autonomous arm of the Organization of American States (OAS) [official website], on behalf of El-Masri, arguing that the US should apologize to El-Masri and that the CIA's extraordinary rendition [JURIST news archive] program should be deemed illegal. Specifically, the ACLU asked the IACHR to declare the CIA's rendition program a violation of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man [text], a source of binding international obligations on member states of the OAS. AP has more.

El-Masri, a German national of Lebanese descent, claims that the CIA kidnapped him while he was traveling to Macedonia in 2003, and transported him to a secret detention facility in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he was held for four months. He was eventually released in Albania in 2004 without charge or funds to return to Germany.

Last fall, the US Supreme Court denied [PDF order; JURIST report] without comment El-Masri's petition for certiorari, ostensibly supporting the Bush administration's contention that allowing El-Masri's federal lawsuit [PDF complaint; ACLU materials] to proceed would require the revelation of state secrets. Earlier, the German Justice Ministry said that it would not press a formal request [JURIST report] to extradite the 13 CIA agents suspected of participating in El-Masri's alleged rendition after the Bush administration informed them it would not comply with a such a request. In June 2006, a German investigator concluded that no evidence had surfaced to disprove El-Masri's story [JURIST report], though German officials have denied [JURIST report] that Germany had any knowledge of the alleged kidnapping.