[JURIST] The Iranian government on Saturday announced the establishment of a new police unit to fight Internet crime, though opposition leaders say its true purpose is to crack down on protesters and voices of dissent, who rely on the Internet to get their message out. The police unit has proclaimed that it will particularly target [AP report] lies, fraud, and misinformation on the Internet. The 12-person committee will also prosecute Internet crimes as political crimes [ILNA report]. It is unknown exactly how the police unit will carry out its duties.

In July, Iran passed a law [JURIST report] holding all information that passes through Iranian Internet servers for three months before erasing it, a measure put in place after the June national elections. Iran has been experiencing political unrest since Mahmoud Ahmadenijad won the country's disputed June 12 election [JURIST news archive]. Many of the protests and demonstrations carried out in the wake of the election results were documented on the Internet, and word about them spread via Twitter and Facebook. Earlier in July, Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] reported that some arrested protesters were beaten, deprived of sleep and threatened with torture in an effort to force false confessions [report text; JURIST report].

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] on Friday remanded [opinion, PDF] a case involving the assets of former Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos [official profile] to the district court for investigation. The court found that 30 million dollars held by Merrill Lynch for more than 30 years has been handled in a "curious" manner by US District Court Judge Manuel Real. The assets of Marcos were turned over after his death in 1988 and handed over to Real to distribute to his victims, as Real had presided over human rights cases [AP report] against Marcos in Hawaii. The Ninth Circuit found that:

This curious [account] statement plainly fails to account for all transactions involving the assets during the eight years they were held in the clerk of court's custody. It does not identify any earnings attributable to interest or dividends; it does not itemize gains or losses, or the prices of any securities bought or sold; it does not list specific transactions such as sales of securities or transfers of funds, who authorized any such transactions or the reasons therefor. It doesn't give the reader even a basic understanding of the path by which $33.8 million worth of assets deposited in September of 2000 came to be worth $34.7 million today.

[JURIST] Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri [BBC profile] said Friday he will not appeal [press release, in Spanish] a court ruling [VOA report] that allows same-sex marriages [JURIST news archives] in the capital city of Argentina. Macri called the ruling [Buenos Aires Herald report] a significant step, saying "it is important to accept and live with this new reality, which is the direction that the world goes, as to safeguard the right of every person to freely choose with whom to pair and be happy." Macri also said the decision not to appeal was difficult [CNN report], as he was under a lot of pressure to do so. The mayor likened the debate about same-sex marriage to that of the issue of divorce, saying it was considered traumatic at the time but is now normal. If the decision is not appealed, it would make Buenos Aires the first city in Latin American to recognize same-sex marriages.

On Friday, Buenos Aires Judge Gabriela Seijas permitted a same-sex couple to marry, after the civil registry in the city declined to acknowledge their marriage. Upon hearing the complaint of Alex Freyre and Jose Maria Di Bello, Seijas ordered the civil registry to validate the marriage saying, "the law should treat everybody with the same respect, regardless of their singularities, without the need to understanding and regulating them." Buenos Aires became the first Latin American city to legalize same-sex unions in 2002, and was later followed by four other Argentine cities. Argentina's Parliament [official website, in Spanish] is currently debating [El Mundo report, in Spanish] the matter of same-sex marriage for the first time, with 50,000 marching in support of legalization [JURIST report] last week. Two proposals are under review that would modify numerous laws in the nation's Civil Code [text, in Spanish] that define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

[JURIST] White House officials are considering purchasing a prison facility in northwestern Illinois to house terrorism suspects currently being held at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive], according to media reports Saturday. The Thomson Correctional Facility [IDOC backgrounder], a maximum security prison located about 150 miles west of Chicago, is reportedly a leading alternative [AP report] being considered by the Federal Bureau of Prisons [official website] and other authorities involved in the decision on what to do with detainees from Guantanamo. Upon learning of the story, US Representative Mark Kirk (R-IL) [official website] issued a letter [text] to President Barack Obama, urging the president not to transfer detainees to the Thomson Facility because he fears, "the Chicago Metropolitan Area will become ground zero for Jihadist terrorist plots, recruitment and radicalization." While it is not clear whether the prison would be the only domestic facility for Guantanamo transferees, in order to hold detainees in US, Congress would have to change [LAT report] a law specifically prohibiting detainee transfers into the US except for trials.

The disagreement over the Illinois facility highlights the issues with the president's initiative to close the prison [JURIST news archive] at Guantanamo Bay. Last week the Center for American Progress (CAP) [advocacy website] issued a report [text, PDF; JURIST report] that said the failure to meet the self-imposed deadline for closure of Guantanamo was result of several missteps by the Obama administration. According to CAP, the shortfalls included failing to sufficiently staff the review task force and misreading Congress on key issues. The report also claimed that mistakes were made in deciding to keep a modified version of the Bush-era military commissions and the administration's request of Congress for $80 million to close the facility and relocate the detainees, which provided impetus for Congressional opponents to obstruct the process.