[JURIST] The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) [official website] ruled [judgment; press release] Tuesday that the practice of segregating Roma [JURIST news archive] minority primary school students in Croatia from other pupils is discriminatory. The court declared the practice to be in contravention of Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights [text, PDF], which prohibits discrimination, and of Article 2 of Protocol No. 1, which guarantees the right to an education. The court also found that the plaintiffs, 15 Roma citizens of Croatia, were deprived of their right to a fair trial within a reasonable amount of time, pursuant to Article 6 of the convention. The plaintiffs attended schools in northern Croatia between 1996 and 2000 and reported that they were segregated from other students and taught an inferior curriculum, suffering emotional and psychological harm as a result. Croatia's government countered that the Roma students were put in special classes because they lacked adequate command of the Croatian language. Tuesday's decision differs sharply from the ECHR's unanimous July 2008 decision [text] in this case, which found no violation.

Prior to this decision, the ECHR found segregated classes for Roma to be discriminatory in two other cases: DH and Others v. the Czech Republic [judgment] and Sampanis v. Greece [judgment, in French]. However, discrimination against Roma in schools remains widespread [press release] throughout Europe, according to the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) [advocacy website]. Roma have also faced inequitable treatment in other spheres. The US State Department's 2009 human rights report [JURIST report] noted an increase in the killings of Roma people in Italy, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic [JURIST news archives]. In February of last year, Italian authorities dismantled illegal immigrant camps [JURIST report] heavily populated by members of the Roma minority following the alleged rape of a 14-year old girl by East European immigrants, which led to public outcry and vigilante reprisals. In 2008, then-secretary general of the Council of Europe Terry Davis called on officials to end discrimination [JURIST report] against Europe's Roma minority, after a confrontation between Czech police and far-right protesters attempting to attack a Roma suburb near the town of Litvinov.

[JURIST] The Afghanistan Office of the President [official website] openly confirmed for the first time on Tuesday that the government has enacted a law providing a blanket pardon for all war crimes and human rights violations occurring before December 2001. Spokesperson Waheed Omar said that the National Stability and Reconciliation Law [RFE/RL backgrounder] was passed in 2007 by two-thirds of the Parliament [official website], and therefore, under the constitution, did not require the signature of President Hamid Karzai [official profile]. The new law has been heavily criticized by human rights groups, which became aware of the law when it was published in Afghanistan's latest official gazette. In an interview with Reuters [Reuters report], Asia director for Human Rights Watch (HRW) [official website] Brad Adams called the law an "absolute disgrace" and "a slap in the face to all the Afghans who suffered for years and years of war crimes and warlordism." Adams questioned the validity of the two-year process taken to enact law, which was passed by a parliament made up largely of former members of armed groups, some of whom have been accused of war crimes. Adams has called on the US to pressure Afghanistan to repeal the law stating that "the US needs to decide whether they're with the victims or the perpetrators, and make their views known publicly." US President Barack Obama, who held a teleconference [press release] with Karzai on Monday concerning the "continued strategic partnership" between the US and Afghanistan, has yet to release a statement concerning the amnesty law.

HRW released a statement [JURIST report] last week urging the Afghan government to retract the amnesty law [press release]. HRW claims that the law protects alleged war criminals and human rights abusers, many of whom remain in positions of power within the government. The group says the law will also grant future immunity to people involved in current fighting in Afghanistan if they agree to reconciliation with the government. Supporters of the law note that criminal claims may still be brought by individuals, but HRW disputes this claim saying the court system is "barely functioning in much of the country, corruption is rampant, and there is no witness protection system."

[JURIST] Chinese officials on Tuesday repeated warnings to Google [corporate website] that even if the company decides to leave the country, it must obey Chinese laws [press release, in Chinese] and continue to filter search results. Spokesperson for China's Ministry of Commerce [official website, in Chinese] Yao Jian said that Google agreed to follow Chinese laws when it entered the market in 2006 and again warned the company to continue to respect [Reuters report] the country's legal regulations. Although Google has threatened to stop filtering search results, spokesperson for Google China Marsha Wang said Monday that the company is currently complying with censoring regulations [China Daily report] and has not received any instructions to shut down. Last week, China's Minister of Industry and Information Technology [official website, in Chinese] Li Yizhong [official profile, in Chinese] told reporters that a failure by Google to follow Chinese laws [AFP report] would result in consequences, but did not state any specific actions.

In February, China issued new regulations tightening restrictions on Internet use [JURIST report] by requiring citizens operating websites to submit identity cards and meet with regulators before their sites can be registered. The new policies came as the Chinese government continues negotiations with Google regarding the Internet company's January threat to discontinue operations in China [JURIST report] due to the country's overarching Internet censorship. Google's action was in response to a cyber attack on its Gmail service in December, which targeted the e-mail accounts of human rights activists in China and drew the ire of rights groups around the world. Google indicated that it would work with the Chinese government to find a way to allow an, "unfiltered search engine within the law as well," but also noted that if an agreement cannot be reached, it may close its offices there and shut down its Google.cn [search engine] website. China responded [JURIST report] by reiterating its commitment to open Internet, but stressed that international Internet companies must follow Chinese law. A week later, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton [official website] referenced the threat [JURIST report] by Google in a speech promoting Internet freedom and criticizing censorship, declaring that China "risk[s] walling themselves off from the progress of the next century." Chinese Foreign Ministry [official website, in Chinese] spokesperson Ma Zhaoxu criticized Clinton for her remarks stating that they were harmful to bilateral relations between the US and China.

[JURIST] A judge in Sierra Leone ruled Tuesday that a woman has the right to become a regional political leader in the country. The High Court of Justice [official website] reversed a previous ban that had prevented Iye Kendor Bandabla from her birthright to compete for the position of paramount chief in her local district. The decision also upheld the 2009 Chieftaincy Act [text, PDF], which includes both gender pronouns in describing paramount chief candidate qualifications, suggesting that the legislators' intent was to allow both men and women to run for the position. Women are allowed to become chiefs in the southern regions, but traditionalists have banned women from holding the powerful position [BBC report] in rest of the country.

In December, a Sierra Leone court ruled against another woman, Elizabeth Simbiwa Sogbo-Tortu, saying that she could not become chief in her region [BBC report]. Tortu filed a complaint after traditionalists prevented her from running for the position, and she is currently pursuing a Supreme Court hearing. There is also evidence of discrimination [IRIN report] against women running for parliament, where only about 13 percent of the representatives are women. Sierra Leone has a history of human rights violations, but has been working to improve its rights record. The Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) [official website] was established ten years ago [text, PDF] in a joint endeavor by the government of Sierra Leone and the UN to provide a forum to try those responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law and Sierra Leonean law, committed in Sierra Leone. In November, the SCSL handed over its detention facility [JURIST report] to the Sierra Leone Prison Service in a monumental step towards the court's resolution. After upholding the sentences [JURIST report] of several former soldiers in October, and with only one remaining indictment [JURIST report] against former Liberian president Charles Taylor [JURIST news archive], the SCSL has largely fulfilled its purpose and will continue taking steps to close down.

[JURIST] Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee [official website] on Monday introduced the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 [text, PDF], aimed at increasing financial regulation in the wake of the recent financial crisis. The bill includes a provision meant to protect consumers from predatory lending by creating a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau housed within the Federal Reserve [official website]. The proposed legislation would also give the government the power to break up financial institutions that have been deemed "too big to fail" in order to prevent future situations where the failing of one firm could threaten the entire economy. The "Volcker Rule," prohibiting banks from owning, investing in, or sponsoring hedge funds, private equity funds, or proprietary trading funds for profit where the funds do not benefit the banks' customers, was also included in the proposed legislation. Other provisions included in the bill involve the restructuring of the federal banking system, regulation of the credit-rating agencies, and the creation of a committee to identify and manage risks to the economy. The executive session to mark up the bill is scheduled to begin on Monday.

This bill is the second financial reform bill to be proposed by the Senate Banking Committee following the 2008 financial crisis. The 2009 bill [text, PDF; JURIST report] was met with resistance and resulted in the committee's development of the new bill. In December, the US House of Representatives approved a similar bill [JURIST report]. The US House Financial Services Committee [official website] had approved a bill to create a consumer financial protection agency in October, after originally delaying [JURIST reports] it at the behest of financial industry leaders in July. The creation of the agency is a key step in achieving the Obama administration's stated goal of tightening financial industry regulations. In June, the administration proposed a broad series of regulatory reforms [press release; JURIST report] aimed at restoring confidence in the US financial system.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website, JURIST news archive] on Monday refused [order, PDF] to stay the execution of Lawrence Reynolds, an Ohio inmate challenging the state's lethal injection procedure. Reynolds, who was convicted of strangling an elderly neighbor to death in 1994, asked the Supreme Court to postpone his execution in order to allow him time to assert his challenge. The court declined to delay the execution without comment. This is the state of Ohio's third attempt [AP report] at executing Reynolds. Ohio Governor Ted Strickland delayed [JURIST report] Reynolds's original execution date last fall, as the state was reviewing its execution method. Reynolds's execution was again delayed last week when prison guards found the inmate unconscious in his cell due to an overdose on pills. Reynolds is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday.

In December, Ohio prison officials conducted the first execution [JURIST report] using a new single-drug lethal injection protocol. Death row inmate Kenneth Biros was executed after the US Supreme Court rejected [order, PDF] a last-minute stay application. Biros's attorneys had argued that the use of the new procedure constitutes human experimentation, but some commentators have said that the single-drug protocol is more humane than the previous three-drug method. Ohio became the first state to adopt [JURIST report] the single-drug protocol in November. The state undertook a review of its lethal injection practices in September after the planed execution of inmate Romell Broom failed [JURIST reports] when a suitable vein for the drugs' administration could not be found. The new protocol consists of the intravenous injection of a single anesthetic, and provides for the intramuscular injection of two other drugs if an appropriate vein cannot be found.

11:45 AM ET - Reynolds was executed [AP report] at 10:27 AM.

[JURIST] The Internet has experienced a 20 percent increase in militant and hate content over the past year, according to a report released on Monday by the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Tolerance [advocacy website]. The report, titled "Digital Terrorism and Hate 2010," cites [CNN report] to the low levels of regulation of Internet content as one of the enabling conditions of the increase. The increase is most prevalent in social networking sites and personal blogs. The report also singles out some examples of websites whose creators went on to carry out terrorist or hate crimes, and warned that content found online not only incited, but also detailed how to carry out such crimes.

The US State Department 2010 annual rights report released [JURIST report] last week decries Internet censorship abroad. In August, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) [advocacy website] reported that right-wing nativist and so-called "patriot" anti-government militias are again on the rise [JURIST report] in the US. The SPLC said that such groups, which had declined severely since the 1990s, are generally anti-tax, anti-immigration, and increasingly racially motivated since the election of the country's first African-American president, Barack Obama.

[JURIST] The trial of 14 members of a neo-Nazi [JURIST news archive] group, Nomad 88, opened Monday before the criminal court of Evry, in the Parisian suburbs. Founded in 2008 to "purge" the suburbs, the group gained public attention in May 2008 when three members went on a shooting spree [Rue89 report, in French] in an area with a strong population of immigrant origin. Following their arrest, the police seized a haul of weapons, including machine guns, along with a large quantity of ammunition and extremist literature. During the hearing [AFP report, in French], one of the defendants claimed they wanted to "clear out" the "no-go" areas in the suburbs. The trial is expected to last through Friday.

Nomad 88 formed as a result of the 2005 civil unrest, when tension between the police and the youths of the suburbs was at its height, leading the government to decree that the country was in a state of emergency [JURIST report]. Though extremist far-right groups represent only a fringe movement, the phenomenon is considered worrying because they operate in semi-clandestinity, and subsist despite efforts to clamp down on them [JURIST report].

[JURIST] Vietnamese authorities on Monday released a Catholic priest and leading rights activist from Hanoi prison. Father Nguyen Van Ly [Freedom Now profile] was released early Monday morning and has been reunited with his family in Hue. Ly had been arrested and charged in 2007 under Article 88 of Vietnam's Penal Code [text], which provides for the incarceration of individuals involved in "conducting propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam." Ly was sentenced [JURIST report] to eight years' imprisonment for distributing anti-government documents and communicating with foreign pro-democracy activists. He suffered two strokes [AI press release] in 2009 that left him partially paralyzed. Calls for Ly's release included a June 2009 letter [text, PDF] from 37 US senators addressed to President Nguyen Minh Triet. Ly is known as one of the founders of Vietnamese pro-democracy movement Bloc 8406. Ly's international counsel Freedom Now [advocacy website] has praised him as a "prisoner of conscience" [press release, PDF].

Ly's release comes days after the release [JURIST report] of leading Vietnamese rights lawyer Le Thi Cong Nhan [AI backgrounder; JURIST news archive]. No clear connection has been identified between the two incidents, but the releases happen in the midst of what some rights groups such as Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] have termed [press release] a "campaign to silence dissent." At least 16 activists have been jailed in the last few months. Despite the releases of Ly and Nhan, other high-profile activists, such as human rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai [JURIST report], are still serving sentences.