Last month, Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] urged Syria to lift the siege [JURIST report] on the town of Daraa and accused Syrian authorities of violating international law in attempting to quell protesters. Movement in and out of Daraa came almost to a halt in April when the Syrian army surrounded the city, cutting electricity, phone lines and Internet services as well as supplies such as food and medicine. In late April, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) [official website], in an emergency special session, publicly condemned the violence used by Syrian authorities [JURIST report] against peaceful protesters. Earlier that month, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official profile] called for Syria to immediately halt the killings [JURIST report] and violence against civilian protesters in response to the fatal shootings of peaceful anti-government protesters. Also in April, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ended the country's 48-year-old state of emergency [JURIST report], but protests have continued.

[S]trongly condemns the Government of Sudan's taking and continued maintenance of military control over the Abyei area and the resulting displacement of tens of thousands of residents of Abyei. The Council calls on the Sudanese Armed Forces to ensure an immediate halt to all looting, burning and illegal resettlement. The Council stresses that all those responsible for violations of international law, including humanitarian and human rights law, as well as those who ordered those acts, will be held accountable. The Council expresses grave concern about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the area.

The Council is not the first to call on leaders of both the northern and southern regions of Sudan to remove troops from the Abyei area. In May, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official profile] called for a peaceful resolution [press release; JURIST report] to the escalating conflict in Abyei. North Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir [BBC profile], has stated he will not withdraw troops from the region and insisted that the area belongs to the north. South Sudan is scheduled to become an independent nation in a matter of weeks. A total of 98.83 percent [SSRC materials] of nearly 3.8 million southern Sudanese voters voted for secession [JURIST report] in January's Southern Sudan's Independence Referendum, according to the final polling results released by the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission [official website]. After the official results were announced in the northern capital of Khartoum, al-Bashir, who campaigned against secession, issued a formal decree accepting the result [JURIST report] of the referendum. With the South's secession, the world's 193rd country will be announced on July 9 in the southern capital of Juba.

The controversial Florida legislation was signed in to law in May by Governor Rick Scott (R) [official website] after the Florida legislature approved the bill [JURIST report] earlier in the month. Similar pieces of legislation have recently been challenged, with varying results. In May, the Georgia Supreme Court [official website] upheld [JURIST report] the state's 2006 Photo ID Act that requires voters to present one of six government-issued photo identifications in order to vote. The court ruled that the law "does not deprive any Georgia voter from casting a ballot in any election," and that presenting valid identification does not represent an unconstitutional impediment to voting. In contrast, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] in October struck down [JURIST report] a portion of an Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration. The court held that the law was inconsistent with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) [materials], which was passed with the intent of increasing voter registration and removing barriers to registration imposed by the states. The NVRA requires voters to attest to the validity of the information on their registration forms, including their citizenship, but does not require them to provide additional proof of citizenship. The law exceeded the federal statute, requiring applicants to show proof before registering to vote.

China's human rights record has been widely criticized. In March, UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention [official website] called on the Chinese government [JURIST report] to free detained human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng [advocacy website; JURIST news archive], whom they claim is being held in violation of international law. Last year detained Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] was announced [JURIST report] as the winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. The Chinese government denounced the decision, calling it "contrary to the purpose of the Nobel Prize." In February 2010, a Chinese appeals court upheld [JURIST report] Liu's 11-year prison sentence despite calls for his release from US and EU officials. Liu was tried [JURIST report] in December 2009 on subversion charges in a trial that lasted only two hours and was closed to foreign diplomats. Liu was formally arrested in June 2009 and charged [JURIST reports] in December, but he has been in detention since December 2008, shortly before the petition's release. In June 2009, rights groups marked the twentieth anniversary of the 1989 uprising in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, calling for the government to investigate the incident [JURIST report] and implement changes called for by Charter 08.